Yon Ill Wind (Xanth Novels)

Its great fun to see the demon X(A/N)th as a central charachter this time around and he has a great personality that eventually becomes really likable. The Mundaine familly are a great read, I really liked how they adjusted to being in Xanth. All the other charachters are likable, although they never really got charachterized. (The pets are likeable though)

As usual, there are many puns in Yon Ill wind and I enjoyed them all, although others may not. Another thing I really liked was the "1 squeak yes, 2 squeak no, 3 squeak off track" thing (It will make sense in the book)

In summary, there is really nothing wrong with the book. It has a good plot, likeable charachters and lots of interesting situations. But the only bad thing about it is it's adrupt ending. I'll try to avoid giving anything away, but certian charachters just vanish in a sentance, where we could say goodbye to them, when they could have been seen doing some more things. The ending to the book is so adrubt, so quick and short, you wonder if Mr. Anthony lost the last few pages on his way to delivering the final manuscript to the publisher, and had to quickly write up a new ending in a minute or so before his deadline. And that ending is quite sad, and depressing. In fact, I'll go so far as to say its the most dissapointing ending I've ever encountered in a book. Its a shame that the ending is dissapointing, but the rest of the book is great.

The good:
Great book
Great charachters
Lots o' puns

The not so good:

Horrible ending
Some charachters are not explored enough

Summary: A great book, but be sure to pick up the next book (Faun and Games) because you will want to read it upon finishing this book.


Not as good as the earlier ones   April 25, 2002
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I am a big Xanth fan, but I hadn't gotten any new episodes for over 10 years, because of becoming a very busy working mother. My brother-in-law got me this one after I had recently re-read all my old ones. The kids having finally gotten interested in Xanth got me going on my re-reading project.

I don't think this one measures up. It doesn't flow like the others and you don't get into the story. Maybe it's because there are too many main characters, so that none of them can be developed very well. They all run off in different directions and it's hard to keep track of what is going on or what the characters are like.

Maybe it's because, while the earlier stories were essentially cheery, this one has an underlying gloominess throughout.

When certain ones of the characters are announced to be in love, it seems like sort of an afterthought. You just don't get inside anyone's head enough to really empathize with them, so there's not enough buildup that would justify the characters' feelings.

The puns don't seem to be as good as they used to be either.

I don't think I'm just becoming jaded, because I was reading the earlier ones again to my kids at the same time I was reading this one and the earlier ones just seem better.


Yon Ill wind   April 12, 2002
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This book was an absolute masterpeice. It had a great plot, good characters, and just an all around good storyline. I have read every Xanth novel twice, and I think this is one of his better ones. The only drawback I think that this novel had was its seemingly unconcluded ending. I read the last sentence of the novel and I feel that the book was uncompleted. I have never known Peirs Anthony to end any of his novels that way. If it would have ended better I would have given it a 5.