I remember that day back in 1993, my family went to Best Buy to look around for some computer games and what not. I had some computer game that I was all ready to get when my mom comes up to me and asked if I saw that fantasy game companions of something or other. I had not so I went back to look, and that is when I was it. I would like to say that I loved it at first sight, that I knew the book included in that game would bring me out of my non reading slump, but I can't. The truth is I looked at the front of the box and almost put the game right back on the shelf. In large gold letters was the title Companions of Xanth and then there is a picture of a woman, but below the belly button she is like a snake, she is wearing a very scant golden chain like bra. My first thought "oh boy its another game for horny guys it must be filled with half naked women how sick". I turned the box over and looked at the back where the scene from the game were. The graphics looked really good, it was a CD-rom game ( we had just gotten a cd drive) and it did talked to you. Well maybe I could give it a chance. The back after all did seem interesting. "Xanth Where emerald hillsides sparkle in the sunlight and magical springs bubble with enchanted waters, where lyrebirds play mystical tunes and needle cacti inflict a deadly sting. When two demons vie for control of this world , you become a key player in a deadly game whose sakes are the existence of magic itself."
Back in the car I opened the rapper, it was then that I discovered that the game even came with a book Demons Don't Dream by Piers Anthony. Well I thought this may come in handy if I get stuck in the game. From what I could tell from the small instruction manual I was going to be a person called Dug who, with a companion would go into this magical land of Xanth. As with any new computer game I wanted to put it in right away, but my sister had also gotten a game and hers went in first. After another hour or so in went the Xanth game.
As it started I noticed that I saw from Dug's eyes and got to pick his actions. Hey, I thought, this is just like a choose your own adventure book. Dug was in his home at first and then he gets a game from his friend, this game, Companions of Xanth. You, as Dug had to load the game into his computer, and then choose a Xanthian companion out of the four provided. I soon learned that you could only choose the snake girl on the front of the box, I was a bit mad about that (having not read the included book yet.) Well as the game progressed I learned what a good companion the snake girl who I know knew as Nada Naga really was. I also learned that there could be none of those sex scene I had so dreaded before because in Xanth there is a thing called the adult conspiracy, which keeps all those interesting things form the children. I of coarse loved the game, oh there were times when I got so frustrated that I said I would never play it again, but I always came back. There was only one time (the last puzzle, the one with the sword) when I turned to the internet for help (I had only Prodigy at the time so I went there). Well after I won the game it felt like I had really lost something. I missed the adventures, the people, the puns. I wondered if there was another game made, but soon found there was not. What could I do to fill this empty place inside me that playing Companions of Xanth had once filled? Well, there was always that book collecting dust on my dresser.
Demons Don't Dream I looked at the title, well why not. And so I began reading. I loved it at once it was so much more than the game, it went into so much more depth having whole chapters on things the game only touched on. There was one thing however that I found strange, they never really introduced the charters, it was like we were meant to know them already. Then it hit me Xanth was a series! This was not the first Xanth book! But what was? Now I had a mission I needed to find a book that I did not know the title of, for nowhere in Dream did they list the other Xanth books. So my quest began, I went to book stores looking under Anthony and I soon realized, man this guy has written a lot of books! After looking in the lists of other books he authored I found the title of the first Xanth book A Spell for Chameleon. I got it and read it immediately ( I was surprised to find it was published in 1977 Xanth has been around for longer than I had been alive). Well I zipped through that book in just over a week ( I am a slow reader so that is very fast for me). I loved the twist in it! This was even better than Dream. I then went getting all the Xanth book some from the library some I bought, the only thing I knew for sure was I needed to read them all.
I found most of them easy enough, if the library did not have them a book store did. But then I got up to The Color of her Panties And I could not find this one anywhere. Finally I had the book store special order it for me. But I needed something in the mean time so I started reading his Mode series, not as good as Xanth but still good. There were only three books in this series so it went quick. When Panties came in I zipped through it like all the others. Nothing could stop me... until.
After reading Harpy Thyme I realized that in the year and a half I had been reading Xanth I was all caught up! There were no new books for me to read. Now I would have to wait for the author to write another. So in the mean time I started reading Incarnations of Immortality yet another series by him. I realized the change Xanth and Piers Anthony had made in me. Now I always go into the book stores, looking to see if the next Xanth is out, or some other book that seems interesting. I once never read now I found it enjoyable and kept a lookout for new books. What a wonderful change, well this is my tribute to Piers Anthony the man who I have never met, yet he has changed my life for the better. Who would have thought that some old guy in Florida could change me so much.
That's it, not much more to say, only read Xanth it is really the best!
Written by Kelly Joyce Yeager (on the spur of the moment)
