Scan barcode
A review by angrywombat
Spellsinger by Alan Dean Foster
4.0
Wow... its been a LONG time since these were published - '83 and '84 (so if you are under 35, these count as "before you were born"!), and I cant believe that it hasn't got a lot more hype around r/Fantasy... These were an awesome read!
This is basically a single story split over two books... so you need to get the pair of them to get the whole story - but damn it is worth it! At first whiff it seems Mr Foster has done the classic fantasy trope of "chosen one" to vanquish the big bad evil, but this whole story is a happy subversion of most fantasy tropes!
Our main PoV character is Jonathan Thomas Meriweather - a pre-law student who is a bit of a stoner and amateur musician... and he finds himself drawn into a strange fantasy world populated by anthropomorphic animals... about to be invaded by the "plated folk" who have a new evil magic brought across from our world...
The setup and antics of the book are quite funny as it is a contrast of a "fantasy world" but the main character (and general tone) is straight up realistic... so the lack of plumbing, technology, social mores etc are played straight... and our poor PoV Jon-Tom has a really hard time of it. Mr Foster plays with the "chosen one" in that the wizard Clothahump was searching out for a magician of our world - an En'giniear - and Jon-Tom as a part time job at the university as a janitor (sanitation engineer...) I love that Jon-Tom is just your average university student... and really has no useful skills for a medieval-style world - in fact he is almost killed numerous time and desperately wants to get home! The only "skill" he finds by accident is that his music acts as a magical focus... he summons magical effects based on the song he sings... given that he only really knows a bunch of rock/jazz from the 60's and 70's - and that the magic tries to interpret the song based on the surroundings - the effects are usually quite different from expectations!
I loved his attempt to summon riding water-salamanders by singing "yellow submarine" by the Beatles... his companions get worried by the lyrics - rightfully so when he summons a river-dragon big enough to eat them all whole!
Given that Clothahump the wizard summoned Jon-Tom to counter an evil invasion... and cannot cast such a taxing spell for a long time - Jon-Tom gets dragged along for the ride of going to warn the inhabitants of the capital city... and then on a mad treck to gain allies (of sentient spiders!!!) and infiltrate the Plated folk country to try to stop the evil magics from our world... a military computer ala war-games
This reminds me of Discworld actually - using a fantasy world to comment on and satirize many real-world issues.
Definitely get this book and read it!
This is basically a single story split over two books... so you need to get the pair of them to get the whole story - but damn it is worth it! At first whiff it seems Mr Foster has done the classic fantasy trope of "chosen one" to vanquish the big bad evil, but this whole story is a happy subversion of most fantasy tropes!
Our main PoV character is Jonathan Thomas Meriweather - a pre-law student who is a bit of a stoner and amateur musician... and he finds himself drawn into a strange fantasy world populated by anthropomorphic animals... about to be invaded by the "plated folk" who have a new evil magic brought across from our world...
The setup and antics of the book are quite funny as it is a contrast of a "fantasy world" but the main character (and general tone) is straight up realistic... so the lack of plumbing, technology, social mores etc are played straight... and our poor PoV Jon-Tom has a really hard time of it. Mr Foster plays with the "chosen one" in that the wizard Clothahump was searching out for a magician of our world - an En'giniear - and Jon-Tom as a part time job at the university as a janitor (sanitation engineer...) I love that Jon-Tom is just your average university student... and really has no useful skills for a medieval-style world - in fact he is almost killed numerous time and desperately wants to get home! The only "skill" he finds by accident is that his music acts as a magical focus... he summons magical effects based on the song he sings... given that he only really knows a bunch of rock/jazz from the 60's and 70's - and that the magic tries to interpret the song based on the surroundings - the effects are usually quite different from expectations!
I loved his attempt to summon riding water-salamanders by singing "yellow submarine" by the Beatles... his companions get worried by the lyrics - rightfully so when he summons a river-dragon big enough to eat them all whole!
Given that Clothahump the wizard summoned Jon-Tom to counter an evil invasion... and cannot cast such a taxing spell for a long time - Jon-Tom gets dragged along for the ride of going to warn the inhabitants of the capital city... and then on a mad treck to gain allies (of sentient spiders!!!) and infiltrate the Plated folk country to try to stop the evil magics from our world... a military computer ala war-games
This reminds me of Discworld actually - using a fantasy world to comment on and satirize many real-world issues.
Definitely get this book and read it!