Question Quest starts with the narrative of a "boring" character Lacuna, who felt that her life was blah, so she went to the Magician Humphrey to ask a Question and try to change it. She gets two chapters, and the rest of the book is about Magician Humphrey. This would have been fine if I found the Magician likable, but he came off to me as an egotistical, grumpy, and philandering. I disliked how female characters are dropped into his lap as obstacles, or "business partners" to help him keep house. The author's portrayal of female characters ruined the book for me. If this isn't obvious by now, I must say: I am a feminist.
I enjoyed other books in the Xanth series before this. Unfortunately, no matter the medium, sex sells. This doesn't change that I enjoy Piers Anthony's play on language and his endless puns. The world of Xanth is very well built, and actually, it would make a great role playing game. Video games are another genre whether women are portrayed less than intelligently, but that goes beyond the scope of this post. Piers Anthony should speak to some women fantasy writers and learn from them about what works without giving into fan service incessantly.
There's also the possibility that this just wasn't marketed towards my demographic. I presume that Magician Humphrey is a white male, since the Information Systems industry in 1991 when this book was published would be dominated by white men. Readers of this book may have been middle school students and above, though Piers Anthony's books are generally found in the adult fiction section of the library or of bookstores. If this character is a satire of the people in the technology, then it is outdated, because I'm currently in the technology industry, and the people in my office are fairly diverse, though we can still probably hire more women.
The stereotype that people in the technology industry are egotistical dolts who refuse to explain the process is also changing. While we still have clients who don't want an explanation and only want the solution, we explain the details to anyone who asks. Actually, this is part of good customer service, which - for better or worse - is an integral part of American capitalism. Piers Anthony is not good at customer service, which readers will see if they bothered to read the Author's Notes or Acknowledgements pages at the end of the book. He was, perhaps sarcastically, discouraging fan mail.
The gist of it is that I disapproved of the way Lacuna's happiness depended on having a man and a family in her life. I also disapproved of the deal struck by all of Magician Humphrey's wives. The rest of their lives were not mentioned except in relevance to Humphrey. This is very limiting for the female characters of the book. I suspect that Lacuna's arc was to make up for this partially, but she didn't get nearly enough pages. I also objected to how there was one chapter in which there was a summation of two other books! What if I wanted to read those two books in the future? Way to ruin that possibility. I hope Grey Murphy makes a much better Magician than Humphrey. He seems kinder, at least.
