Title:Ogre, Ogre
Author: Piers Anthony
Cover art: Darrell K. Sweet
ISBN: 0-345-35492-3
Back Cover:
Smash knew all about ogres. After all, despite having a human mother, Smash was an ogre himself. Ogres were not only huge and horribly ugly, as Smash was; they were also so stupid they could hardly speak, and they spent most of their time fighting, destroying, and eating young girls.
So what was he doing here with seven assorted females looking to him to guide them and save them? Even in Xanth, where magic made anything possible, why should Tandy the Nymph trust him and seem fond of him? And how could all that high-flown conversation be coming out of his mouth?
But that, it seemed, was what he got for going to Good Magician Humpfrey for an Answer – before he even knew what the Question was!
My thoughts:
The fifth book in the Xanth series. I will say right off the bat that I thought Smash was a pretty good character. I loved him as soon as he said, “Me Smash. Me bash.” to let the magician know that he was going to enter his castle after he hadn’t heard a response. He also ends up with a group of ladies as the story progresses.
The book does contain some sexual references such as a half-nymph was terrified by a demon that intends to rape her.
I guess what also turned me off was when Smash got hit by the Eye Queue vine and lost his rhyming. I don’t know if that cheapened the character. My original thought was that Piers took an easy way out so that he didn’t have to keep up with the rhyming. I didn’t really much care about Smash after, even though his new-found intelligence was relevant to the story. He struggled with his ogrish identity and it didn’t help that the intelligence of the Eye Queue was forcing him to think and analyze everything.
Location: Library
No Comments »
