Knot Gneiss, by Piers Anthony

I saw the latest Xanth offering at the Library and I didn't have very many other books to take home so I figured, "meh, why not". At least I wasn't paying for it, right?

The book is done in the standard formula: Querent goes to Magician Humfrey, Querent gets assigned a Task that is far too hard and complicated for their simple stupid Answer, they take it anyway because of course they're the Only One That Can Accomplish This Vitally Necessary Task, they collect a bunch of people along the way and finish their task with no time to spare.
In this case, it's a knot of Petrified Reverse Wood that must be moved / removed from the Gap Chasm and delivered to Humfrey.

This book dumps our subjects into Ida's Alternate Worlds a few times, but thankfully does not, for the first time in a LONG time, end with "good thing you did the Task because this was all another Demon Contest and if you'd failed the Land of Xanth would have no magic / belong to another Demon / fall apart / etc."

The ending was odd, to say the very least, and made me go, "wait...what just happened?"

I did think that the books have been getting more "stereotypical" in their handling of the gender relationships. This one was bordering on offensive - all men, bar none, are mindless one-dimensional boors, obsessed with one thing and one thing only - sex. This is of course unless they are friends of the protagonist and are required to be multi-dimensional. But husbands? Are always, always, always interested in one thing from their wives. While the concept of "a man still finding his wife to be HAWT" is very nice, the idea that that is all they think their wife is good for is obnoxious. The only thing that changes a man from Obnoxious One Dimensional Boor Husband into Loving Wonderful Multi-Dimensional Husband With Many And Varied Interests (really, what turns him into a human being) is HAVING CHILDREN. Because of course everyone knows this is the only thing that gives life meaning or higher purpose.

Women, on the other hand, are portrayed as HAWT, flirtatious, and only interested in giving their husbands What They Want so the women can get on with their interesting, multi-dimensional lives. Interaction of an intellectual, friend-to-friend sort must of necessity take place outside the marriage because the husband is a sex-crazed idiot. To this end, they are manipulative and scheming, and all too willing to leave their husbands behind - except of course for the obligatory Nightly Conjugal Visit (10 minutes or less "should be enough", right?) And, of course, any woman that makes it past age 20 or so without Having A Man is completely Washed Up And Useless. All women, naturally therefore, want only to Get A Man, and then Have Children - because only by Having A Man and then Having Children will her life have any meaning.

While these attitudes have been expressed in the Xanth series before, generally they were merely alluded to, or expressed in a more sarcastic or "jokey" manner. However, in this book, they were obviously more "intended", so to speak, and that's what I found offensive. They're getting more and more obvious, and more and more blatant.

In sum: Latest Xanth book is "meh" for the plot (what there is of it), offensive for the misandry and misogyny, the ending is arbitrary but thankfully does not have any Demon Contest inclusions, so I give it a "whatever" out of 5. 1.5 bones I suppose.