Jon-Tom's magic comes in mostly when Foster needs it to although the books are about being a spellsinger, like most books in which characters have magic there are limits on the magic, both artificial and in-story. The magic has side effects or is uncontrolled, and in that Sloop John B example, Jon-Tom accidentally makes himself the first mate, and thus spends part of the voyage drunk because the first mate, he got drunk. The kid-who-has-powers thing was obviously big in the 1980s, and maybe Luke Skywalker started it or maybe he was just the latest iteration of it, but Foster's take on Jon-Tom's stumbling version of magic is kind of fun: he's a "spellsinger," so when he plays music and sings he can do magic, magic that's loosely based on the song he's singing - so, for example, when he tries to conjure a boat in one book he sings Sloop John B. The books themselves aren't short on action or adventure or imagination, from double-rivers (one underground flowing under the above-ground one to communist dragons to a mystical horse that must circle the universe in order to end it, Foster lays out a good adventure that moves briskly from one scene to the next, and the books manage to be a good, pulp-movie-style adventure. Jon-Tom's been pulled there because Clothahump thought he was an engineer engineering in our world is like magic in Clothahump's world, we're told, although there's not that much evidence to support it.
#Spellsinger alan dean foster series
The Spellsinger series follows Jon-Tom, a law student/musician from our world who gets accidentally pulled into another world by the wizard Clothahump, a turtle in Clothahump's world, all animals - spiders, insects, mammals, and birds, but not lizards (other than dragons) - act more or less like humans. The Spellsinger books, like a lot of the mid-80s fantasy I like so much, rely on a tried-and-true formula that works because Foster is a good writer and can rise above the cliches.
Which puts Foster pretty firmly in second place, not a bad spot to be in my opinion. King, I've read 13 (or 14 it's hard to tell sometimes, because his stories run together in my mind.) Anthony it's at least 31 I can't remember if I've read some of his, too, like the 2nd half of The Apprentice Adept series. The only other authors prolific enough to match up, I think, are Piers Anthony and Stephen King, so I counted them, too. I counted up the books I've read by him, and it's 18. King, I've read 13 (or 14 it's hard to tell sometimes, because his stories run together in my mind Alan Dean Foster has written, according to Wikipedia, over 100 novels, and as I was (re)reading The Hour Of The Gate I was trying to work out in my head if, based on sheer volume alone, Foster would rank as my favorite author. Alan Dean Foster has written, according to Wikipedia, over 100 novels, and as I was (re)reading The Hour Of The Gate I was trying to work out in my head if, based on sheer volume alone, Foster would rank as my favorite author.
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