My wife Barb and I have read a number of books in the author's Xanth series; I've only reviewed a few of them here, but the general observations from those reviews would apply to this installment as well (and probably to all or most of the Xanth novels --it would be fair to say that in many ways, if you've read one of them, you've read them all!). We've been away from the series for about six years, but picked this installment to read as a lighter change of pace, and it didn't disappoint in that respect. Not unusually, in the case of these books, we read it out of series order (we started with Dragon on a Pedestal, the seventh book; we did go back later to the first volume and read several succeeding ones in sequence, but our reading has been subject to the vagaries of yard sale and flea market purchases); I was confusing this one with the 15th installment, Question Quest, which is actually the one that explains Good Magician Humphrey's complicated domestic situation. (This one doesn't, but we liked it anyway. :-) ) I was also mistakenly thinking we'd already read the following book, Yon Ill Wind. Anyway, this volume makes reference to, and partly depends on events in, at least two earlier books; but the author provides enough explanation to bring you up to speed if you haven't read those.Our protagonist here is one of the more minor characters from the earlier part of the corpus, Demoness Metria. Xanth's "demons" aren't connected with Satan; they're just super-powerful and incorporeal magic beings introduced in the second book, The Source of Magic, but they don't have souls or consciences and have their own agendas, which may include harassing humans. Metria, however, in this book, has married a human, acquired a half soul and a conscience (a development recounted in a previous book I haven't read), and now shares her body with two split personalities, Demoness Mentia (D. Mentia for short) who doesn't approve of the changes, and the child Woe Betide. (Her penchant for verbal confusion and malapropisms is intact here, however.) This book is structured as a quest narrative, which will take her all over Xanth and into Mundania (our world) to deliver summons for the jurors and other personnel for the trial of Roxanne Roc for a mysterious offense; the trial forms the culmination of the plot.Anthony delivers all of this with his characteristic zany humor, and punning run wild. In general, a Xanth novel isn't something you take too seriously; but here as usual, he mixes some good and serious messages in with the fun. Like the rest of the series, this is a good clean escapist romp that can provide the reader with some pleasant diversion.
Another of my favorite Xanth books, this one sees Metria/Mentia trying to find out why the stork is ignoring her signals, as she longs for a child since getting half a soul. The visit to the Good Magician leads to her organizing a trial for Roxanne Roc, the bird guarding the Simurgh's egg for the past few centuries. We see tests of Metria's morals, new friendships and of course the puns and usual Xanthian oddities. I really liked the adventure aspect of this one, and the group dynamics are some of the older characters I enjoyed from previous novels.As always, you have to be a fan of these books to get the full enjoyment out of them, but anyone new to Xanth can came straight in and read them out of order and quickly grasp the idea. Basically Xanth is separate to our world, controlled by magic much the same way as we are controlled by gravity. The creatures there are given full freedom, but often watched by the Demon Xanth and other Demons, who hold contests about their actions. Every human has a magic talent, and most animals are magic.A delightful story, and one of my favorites. I need to buy a copy since it is one of the few missing from my collection, but luckily my library has most of them as well.
What do You think about Roc And A Hard Place (1996)?
I'm a great fan of Demoness Metria (the main reason I bought most of Anthony's books after he wrapped up his original "trilogy"; I even wrote a small homage to her in one of my books) but I was sorely disappointed after reading "Roc and a Hard Place". I was expecting something very unusual after my favorite Demoness got split up into two different identities (D.Metria and D.mentia) in "Gargoyle Geis", but all I got was a tale (which devolves in to a courtroom drama) that merely reduced her to a courier-boy role.Piers Anthony's quality writing still endures, but the problem is that he has started to become more and more formulaic: character wants something, consults with Humphrey, gets a quest to do and attain what he/she wants. If you're a fan who doesn't want to spoil the memorable reads you've experienced in "Man from Mundania" and "Question Quest", I think you'd do yourself a big favor if you stopped reading any subsequent books in this long-lived series. I wish I did.
—Edwin Stark
The Demoness Metria is tasked with gathering a jury for the trial of a lifetime: A Roc is going to be judged.Metria was generally a non-compelling character for me, and again the quest she's sent on appears to be an excuse for her to wander around falling into the triggers for puns. Revisiting a couple of characters from the older books was kinda fun, but they played bit parts for the most part and I wished there had been more to love about Metria. Since I realized at this point that the books were annoying me every time I picked them up, I stopped keeping up with the series here, and to be honest only liked three of them enough to give them more than two stars. I guess I was just responding to familiarity by that point--well, and I was in high school and these books kept popping up at the used book store--but I stopped reading these before going off to college and I didn't miss it.
—Julie Decker
