Board Stiff by Piers Anthony : A Review

BOOK TITLE: Board Stiff

ISBN: 9781624670862

AUTHOR: Piers Anthony

GENRE: Fiction/ Fantasy

NUMBER OF PAGES: 279

FORMAT: Digital, PDF

SERIES / STANDALONE: Xanth novel #38

SUMMARY:

Be careful what you wish for...

"I'm actually a smart girl who would make any man an excellent wife. But no man sees that. No man is interested in my mind or personality, just my whatevers. So here is my wish: I'm board stiff. I want Adventure, Excitement, and Romance.”

So begins Piers Anthony's 38th Xanth novel, in which Irrelevant Kandy, looks at her reflection in the water of the shallow well and sees luxuriant midnight black hair to her breathtakingly slender waist, matching dark eyes in a lovely face. A torso coming yea-close to absolute perfection. She was man's desire. That was part of the problem.

And in the shallow magic of a wishing well, she asks her wish to be granted. Something happens. A sudden whirlwind surrounds her, lifting her up and ripping off her clothing. She is changing, somehow. Then she falls flat on the ground.

Literally. She has been transformed into a flat, stiff board with two knotholes for eyes.

REVIEW BY: Dhivya Balaji

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/20539669-dhivya-balaji

HOW I GOT THIS BOOK: The author sent us a review copy.

REVIEW:

          A very good opening to the story had me engrossed in this long before I read any summary. Irrelevant Kandy, a beautiful woman, is ignored by everyone because of her name. Then she shortens her name to I Kandy and so becomes the cynosure of all eyes. Got it? She is now I Kandy (eye candy). Our lead Kandy hates all attention and is bored stiff (Yeah, yeah!). So she goes to a wishing well and wishes thus, “I am board stiff. I want adventure, excitement and romance.” So she becomes a board!

          This is only the start of the novel.  It is a riot of puns all the way. There is com pewter who (that??!!) is a logical machine that can control virtual reality. Then there is a continuous set of puns every other line that makes your head go whir with just the intensity. If you are a first time reader and don’t know the reputation of the Xanth novels, be prepared for a major assault of puns.

          The author takes you different scenes in the novel by using a character in his novel. He makes a basilisk wear a special dress granted by a magician’s wife. The dress is named ‘sequins of events’ which will generate a sequence of events each time a sequin is pulled off and reattached.

          With things like adult conspiracy, that prevents kids under 18 from knowing adult things, the book is rife with puns and concepts every other page. As the author mentions in his note, (do read it. It is more illuminating than the book! The book is fun, the author is even more so) the concepts in the book are inspired by real life events.

          There are samples one too many to mention. But most are modern as well as historical. Sample this one, for instance. (This is not the best, but it is not the worst either!)

          “These are not regular clouds,” Mitch pointed out.

          “True. These just may be animations of Outer Net clouds. That would explain the special effects.”

          “And what is an Outer Net cloud?”

          “It is an electronic database of enormous capacity that stores data for third parties.”

          “Can you repeat that in plain talk?”

          “It’s like a huge storage bin for information for anyone.”

          “Thank you."

          For the uninitiated, the author is referring to cloud data storage. This is how the book will look. Maybe I am partial to this because I am a computer engineer. (Whew!)

          Coming to the plot and characterisation, the plot seems to be an elaborate scheme cooked up to bring strangers together and make them friends. The characterisation is beautiful and simple. The author apparently has a unique writing style (and has his own fan base) which might not be quite agreeable for a new reader. The book is attractive in its own right but only if you enjoy childish word play and puns.

WHAT I LIKED: The story line was good. The scenes and the descriptions show the creative power of the author.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER: The author, in his note, mentions readers to go for his other non pun novels if we don’t like them. So am not mentioning that here. One more thing the author could have avoided is the predictability of the story.

VERDICT: I don’t know about you. But when I read this, I did get pundigestion! Go for it if you love books with unique concepts and no violence.

RATING: 3.5/5 (because there is no real plot. This book looks like a by product of Enid Blyton infected with the pun virus… No offense to the 78 year old author who gave me a few very good laughs…)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Though he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.

Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.

EDITIONS AVAILABLE: Digital, Paperback.

PRICE: $9.07 for kindle and $11.37 for paperback.

BOOK LINKS: http://www.amazon.com/Board-Stiff-Xanth-Piers-Anthony/dp/1624670865