A Spell for Chameleon

I have made it no secret that I'm not a huge fan of fantasy with the exception of some urban fantasy and Terry Pratchett's Glorious "Discworld." So I started A Spell for Chameleon with some trepidation, but it worked for three of my WWE challenges ("12 for 12", "YA Fiction", and "Clear the Shelves"). I have been working on the "NPR: Top 100 Science Fiction/Fantasy Books List" and this one happens to be number 99 on the list. So the time had finally come to read this novel. For those interested, I've read 39 of the 100 books on the NPR list.

It turns out that A Spell for Chameleon and the world building of Piers Anthony is awesome!! It's like the Discworld was dropped into a world that looks like Florida (Or to be more accurate, since Chameleon was written in 1976 and the first Discworld novel was written in 1983, to say that Terry Pratchett took Xanth and dropped it on the back of 4 elephants riding on the back of a giant turtle sailing through space.) What I mean is that both authors have the most amazing world building. Piers Anthony's Xanth is a world filled with tongue and cheek magic that does not necessarily take itself completely serieously, but beneath the all the blanket trees and tangle vines, there is a message. In this novel the message is "you were made the way you were for a reason, don't try to change into something your not, just be the best you, you can be. And that is a great message for a great book.