As an adventure story, Chthon and Phthor are pretty good. But, and this is a big one, the belaboring of the incestuous relationships between the Minions and Minionettes, the abuse of women - and how much they welcome it - that is at the root of that relationship, all made this a difficult pair of books to finish. Anthony seems to have issues with the power dynamic between genders. It's possible that he may be using his novels as a medium for shining a revealing light on those issues but, at the end of the day, he comes across as simply too squicky of a writer for me to re-read much else by him. I may give Macroscope a shot someday as I recall liking that book when I was a teen but I know I will never re-visit the Chthon-verse or any of his Xanth books ever again. ( )