Xanth Is a Four Letter Word
The Xanth episode of Crap Books has come and gone. While we had fun discussing just how awful the books are on several levels (the prose is not great, the misogyny and objectification of women that's the norm is awful, the internal logic and plots are nonsensical, and so on), one of the things that I've been thinking about is how awful the politics of A Spell for Chameleon are. Bink, the supposed hero, just following the rules no matter how unjust or cruel they may be is truly something that I'd forgotten. To clarify, not every hero or protagonist of a book needs to be an exemplar, but nothing that happens in A Spell for Chameleon challenges Bink's spinelessness. If anything, Bink suffers no lasting consequences for his continued existence as a human doormat, which seems to hint at the author's own beliefs and privilege. https://twitter.com/PodsideP/status/1310700089430556674?s=20 An example of awful prose and...
