Spellsinger

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.

Marooned in another universe, a young American musician leads a motley army in battle against an enemy that threatens to destroy their world and ours   Jon-Tom just wanted to go home. Trapped in a world where animals speak and magic is real, the American college student yearned for an ordinary dorm-room life. But here his music has magical power-even if he can't control it-which may be able to save the world from the army of the Plated Folk, whose sinister queen plans on killing and eating every warm-blooded mammal she can get her pincers on and taking over their lands.   The great battle is coming, and Jon-Tom, whose posse includes a wizarding turtle, a cowardly bat, and an otter with a filthy mind, must raise an army to fight it. To find allies they must make an impossible journey, across mountains and rivers no one has ever passed before. Survival will be a miracle-but Jon-Tom is no ordinary musician.

To save his dying mentor, Jon-Tom the spellsinger and his ever reluctant sidekick Mudge the otter must venture across time and space to confront a danger unlike anything they have faced before Jon-Tom and his friends have seen better days. After his motley crew moved heaven and Earth to save civilization at the battle of Jo-Troom Gate, his merry band went its separate ways. Mudge, the foul-mouthed otter, eagerly returned to thieving, drinking, and whoring, while Talea, the girl of Jon-Tom's dreams, embarked on her own adventures, leaving him to study magic with Clothahump, the irascible wizard whose inept spell trapped him in this weird otherworld in the first place.   But now Clothahump is dying, and not even Jon-Tom's spellsinging can make him well. In search of medicine for the centuries-old turtle, he and Mudge venture across the seas on a dubious quest that will require the assistance of an Amazonian white tiger, a ferret, and a gender-challenged unicorn. They're going to need all the help they can get.

In his continuing quest to find his way back to his own world, Jon-Tom the spellsinger must face off against a magician with sinister intentions Far to the south of the peaceful Bellwoods, where Jon-Tom the spellsinger continues trying to master the art of turning music into magic, a sinister force has awakened: a magician with great ambition and unheard-of power. He summons lightning to do his bidding, commands an army of faceless flying demons, and claims to come from another world-one Jon-Tom suspects might be his own. If he can somehow reason with the unknown magician, perhaps they can combine their talents and find a way to go home together.   Wary of this new wickedness, Jon-Tom's suspicious mentor sends the spellsinger and his companions on a journey to the southlands, assuring him that the land they are to visit is "tropical, friendly, and largely uninhabited." As Jon-Tom learns all too often, in this mysterious world much will be proven catastrophically wrong.

Jon-Tom the spellsinger and his friends venture into the high mountains to free a cosmic creature whose captivity threatens to drive the whole world mad It's an ordinary day in the Bellwoods, save for the fact that Jon-Tom the spellsinger has awoken as a six-foot blue crab. He soon reverts to normal-as normal as a college student trapped in a world of magic and talking animals can be, anyway-but the bizarre changes keep happening, affecting not just him but the whole of this strange world. His wizardly mentor suspects these are the effects of the perambulator, a cosmic being whose presence distorts reality. One has been imprisoned in the mountains, and unless they free it, it will rip the world to shreds one insane illusion at a time.   So Jon-Tom sets out, backed by the wizard, a boozehound owl, a gutter-minded otter, and a warrior koala with a taste for leather. Saving the world will be a cinch, as long as they don't lose their minds along the way.

When his magical multistring duar snaps in half, Jon-Tom the spellsinger sets out on a journey that will take him all the way back to... America. Jon-Tom has been trapped in a strange land of talking owls and wizarding turtles for a year now, his sole consolation that in this universe his musical abilities have inadvertently made him something of a sorcerer. But when an encounter with some burglars leads to him snapping the magical duar that channels his power, he finds himself an ordinary human again - on a quest to repair his instrument with nothing but his staff and his semi-faithful, ever-complaining otter sidekick to defend him. The journey takes them to the ends of the earth - and beyond. On the run from some half-wit pirates, they dart into a cave and find themselves in San Antonio, the shortcut to home that Jon-Tom has long dreamed about. But Texas wants nothing to do with this long-haired wizard, or the unpleasant creatures who are tracking him.

Hoping to duplicate the adventurous yarns of their parents, the children of spellsinger Jon-Tom and his otter sidekick Mudge set out on a perilous quest of their own Decades have passed since college student Jon-Tom Meriweather was first marooned in a strange land of magic, and over the years he has married, raised a son, and honed his voice so that the effects of his spellsinging-whereby he calls up magic with song-are almost predictable. His son's voice is another matter. Buncan wants to follow in his father's adventurous footsteps, but his every chord brings more discord, and there seem to be no good quests to be had.   When one falls in his lap-investigating something called the Grand Veritable, whose very name is enough to send wizened wizards hiding under their covers-he seeks the help of two of his friends, children of Jon-Tom's old otter sidekick Mudge, whose voices are as pure as Buncan's is muddy. The determined trio runs away from home, ready to pit their teenage talents against a very adult danger.

Middle-aged, lazy, and out of shape, spellsinger Jon-Tom attempts to break out of domestic drudgery with one last great adventure Jon-Tom and Mudge are bored.   Their adventuring days long behind them, the spellsinger and his once-thieving otter sidekick have settled into a life of tepid domesticity, and they are sick of it. They hunger for an old-fashioned adventure, but there are no more great evils to combat. And so they decide to follow the music. Literally.   A drifting cloud of lost chords has taken to floating around Jon-Tom, and following it puts them on the trail of an evil that terrifies the spellsinger. Something is stealing music. Finding out who, and why, is responsible for the silencing of the instruments will put Jon-Tom and Mudge into great peril, at the hands of a selfish elephant, a greedy black bear, and a whirlpool with a filthy sense of humor. Seeking adventure, they've stumbled into one turn that may turn out to be their last.

Three fantasy novels of music and magic in the beloved series by a #1 New York Times–bestselling author. A college slacker's world is turned upside down when he's transported to a new land where music can create magic. There, he teams up with other magical brethren and creates bonds of friendship he will honor for life. Spellsinger: Jonathan Thomas Meriweather is a typical college student, interested in girls, music, and pot. But when an interdimensional portal lands him in another world, he learns that his musical ability can create magic, which he'll need in order to stop a dark force. The Hour of the Gate: Jon-Tom, whose posse now includes a wizarding turtle, a cowardly bat, and an otter with a filthy mind, must raise an army to fight the Plated Folk and end their queen's plans to eat all the mammals in the land. The Day of the Dissonance: Jon-Tom's merry band went its separate ways after the battle of Jo-Troom Gate. But now the wizarding turtle, Clothahump, is dying, and Jon-Tom must embark on a new quest with his friends to search for a cure.