This series of books I bought because I found the premise of the story quite intriguing and because they were written by Alan Dean Foster, an author whom I already had books by, which had all been entertaining to read and who had a writing style I liked.
These books, however, I found to be slightly offbeat and took a bit of adapting to, though I must admit they were overall quite entertaining and enjoyable to read.
I know there are more books in the series, but I also know they are not really my cup of tea, so I will not be purchasing them.
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.
Format
PaperbackDate Acquired
10th July 1998Retail Cost
£5.99Number of Pages
344Year Read
1998Jon-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.
Format
PaperbackDate Acquired
10th July 1998Retail Cost
£5.99Number of Pages
292Year Read
1998Jon-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.
Format
PaperbackDate Acquired
10th July 1998Retail Cost
£5.99Number of Pages
276Year Read
1998