Arthur Hoover fired off the .22 and other caliber shells. Bob Leonardi had the heart attack. Chris Cha stuck me with the traffic jam. Margaret Drennan got the stage fright. Chris Swanson saw the see shells and got bogged down in the corkscrew swamp, Plant City, Crystal River, horseshoe beach, and Cross City, all of which strange places show up in Mundane Florida by a suspicious coincidence. Becky Shoenberg and Asia Lynn drank the red whine. Shelly Poirer unwrapped the cheesecloth. And Ramiro Gonzalez, Jr. interpreted the Good Magician's Answer for the naga folk, just barely in time; I had already recorded the scene the wrong way when I received his letter.

I have regarded Xanth as the least consequential of the writing I do. It's easy, fun, and popular, but the critics revile it, and it's hard to find anybody who likes it except the readers and booksellers. I have been told that I should never have done more than the first Xanth novel, and disgust abounds about this business of having as many as nine novels in a trilogy. I guess I thought a trilogy was three multiplied by three. So here I am with the fourth novel of the second Xanth trilogy, not having learned better.

But there have been some slight indications that there is more to Xanth than meets the Mundane eye. One naturally expects great literature as defined by the critics to achieve permanence and be read by following generations, while the junk is quickly forgotten. But Xanth is violating that rule too, and refusing to be forgotten. Every Xanth novel remains in print and continues selling well, and Xanth-related things like calendars and statuettes and game books are appearing. Some day there could even be a movie, if the motion picture companies ever catch on to what folk like. Also, there seems to be some genuine human benefit deriving from Xanth. So if literature were to be defined not by the critics, but by permanence and relevance to the interests of real people, Xanth might score better than it has.