Spellsinger #01 [Mass Market Paperback]

Alan Dean Foster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1983

Snatched through a portal into a land of magic, a young musician must use a mysterious, multistring duar to rescue the world into which he has fallen before he can return to his own

Jonathan Thomas Meriweather is a typical college student, interested in girls, music, and an occasional taste of reefer. But when a journey through an interdimensional portal lands him in a world of talking animals and ominous sorcery, he finds he is on a very different trip indeed. Here, when he plays a strange instrument called a duar, peculiar things happen—powerful magic that may be the only way to stop a dark force that threatens his new world—and his old one. Reluctantly, he finds himself teaming up with a semi-senile turtle wizard; a thieving, backstabbing otter; and a bewildered Marxist dragon to rally an army for the war about to come.

 

Spellsinger, the first in Alan Dean Foster’s eight-book Spellsinger series, introduces a world of magic and mayhem, where animals are people and plunging ahead no matter what the consequences may be the only way to survive.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

 

 “One of the most consistently inventive and fertile writers of science fiction and fantasy.” —The Times

“Alan Dean Foster is a master of creating alien worlds.” —SFRevu

“Foster knows how to spin a yarn.” —Starlog

“Foster does a fine job with his misfit heroes and even with his minor characters.” —Publishers Weekly

 

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Not Avail (June 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446903523
• ISBN-13: 978-0446903523
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,508,790 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alan Dean Foster's work to date includes excursions into hard science-fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He has also written numerous non-fiction articles on film, science, and scuba diving, as well as having produced the novel versions of many films, including such well-known productions as "Star Wars", the first three "Alien" films, "Alien Nation", and "The Chronicles of Riddick". Other works include scripts for talking records, radio, computer games, and the story for the first "Star Trek" movie. His novel "Shadowkeep" was the first ever book adapation of an original computer game. In addition to publication in English his work has been translated into more than fifty languages and has won awards in Spain and Russia. His novel "Cyber Way" won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990, the first work of science-fiction ever to do so.

Foster's sometimes humorous, occasionally poignant, but always entertaining short fiction has appeared in all the major SF magazines as well as in original anthologies and several "Best of the Year" compendiums. His published oeuvre includes more than 100 books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love the Books HATE THE PRICE 9.99? seriously?, March 2, 2011

By 

Jim Raby "we don't need no stinking badges!" (somewhere over the rainbow) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spellsinger: A Spellsinger Adventure (Book One) (Kindle Edition)

these books are great reads, i loved them back in the day and i love them now but no way in hell am i paying top dollar for a fondly remembered re-read and i doubt mr. foster is getting much out of this deal. find them in a used book store for a buck a pop.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Series...Terrible Price!, March 9, 2011

By 

Ed Vineyard - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spellsinger: A Spellsinger Adventure (Book One) (Kindle Edition)

I remember buying all of these books when they came out years ago. It is a really good series but I can't believe they want full price for a series as old as this one. As noted in an earlier review, you can find these books fairly easily in used bookstores for $1-$3. That being said, if you like talking animals, weird characters, amazing magic and great storytelling then you will enjoy the series!

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny and full of Adventure, July 2, 2000

By 

Peter Dykhuis (Grandville, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spellsinger (Paperback)

I have to disagree with a previous reviewer in one regard. I do think that the animals in the book are cute and funny. Granted, the animals act in realistic, sometimes noble, but more often crass ways. Part of the fun in this book is the sheer absurdness of the animals and the world at all.

I think you have to treat the book slightly humorously. I think humor was a great par of Mr. Foster's intent. The original cover has a bespectacled turtle on a boat with two humans and an otter. The turtle has drawers in his shell which open. I laughed quite hard the first time I looked at the cover. The hero gets to the fantasy world after smoking marijuana. The hero wins his battles and creates magic by playing and singing rock and roll.....BADLY.

A very fun book but also treat it as fun and not high fantasy.