Offering Extraordinary Books by Talented Authors TM
Home
Piers Anthony
The Magic Fart
The Magic Fart Review
TOOT SWEET!
By David McGrath
Review Rating: "R"
Warning: This review contains adult course language and sexual content.
Back before the days of the Internet, long, loooong ago, people actually talked face-to-face. No keyboards or monitors involved. Can you believe it? Quite a few books on the market revolve around this peculiar mode of information exchange, in fact.
Other books talk of telepathy, yet others of sign language. I've seen more than a few that discuss signals. But amongst these humdrum means of conversation is one that has been used only once -- and it's in the book I've just read. What's the means?
Um, well... farting.
Hey! Get back here! I'm serious! You, uh, might want to stand upwind, though.
The book in question is Piers Anthony's (I'll pause for you to roll your eyes in utter unsurprise. It's a surprisingly common ingrained response. Done? Okay) The Magic Fart. It's a sequel to his infamous (and recommended) Pornucopia, a review of which you can read elsewhere on this site.
Did Piers actually write a whole book about cheek squeakers? About air biscuits? Cheese cutting? Flutterblasts? Acute assitosis? Gastronomical re-percussions? Brown clouds? SBDs? Trouser trumpets? Words from the toothless one? Butt yodeling? Dealing one? Losing one's guts? Breaking Wind? Refining methane? Venting plasma? Bean... okay, I'll stop now.
Anyway, yes, he did.
Was it a breeze to read, or should one pass on it? Well...
As you can see in my review for Pornucopia, I was not fond of the title at all. The first chapter or two only served to increase my dislike for the book. It had sex merely for the sake of sex, contained what seemed to be gratuitous scenes of scatological humour, and seemed destined to be one loooong fart joke.
Before I go on, I should describe the novel a bit better. There are two main characters in the novel. One, Prior Gross, was also the protagonist in Pornucopia. The other, Veil, is supposedly Prior's perfect mate -- peculiar, since she's already got a son.
They live in an alternate reality that is very similar to our Earth, but has magic. Think Xanth, but far more adult. A lot of sex abounds. Heck, soon after the book opens, the male hero is plumbing the depths of some ostensible stranger, whom he soon realizes is... but that would be telling.
By the second chapter, I thought I had the story figured out. The rest would be a slow slog through sex scenes and gas-passing, or so I thought. And not too far from the beginning, Piers used the hoary hunter-and-the-polar-bear riddle. I was ready to dismiss the book with some typical pithy reviewer phrase. ("Is this a gas? No, you should pass. Stinky ass!" And what is it with reviewers and pithy phrases, anyhow? Makes me wonder if they spend all their time coming up with them.)
But then Piers foisted the first plot twist on me. (Foisted by his own petard? Hm.) It was obvious in retrospect, but it served to show me that The Magic Fart wasn't just Piers spinning his wheels. And Piers's followup to the aforementioned riddle was satisfying.
It's the first of a few plot twists, in fact. Some fold back on the first book, but it's not necessary to read it to understand the plot of the second. I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.
Not to say that the novel is perfect. It's not the sort of work one should expect too much from -- it does have a lot of references to gas-passing, after all. And the sex runs the gamut from anal to zoophilia. As with the first volume in the series, Piers does not let his characters get involved with pedophilia, so don't let that be a concern; the only thing underaged characters do in this book is fart.
Another fault in my eyes is that the last few chapters of the book seem to be an echo of Pornucopia's own ending pages. Although the events portrayed are different, I couldn't help but feel deja vu as I made my way through those last few scenes.
Oh, and in the first few chapters is embedded a horrible pun involving a sled and some soap. Definite minus points there. ...even if I did tell it to someone else, later on. Hmm; scratch those negative points.
And so it comes down to the inevitable question once again -- should you read it? If you're looking for Great Lit'rature, skip The Magic Fart; you won't find any great allusions here. If you're under the age of majority, again give this book a pass for now. But if you're old enough to remember the first shuttle explosion, you're into reading Piers Anthony (chances are you are if you're reading this), and you enjoy reading something goofy yet well-written, give The Magic Fart a chance.
Expect to get weird looks when other people see the title, though. And I ain't shittin' ya.
This review is Copyright 2003 David McGrath. This review may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or photograph or telegraph or polygraph or phonograph or chromatograph or any other means. The Berne Convention won't let ya. But I will, if you ask nicely.
Permission to post review on Mundania Press' website in its entirety has been graciously granted by David McGrath.
|
