Heaven Cent by Piers Anthony, reviewed by jimroberts

Here's review of another Xanth book, Heaven Cent, but this time it's a decently short review.

In Heaven Cent, the eleventh book of the Xanth saga, the magical land of Xanth suffers a huge sudden change for the worse with the introduction of the Adult Conspiracy, which decrees that unmarried people under the age of eighteen shall be, so far as is possible, forbidden all information concerning "summoning the stork".(*)

The plot is like many Xanth books: the protagonist, in this case the nine-year-old shapechanger Dolph, sets off on a quest and runs into various difficulties which he and his companions overcome. Heaven Cent is more tightly integrated with the surrounding books than was the case with any of the first nine of the series. In the previous book, Magician Humphrey was found to be missing. In this book, Dolph tries to find him and seems to make some progress, though he won't be found for several books yet. This book is also the start of the subplot involving Dolph's engagement to more than one girl, with powerful magical and practical reasons why he must marry each.

This is definitely not a good place to start reading Xanth, but if you liked the earlier ones and expect to read a few books further, you will want it, or a detailed summary, for continuity.

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(*) A stork carrying a baby (ogre rather than human) first appears in Xanth 8, Crewel Lye. Earlier in that book, Ivy explains that she and her baby brother were found under cabbage leaves. But from Heaven Cent onwards, storks are the sole providers of human children.

"...and seems to make some progress, though he won't be found for several books yet."

This is a spoiler for at least this book, and could even be read as a spoiler for the next several books. If you don't mind spoilers in your review, you can leave it in, otherwise I would take it out.

One other comment is that while you say that this book is not a good place to start reading this series, but necessary if you want to enjoy later books, nothing in the review itself tells me what you (as a reader of this series who does know the previous books) thought of this one. Is it better/worse than the rest? Did you like it? Were there things you didn't like?

Your review currently reads more as a summary than a review, as there's little opinion there, but what you've written is clear, even for someone like me who has no idea what Xanth is. (I don't know if your footnote will be included in the final review, but I vote for keeping it!)

#2, Samantha_kathy

Yes, the footnote is part of the review — I meant to indicate that by having it in the indented part of my message.

"there's little opinion there":
I actually thought I was being very negative about this book. "change for the worse" doesn't sound like approval, does it? And "or a detailed summary" sort of indicates that I don't think it's worth reading for its own sake. But if this isn't coming across, I'll have to consider reformulating. When writing this, I had the disadvantage that I'm familiar with my generally favourable reviews of previous Xanth books.

"could even be read as a spoiler":
Yes, it's a bit spoilery, but for Xanth books, it's pretty much a given that everything turns out well in the end, and this is part of me trying to get across that this book doesn't stand alone anything like as much as the books in the first "trilogy of trilogies" did, in that there are still outstanding problems at the end of this book.

""change for the worse" doesn't sound like approval, does it?"

No it doesn't, but I read it as change for the worse for the magical land - not as change for the worse as an opinion about the book. You might want to clarify that, as it's easily misread (although that's perhaps because I have no knowledge of the series...)

""or a detailed summary" sort of indicates that I don't think it's worth reading for its own sake."

Well, to me it read more like: "you'll need to at least have read a detailed summary if you're thinking of skipping the book or reading out of order, so you know what's going on" and less like "you might as well skip this book and just read a detailed summary so you can move on to the next book in the series with all pertinent details"

So basically, reading as someone who a) does not know the series at all, and b) has not read your previous, favourable reviews on the Xanth books, your negativity is not coming through at all. You could think of reformulating things, and maybe add some of why this was such a bad book in the last paragraph. That would clear it up, I think.

"Yes, it's a bit spoilery, but for Xanth books, it's pretty much a given that everything turns out well in the end, and this is part of me trying to get across that this book doesn't stand alone anything like as much as the books in the first "trilogy of trilogies" did, in that there are still outstanding problems at the end of this book."

A good point to make, especially for those familiar with the books. If the search for the Magician isn't a very big plot-point (and thus tension creator (will he/won't he find him)), then letting it stand is no problem. If knowing he's not found at the end of the book takes away a lot from the tension in the book, I'd try to get your point across with a more generic sentence.

#4, Samantha_kathy "I read it as change for the worse for the magical land - not as change for the worse as an opinion about the book."

You're right, it's reformulation time! My first, more spontaneous and longer draft continued with the AC being a blight on many of the following Xanth books, so I'll try to get back to something like that, though I have difficulty avoiding balancing that by saying that in book 17 Anthony shows the disastrous multi-generation consequences that the Adult Conspiracy can have.