The Xanadu Adventure is, by far, the absolute worst book in the Vesper Holly series. Even as a child, I hated this final installment of the adventure series.

In The Xanadu Adventure Lloyd Alexander achieves the impossible; he manages to create a character who is even more annoying and self-absorbed than Vesper Holly herself—Tobias Passavant.

Tobias has installed himself, uninvited, into Vesper’s home and seems committed to making his residency permanent. He has overtaken Brinnie’s office and life, much to Brinnie’s great chagrin. Everyone (except Brinnie) seems to love Tobias, even though he has no charm, no tact, no sense of personal boundaries, and no sense, period. Vesper simpers around calling him ‘The Weed’, and he simpers around calling her ‘Carrots’ and quoting Shakespeare ad nauseum.

Tobias is fixated on deciphering an ancient language, but he has hit a snag in regards to the proper translation of the word ‘beans’. So, of course, the logical thing is for Tobias and Vesper to unilaterally decide that everyone should travel to Anatolia to visit the recently discovered ruins of Troy. Makes sense.

Consequently, without regard for anyone else’s personal safety, well-being, or comfort, Vesper drags her motley entourage on an expedition to the excavations at Troy. In true Vesper Holly fashion, however, they end up diverted to the wrong archaeological site; and, after falling for an incredibly lame ploy, they find themselves once more in the clutches of Vesper’s notorious archenemy Dr. Helvitius, who was supposedly killed off in Vesper’s last adventure.

Vesper and party eventually manage to escape and kill Dr. Helvitius again, only to fall back into his clutches a little while later onboard the Orient Express. They turn the tables on Dr. Helvitius, who manages to escape and die yet again; although his body is still never recovered. Hmmmm…?

It was all so trite and predictable. And absolutely none of the characters are even remotely likeable. I just couldn’t stand it.

The incessant references to Philadelphia and Philadelphians being the pinnacles of perfection and virtue were so heavy-handed and repetitive, I wanted to gag.

The fact Lloyd Alexander decided that strong-willed and effervescently independent heroine Vesper Holly had to end the series married and with child just adds insult to injury. His message to young girls is clear: you can be a free-spirit for a while, but eventually you’ll have to snag a man, settle down, and start making babies. Ugh. ( )

Vesper and her friends sail to Anatolia to visit Schliemann's excavation of the lost city of Troy. But before they reach Troy, they fall into the clutches of Dr. Helvitius, who seeks revenge for Vesper foiling his last five schemes. ( )

This is the only Vesper Holly I never read… And I needed an "X" book for my alphabetical list for 2011.
This is what pre-young-adult novels used to be. Smart, funny, with a hint of romance and lots of adventure – this is a G-rated (G-rated, do you hear me, all you writers of angels and vampires?), heroine-fronted (heroine! Legitimate heroine! Not a bimbo!) version of Indiana Jones, with an evil, evil nemesis and staunch comrades, one Watsonian down to his Victorian first-person narrative. Vesper is brilliant, beautiful, and independent. There are no vampires, no tattoos (unless one of the thug henchmen has some), no – I repeat no sex. It would have been unthinkable, for Lloyd Alexander and for the publishing world and audience. Vesper Holly does not become addicted to any illicit substances at any point in her travels; she does not make a fool of herself over a mysterious stranger, paranormal or otherwise; she does not at any time angst over what she is wearing or her social life – such behavior would be completely alien to her. At no time does she do something stupid just to forward the plot – and one of the lovely things about this book in particular and the Vesper Holly adventures in general, and Lloyd Alexander's work in even more general, is that no one else does either. The Vesper Hollys are written for intelligent children, to entertain greatly and teach a little bit (I know as a member of the target audience I would have sought out "Kubla Khan" – if I hadn't already learned parts of it off by heart because of Beauty and the Beast) and overall provide cracking good reads.

The garbage known as the "Twilight saga" is, I think, aimed at a slightly older audience than Vesper Holly – but only slightly. I know my nieces read it when it all first started coming out, and the whole thing horrifies me. Not to turn this into an anti-Twilight tirade, but the writing was bad, I recall little intentional humor in the one book I read, the relationships were inappropriate … and the vampires sparkled. *shudder* Lloyd Alexander's books present excellent writing, genuine humor, and a strong, intelligent, independent heroine who would, I have absolutely no doubt, hold Bella in the utmost contempt.

