Amazing storytelling, proves Allan Dean Foster's versatility and breadth of imagination. This is the start of a series well worth your YA reader's time and consideration.

I don't know why I decided to reread this but I'm glad I did. I forgot how much I liked some of Alan Dean Foster's work. Spellsinger is the first in a series about a law student/amateur musician, nicknamed Jon-Tom, who is transported to a world of magic and talking animals that is seriously not Narnia. Unless Narnia is now inhabited by alcoholic, fornicating, foul-mouthed, violent creatures.Jon-Tom discovers that his fledgling musical talents have now manifested themselves as magical with the ab...

Not my thing, although the writing was good and the world was set up well. I just didn't really like any of the characters, and the book just ended. The author set up a huge conflict, but this is clearly just the first volume. Too little happened in too long of a time. Glad it's over and not willing to slog through another book to find out what happens...don't care enough.

When I was young and dumb--even dumber than I am now--I spent a summer as a live-in staff member at a prestigious, World's-Top-Hideaways-list-making New Zealand luxury lodge, waiting tables and working housekeeping. For a hundred bucks a week in my pocket. This is one of the numerous downsides to having incredibly shitty parenting; no one to tell you, when you are young and dumb, that it is illegal for employers to pay less than minimum wage, that legally the lodge was allowed to charge me 9% of...

*** 4 ***I wish I had found this series when I was a teenager, because I would have been crazy about it at that time. This is a very imaginative world full of animals as intelligent as humans, most of them living together. The separation between the social groups are based on being warmbloods, insects, or arachnids. And the beetle type Creatures want war! Their magician has found an otherworldly help and they are sure they will bring slaughter to their warm-blooded enemies. In order to combat th...

“The strange quasi-science [he] called magic. Or was the wizard right and science was really quasi-magic?”Dreadfully slow pace. Almost quit after fifty pages; almost quit again fifty pages from the end when I realized nothing was going to happen in this volume. This story merely introduces the characters, world and issue for the greater series. Still, Foster tells a good story.“This land he now found himself in was no more alien-appearing than Amazonian Peru, and considerably less so than Manhat...

Or 'The movie Jim Henson never made but should have.' Anthropomorphic fantasy fun from the masterly pen of Alan Dean Foster. The Marxist dragon alone is worth the price of admission.

Please

This book kept surprising me. I would think the story would be headed to a certain conclusion, then go off on these delightful journeys I wasn't really expecting. When I read a typical fantasy novel I don't often find myself reflecting, but this book has a subtle introspective quality that left me with a smile. It echoes the quality and serves the same wit and humor of a better Discworld novel, and that should be reason enough to give it a try.

Cheesy. Very strange pacing, and characters who are just a tetch too much (the Latina cheerleader "cursed with extreme beauty"? Are you kidding?)But on the other hand, there are a few gems thrown in here--I laughed out loud when Falameezar made his appearance. And the bugs, or Plated Ones or whatever, are done very well, if only because I adore when people use the word "chitin."I may read the rest of this series or I may skim it. I'm not sure yet. It was an interesting read and a great diversion...

Sec 2020: supporting Mr Foster after the whole Disney Must Pay issue. I’m going to get books that he gets paid for instead of his novelizations where he is not getting paid for. Even though his Star Wars novels were childhood favourites

I'm going to start off by saying, I REALLY wanted to like this book. I love portal fantasies and from what I saw, this seemed to be right up my alley. I haven't been so sorely disappointed in a book in quite a while.It's going to take a while for me to say everything I want to about this book, but here it goes.First of all, I can't stand the main character Jon-tom. He, in a word, is boring. He is one of the most boring main characters i have come across in a while. He is such a milk toast, wonde...

Read this book when I was in middle school and absolutely loved it. Having re-read it recently, however, I've noticed several inconstancies which really detract from the enjoyment of the book (for instance, in the first book horses are non-sentient, but can talk in later books.) I still enjoyed the books my second time through, but I really wish that Foster had spent more time proofing/editing his books.

Kept seeing this pop up on a bunch of classic's list. While the furry world building is interesting, the main character is not. Combined with the slow start and the extreme sexism, I DNF'd about the half way point.

Narnia meet Ted's Excellent Adventure. Sort of.I'd make a lousy lawyer, he thought. And if I can't help thinking about power and mastery, well hell, I'm only human.Maybe if I work real hard, he told himself, I can manage to overcome that.I think we all know that wise turtles have a unique sense of humor and the concept of a suitable hero. So, when Clothahump searches the universe between clouds of cof open minded concoctions looking for a powerful magical engineer, Jonathan-Thomas Meriweather -w...

This is one of those books that I read as a teen that I totally forgot about until I saw the title. Then I was like, "SPELLSINGER! I LOVED that book!," although I can't recollect why I loved it. It's just the feeling I got when I saw the title. If a book title alone can make me smile 20+ years after reading said book then there must have been something about it worth remembering.

I read this when I was a kid and liked it. But reading it now as an adult, I am less than impressed. It's got talking animals so you'd think it was a kids book. But there is drug use and swearing. Not to mention that everyone is so violent that the popualtion of the planet shoudl have gone to nothing centuries before. Somehow the whole thing is supposed to be a political commentary of sorts, but it doesn't have any teeth to speak of. It's supposed to be funny, but I found it amusing at best, pai...

What an interesting book. It starts off similar to The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but the language is definitely not for kids. It's like Sci Fi took over some Fantasy and threw in a few words here and there that are "sciencey." There's also a long-going discussion sprinkled through the book between characters about Marxism, or some of the ideals, and that was pretty entertaining because the dialogue was used to keep another character's attention. I really enjoyed it, it's a quick read.

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...

Memories disappointI recall this from first reading it and enjoying it decades ago. Sadly for me it hasn't aged as well as I had hoped