Golem in the Gears is the first book I've read by popular fantasy author, Piers Anthony. While this is not what I'd consider "my cup of tea", a lady from work brought it in for me to read and I do enjoy delving into books that are outside of my usual scope. Plus, I love to read books that are favorites of people I know as it feels like it tells me a lot about them as a person. In a very brief plot summary, Golem in the Gears is about a golem (basically a puppet made into a pint-sized real boy) goes on a quest to locate and save a Princess's pet dragon, Stanley Steamer. On his journey, he has to ride on the back of a Monster Under the Bed, a monster who hides under the bed until the sun goes down, so the bed has to come along too as shelter for the monster during the day. On his quest to save Stanley, the golem also rescues Rapunzel from the ivory tower where the Sea Hag is holding her captive. As the golem and Rapunzel continue the quest, they simultaneously fall in love. Unfortunately, they are also relentlessly pursued by the Sea Hag, who can take over others' bodies, and desperately wants to take Rapunzel's. So the miniscule golem not only has to find a dragon, he must also continue to protect his damsel, which leads to all sorts of adventures. I guess I'll start with the negative parts of my review... First of all, I do love the fantasy genre, but I must say I like my fantasy a little more serious and beautifully crafted (think The Name of the Wind or books by Patricia McKillip). Due to the overall corniness of the book, I kept thinking this book would be more suitable for children, until some sort of adult humor would come along and make me retract that thought. Stanley Steamer just seems like the perfect name for a dragon in a children's book! Dancing topless nymphs... Not so much. On to the positives! Like I said, Golem in the Gears is not really my thing, but it did have some enjoyable characteristics. Like all books in the fantasy genre, this book was very imaginative and it was fun exploring the world of Xanth. What I found most enjoyable was the abundance of "plays on words", aka puns, scattered throughout the book. The author even credits different individuals who sent in ideas for the different puns he used in the book and I must say they were very clever. Overall, cute book, but in all honesty, I don't think I will be reading anymore Xanth books any time soon.
A few years ago I bought several of the oldest of the Piers Anthony Xanth series at a used book store, and after reading a few I was enjoying them enough, despite misgivings about the author's blatant sexism, to buy more (at fifty cents a pop) and to begin entertaining the idea of reading the entire series (there are about 38 of them as of 2014). The early books gained popularity to the point of becoming New York Times bestsellers. I think this particular one, ninth in the series, started the steady decline. It was nowhere near as good as the previous.The story follows a quest undertaken by Grundy the Golem, a one-foot-tall one-of-a-kind being who, based on the cover illustration by Darrell K. Sweet, looks like a miniature human. He has an inferiority complex because of his size, and this provides the arc of his personal journey through the book. Both this and the physical quest are shallowly realized and linear, even more so than in the preceding books of the series. This book lacks any of the interweaving themes and layers that the others do, and that's saying something, since none of the books have a great deal of depth.The book has the distinct feel of being hastily produced. Anthony almost seems to apologize for it by declaring that this was the first book he had used a computer to write. What? It is almost as if he let this Mundane (lacking magic) mechanical device substitute for his imagination - or perhaps he had a deadline to complete the book and used most of his time and energy getting up to speed with the new technology and thus had less to devote to the story itself. In either case, it was a significant mistake to allow something this inferior to go public.Bottom line: not a lot good to say about this book. Anthony's target audience seems to be teenage males who lived in the 1950's. His perspective on women and relationships is positively Neanderthal (wait, perhaps I'm being unkind to the Neanderthals). After reading Golem in the Gears, I no longer have interest in reading this series through to the end. I'll read the ones I already own--half a dozen or so--and unless something changes, I'm done.
What do You think about Golem In The Gears (1997)?
Grundy is a golem. As one would imagine, he was originally made out of a string/clay combination, but he got brought to "real" life by a demon at one point so now he's not really a golem so much as he is a tiny little man. He's an angry little sucker, pretty good at insulting people, but that's not his magical talent or anything. His magical talent is that he can talk to any living creature, and understand what they say. This was kind of neat in the story. But . . . What's a Piers Anthony book without some lust? Grundy is on a quest unrelated to girls--he's trying to find Stanley Steamer, a lost dragon--but ends up playing the hero and rescuing a girl. It's Rapunzel. Rapunzel seems to sort of have two magical talents, which I thought violated the "laws of physics" in Xanth; her obvious talent is that her hair is magically enhanced to grow fast. But she can also change sizes however she likes. (Awfully convenient if you're going to appear in a story as the love interest of a very tiny man.) Her ability to shift sizes is some inherent thing related to her ancestry, though; it's not supposed to be an actual magical talent. Seems a lot more useful than having fast-growing hair, though.I thought Grundy was an okay character. I didn't like the plottedness of the book. The "perfect mate for every character" thing got old for me pretty quickly, and having SO much stuff written for the express purpose of delivering a pun just drove me up the wall. Oh, and I'm not sure how I feel about the "Adult Conspiracy" protecting children from sex words if there actually is a stork that delivers babies.
—Swankivy
This is the 9th Xanth book and the last to be published by TOR. It also ranks just slightly above The Source of Magic making it the second worst of the early Xanth books.At some time in the past, one fan must have written to Piers and asked why, when all of the characters in his novels find true love and live happily ever after, did Grundy never find his soul mate. At the end of the source of magic, he was rewarded for his efforts by being made into a real boy by the Demon Xanth.This book answers that question.The problem is, Grundy is the Scrappy Doo of the Xanth universe. I never wanted to read a book focused on him and after reading this twice, my opinion hasn't been changed. It is simply Grundy placed as the lead male in the classic Rapunzel tale.
—J Austill
This was the very first Xanth novel I read. I read it when I was in middle school and handed it to my older sister to read, we ened up sort of getting hooked into the series and looked for xanth novels in the library for years. We really got into them. I never had the pleasure of reading the first few books of the series, but my sister tells me it explains about how much of the world of Xanth comes to be. Fans of math and physics sort of sci-fi might really get into it. I still like reading one once in a while. This one really did grab me, though. My other favorite Xanth novel is Demons Don't Dream.
—Jenny
