fantastic beasts and where to find them

[freckles_and_doubt]

Right, you lot, time to uphold my reputation as an authority on kids' fantasy. I've just had a random email from a gentleman who is looking for the title of a children's fantasy novel he read years ago. I don't think I've personally encountered this one, although some bits ring a bell, and would be grateful for suggestions, since creative googling is failing miserably (other than to make me read all sorts of interesting descriptions of children's fantasy).

The book would have been published before 1996. Details he remembers, which may or may not be accurate, include:

• a main character who is a travelling wizard/entertainer with a fondness for magically-disguised fake gold coins which cause irritated townsfolk in large quantites;
• a visit to a king's court with women in partially and magically translucent clothing;
• a Bad Guy who creates armies of undead triggered by detection wards;
• the Bad Guy's immense, hidden, underground, magical city;
• a scene in which the main characters are trapped in a small room while a centaur henchman patrols the corridors, leaving a stream of droppings in his wake.

Given the depths of literacy and fantasy-exposure of the witterers who read this blog, I'm hoping someone has enlightenment to offer. Off you go, then...

Department of Random Linkery Especially For d_hofryn: I got this from Making Light, although some of you may have picked it up on boingboing. If Edward Gorey Did Tribbles. The pile of mewling fluff is particularly fine.

Now I must go and write a fifteen-minute presentation to give to an assorted horde of Potter-fanciers tomorrow. How to say "Rowling sucks as a writer but I enjoy her anyway" while simultaneously sounding intelligent? I am wryly amused to note that in the advertising bumf for the talk, I feature as the HoD of English. *clutches brow in anguished irony*

Last Night I Dreamed: a cavernous and disorienting replica of my old high school, through the endless corridors of which I wandered in search of the English dept. When I arrived it was filled with a random assortment of people from my junior and high schools who, in sharp contradistinction to the realities of my actual school experience, were (a) all embarking on postgraduate careers, and (b) surprisingly glad to see me. Some sort of war was raging without, but we more or less ignored it in order to organise amateur theatricals and orient the confused French student.

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Your children's fantasy novel sounds like a D&D module. Or something by Piers Anthony. But I repeat myself.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Actually, I wondered if it was one of those D&D offshoot novels myself. That might simply be the giant underground city bit, though. Darn, I miss drow. But, yes, does sound a wee bit formulaic.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Ah, drow. Possibly the only cave-dwelling creature ever to evolve darker skin in response to the total lack of light.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Now I'm really nostalgic for D&D. It's so magnificently silly.

[schedule5.livejournal.com]

I've got to agree - it screams Piers Anthony to me :).

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

The bit about the women and centaurs is pure Piers Anthony, but no. Undead were too hard to make in Xanth. Don't ask me how I know, I'm trying to repress memories here.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I seem to have successfully repressed any actual memories of reading Piers Anthony, other than a vague sense of being irritated at really bad puns. However, flipping through my Evil Landlord's PA collection a moment ago in search of the above plot has been enough to make me twitch nervously. I am relieved that you are able to authoritatively pronounce on the no-undead bit, making it unnecessary to pursue the horrors of Xanth any further. But doesn't he have other settings? Just the quick browse reveals a serious fondness for centaurs...

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

Yeah, mainly Science Fiction - the Kirlian series, the Phaze Series, the Tyrant series... but I stopped paying attention a long time ago so there may be annother fantasy series or four by now.

Xanth ftw!

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

I really liked the Xanth books, I've read nearly all of them. I have a certain fondness for bad puns. Maybe that's why I'm with Phleep :P.

stump the bookseller!

[(Anonymous)]

There's an actual service for this sort of thing.
http://loganberrybooks.com/stump.html

Dontcha just love the internet?