New Book Review - Board Stiff by Piers Anthony

Book - Board Stiff
Writer - Piers Anthony  
Series - Xanth #38
Published By - Premier Digital Publishing

First things first, I got this book from NetGalley, so thank you netgalley and Premier Digital Publishing for this opportunity.
This is my first experience with the world of Xanth, I have been meaning to check out this series for a long time and even have the hard copy of the 1st book but somehow never got around to it. I knew this had to be a funny fantasy and a standalone book as well, but that was about the only thing I had to expect from this book. So after finishing this I have to say the book was funny and a quick read but it had many flaws too, which made the journey a bit boring as well as too predictable at times.


The main female character Kandy is a good-looking girl who is quite bored with life, wants adventure and romance and also is annoyed at how men seems to eye her, so she makes a wish on a well and ironically gets turned into a-yeah you guessed it, I know-stiff board. Then she is picked up by a man called Ease who also came to make a wish, Ease picks her up as a weapon, goes to the good magician and gets on a adventure. Through which we also meet other characters, a basilisk turned human Astrid; android version of a machine called Com Pewter; girl with a serious hair problem and a man with gross hair. The characters are quite one dimensional, as all the males are always eying the girls and all the girls just want a man to settle down with, the only interesting character was the android who unfortunately loses his edge later on. Another thing I need to mention is the fact that every other page somehow the girls turn naked, sometimes due to really ridiculous reasons, this fact reminded me of the shameless fan-service that mangas & animes get now a days, which to be honest is very sad.

As far as I can tell, one thing is for certain, as a world Xanth is quite extraordinary and versatile. There is an interesting magic system; mythological creatures like Centaurs, Harpy's, Goblins, Trolls and even Dragons; there is even some space travel in the story. The journey settings as a whole was quite interesting and always kept me wondering what to expect next.

There are some other flaws as well, the fact that every time someone new came all the characters kept introducing each other which was excruciatingly boring. The ending was too predictable and somewhat disappointing with a lack of flare. And the most sad fact is although the book was quite short after about reading 2/3rd way through I kept wondering when is it gonna end.

Xanth as a world was interesting and I will definitely check out the first few books of the series, but the characters were really dull and the story was too predictable for this book which makes me unsure whether I want to check out the next installments of the series.
This book gets a disappointing 2.5 out of 5 stars.