Xanadu wrapped up the series, rather neatly – although I have a suspicion that Mr. Alexander left himself a corner folded up so that he could add one more book if he'd felt the urge. ( )

It's funny, but I feel like a great deal of my childhood reading was wrapped up in Lloyd Alexander (this is no understatement if you wikipedia this guy and see just how prolific he was). I may have loved The Chronicles of Prydain but I really fell in love with Vesper Holly. To this day, "Vesper" is still in the running for baby names if I should ever have a little girl.
So a while ago, I discovered the "Never-Ending Book Quiz" on Goodreads and I started thinking about all the good books that deserved trivia questions. And naturally, I thought of Vesper. So I went online to remember all the exact titles and there on the list was a book I had never read before... The Xanadu Adventure published in 2005. I was graduating college in 2005, so I suppose it isn't surprising that I wasn't searching the young readers' section for unread gems, but I was still surprised that I had not yet heard of this sixth Vesper Holly book, printed fifteen years after the fifth. I ordered it immediately from an amazon seller and a few days ago, it arrived.

In The Xanadu Adventure, you find all the little touches that have come to characterize Vesper Holly books for me... the random expedition to an exotic locale, the cliffhanger endings to the short chapters, the narrator Brinnie's tendency to jump to conclusions, Vesper's cool-headed sense of reason, and, of course, our arch-nemesis Dr. Helvitius. In this adventure, we set off in search of Troy, but instead, we find an artificial Xanadu created by the wealthy and ridiculous Dr. Helvitius (all the truly great villains are wealthy and ridiculous, you know). Oh, and we also find a whole civilization of people (amazingly enough, an undiscovered people who are clearly the descendants of escaped Trojans) that possess the key to deciphering the language the Weed is studying, which sent us off on this adventure in the first place.
As we've gone along in the Vesper Holly books, we've acquired a few characters that we can't seem to shake. In the beginning, it was just Vesper and her guardian Brinnie running from place to place. Then we found Smiler and Slider, handy twins that are characterized by their mechanical know-how (particularly when it comes to boats that are of questionable sea-worthiness) and brute strength. There's Aunt Mary, Brinnie's wife who is surprisingly resourceful and nimble, much to her husband's surprise. And let us not forget "the Weed," a young man with academic pursuits who stumbled into our story and Vesper's heart. I can't say that I don't enjoy the side-characters, but there was something a little less complicated about Vesper and Brinnie on their own in foreign countries. The more characters we acquired, the closer I knew we were coming to an eventual end of the stories. We were weighted down with people and soon it would be too much for such a troupe to wander into adventure.
And even while Vesper was always a bright and energetic young woman, it's in this book more than any other that you realize time has passed and we're not dealing with static characters whose ages do not change. There's always something a little melancholy about watching a character you love grow up. It's not like Vesper's an old woman or anything, but even the idea of her actually getting married and having a child is a bit much for me. I suppose it was good of Alexander to let us know that she's taken care-of and that even in marital bliss, she won't be losing her spunkiness... but I don't know if I needed assurance on that front.

Alexander, however, might have... I hadn't known this before finishing this book, but apparently Alexander had a step-daughter (his wife's daughter, whom he adopted) who passed away in 1990 - the same year the last Vesper Holly book was published. I won't speculate more on that, but it does add a note of melancholy as to why it might have taken fifteen years to see Vesper's final adventure in print.

In any case, The Xanadu Adventure is certainly a worthy Vesper Holly send-off and for a short while, it made me smile to find myself in the crowded company of the characters I knew and loved... particularly that of Brinnie and Vesper. I hope that more children will come to love them, too, as Alexander's work should delight children for generations to come. ( )

This book by Lloyd Alexander is the last book in a series of books starring Vesper Holly, an Indiana Jones type adventurer in female form. I read this book to fulfill my ‘X’ title requirement and to celebrate Children’s Book Week.

Vesper, along with boyfriend ‘The Weed’ and mentor Brinnie and his wife Mary, go off in search of the ancient city of Troy. The action takes place just as Schliemann is discovering the ancient site, but the group is thwarted when they are taken to a different site believed to be Troy by Dr. Dionescu. An old nemesis turns up to further delay their plans.

The title of the book is taken from the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan.”

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."

I haven’t read the previous books in this series at all, but I suspect this one very nicely wraps it up for the fans. I was particularly impressed with the history interwoven into the story as well as the vocabulary used.

Lloyd Alexander is best known for his The Chronicles of Prydain, a series that my own sons both loved. Mr. Alexander died earlier this year at the age of 83. ( )