Xanth #14: Question Quest, by Piers AnthonyThe Good Magician makes an appearance in every Xanth book. That's how most books start - a character has a problem in their lives that they need to see him about. So they make a journey to his castle, battle through the three Challenges, get their Answer from the Book of Answers, and end up on a journey through Xanth to figure out their cryptic Answer. But *how* did the Good Magician get his Book of Answers? How does he know what every person ultimately wants? And just how does he have five and a half wives? While "Question Quest" starts out with Lacuna, a woman who has passed into middle age and thus has a very boring life, it is actually the story of Good Magician Humfrey. Because his son-in-law is manning the Book of Answers and doesn't quite understand everything written the book, Lacuna goes to Hell in a handbasket to get a more complete Answer. There she finds Humfrey, who has been sitting in the Demon X (A/N)th's waiting room for 10 years, trying to rescue one of his wives from Hell.I found "Question Quest" to be an excellent history book of Xanth. This is the first time Humfrey's story is told in full detail, from his youth with MareAnn, to marrying a demoness, to attending Demon University to get a degree in magic, to finding Castle Roogna, and quite a few other adventures. Humfrey's over 100 years old, and he's sure packed a lot of living into his century plus of life. This Xanth installment really fleshes out the old gnome, and adds a lot of information to any reader's knowledge of Xanth. This is probably one of my favorite Xanth books, as I tend to like histories, especially histories of created worlds. "Question Quest" gives life to one of the more interesting characters in Xanth, a character included in every novel but one previously hadn't much back story. Read it if you want to learn about Humfrey, or if you're curious about the history of Xanth. 4/5.
This was a wonderful book in the Xanth Series. All the books in the series, this one included, can be read by themselves, and the reader will be able to follow along. However, this is one of the few books in the series that should be read after reading the preceding books first. With all the juicy tidbits that are in this book, the review needs to be vague in order to preserve future reader's joy.This book starts with Lacuna, the daughter of Millie the Ghost and the Zombie Master, going to the Good Magician's castle to get a question answered. She is now 34, and feels that her life has been wasted so far, and wants to know where she went wrong. Though she finds out her answer, she finds even more! She becomes the person who finds out what has happened to Humphrey!After finding him, he starts to tell her his life story! For readers of the Xanth series, this is fantastic! We get to know about the grumpy Good Magician, and see some previously told events differently, as well as find out why the Good Magician is the way he is. Along the way, we find out that Humphrey had previous loves, previous wives, and previous children! (When you find out about one of them, you can't help but say whoa!!!) The reader also finds out more about the history of some of the original characters like the Storm King, King Trent, Queen Iris, and Bink, to name a few! It ends up rather fittingly for a Xanth novel, and is well worth the read!Anyone who loves the series will love this installment. Though all the books in the series have been fun, this is one of my favorites so far!
What do You think about Question Quest (1991)?
Magician Humfrey has been missing for a very long time, with several previous quests failing to find him. Where is he? And furthermore, WHY is he? In this volume, we learn how Humfrey came to be Humfrey, the story behind all of his wives (yes, multiple), and where he's been.The sheer volume of the puns in this one nearly drove me to madness. It was like someone had made a bet with Anthony that he couldn't use every single pun sent to him in the mail for the last year. Although it took fourteen volumes to bring Humfrey's history out of the woodwork, I'm glad Anthony addressed it; having a know-all character who hands people plots gets tiresome, so knowing Humfrey is a person too is nice. I just felt very little attachment to the stories by this point because they spent so much time and focus on making lukewarm jokes.
—Julie Decker
I've thoroughly enjoyed every Xanth novel so far, but this one got a little tedious. Much of the book is about Magician Humfrey telling his history. I didn't have a problem with that. It was interesting to learn how some things in Xanth's past came to be. But then about 65 of the last 115 pages of the paper back edition of this book (I'm not sure there is a hardback edition) are used to summarize the last 13 books in the series. Some of it was some stuff you didn't get to see in the books from Humfrey's perspective, but much of it wasn't. I guess if you hadn't read the previous 13 books in the series, it might have been nice to have gotten caught up on the happenings of the rest of the series. Or maybe if you hadn't read the books in a long time and had forgotten, but little of it had anything to do with the main plot of this book. The last several books were summarized much more briefly, in a paragraph or two. If they all could have been that way except the parts where we were getting new information, it would have been so much better. Minus the Magician Humfrey's telling of his History, there wasn't much to the plot of this book. This felt like one of those episodes in a show where they show you highlights from previous episodes in lieu of making a new episode. It was a lot like the final episode of Seinfeld or Beavis and Butthead (before they made new episodes recently) where there's some new stuff, but much of the episode is taken up with people remembering stuff from previous episodes.
—Blake
This is the story of Humfrey, once King of Xanth, now the Magician of Information. It covers quite a number of years, and many questions are answered about Xanth and characters from previous books. It also offers an insight into a character that has appeared in every book, that of Humfrey himself. Some readers have compared Humfrey to Piers himself, and I can see why. It really does feel as if he has a hand in everything, from major to minor characters, and a way of making everything turn out alright.A minor character gets a rewritten history as well, Lacuna. She goes from Blah to Happy over the course of this novel, simply by doing a service to both Grey and Humfrey, in a fashion. I like her happy ending.Definitely five stars, for all the information we get. How can it not be information, when Humfrey is the subject?
—Kirsti
