I won’t be needing a new series for awhile. I have been alternating between Brandon Sanderson, my favorite author, and Discworld books.
I will eventually run out of Sanderson books, though. I was wondering about the Spellsinger series of books that Alan Dean Foster put out.
I see there are eight books in the series. Are they any good?
I thought they were a pretty good light read.
It has been many (many) years. I enjoyed them and have saved my copies for my kids to read. Fun fantasy.
They’re fun light reads. Adventure and humor, generally well-balanced with some moments of drama. The first two form a duology, working on the old adventuring-company-formed-to-save-the-world trope. The next four are serial stand-alones, with a cast of changing support surrounding the two core characters as they go out adventuring again - a semi-bumbling Hope & Crosby combination of the main protagonist with the most amusing sidekick from the first two. All of the above are pretty solid.
I might stop there, myself. I didn’t like the 7th ( which prominently featured the kids of the main two characters above ). Never tried the 8th.
The classic* rule of series applies: Each book is half as good as the last (the first two books were written as one book and chopped in half) so 1&2 are a fun light read, 3 is still fun but less good and so on. The last one or two are (IMO) unreadable-level bad.
Also, if you don’t have a really good knowledge of 1960-1980s rock music, I don’t think the series will be nearly as fun.
*Except for Pratchett who was weirdly the reverse: every book was pretty much better than the previous one. (ignoring the ones he wrote while suffering from Alzheimer’s)
I think that’s too extreme, except maybe on the last one or two ;). I’d say the first two are pretty good, the next four are solidly sorta good ( he says, adding more weasel words on edit ). The slippage is at worst a percent or two over books 3-6 IMHO. This ain’t Xanth we’re talking about here :p.
I find ADF to be kinda an interesting author in an odd sort of way. The quintessential journeyman he is hugely productive and reasonably diverse in his output, but never quite hits it out of the park. On the other hand he rarely seems to flop massively. Almost always readable, somehow.
Agreed. Stop reading after book six (which ends on a natural stopping point anyway).
Apart from that…they’re lightweight, but mildly amusing. Not the worst way to spend a few hours.
Agree with the previous commenters. Spellsinger falls into what I consider to be snack books. Something you don’t have to invest much mental energy in following the plot line.
But if you like them, allow me to also recommend
Magic Kingdom for Sale–Sold! - Terry Brooks
Wizard’s Bane - Rick Cook
There were eight?!? I enjoyed the first one or two, had no idea it kept going.
One of my favorite humorous-fantasy series.
I read them up to the last book, I think it was Paths of the Perambulator, but then he has written more since then, which I haven’t read. I really liked them, they’re irreverent at just the right level for me, but more respectful of the genre of most other comic fantasy.
Not as good as Discworld, but better than the Landover series.
Likewise. They can’t have been that bad if I read six of them.
Read them years ago and enjoyed them all through “Paths of the Perambulator”. Picked up “Son of Spellsinger” a few years ago and was mildly disappointed that it didn’t live up to what I had remembered but it wasn’t awful. I didn’t know about the last book until this thread. Think I’ll give it a miss though.
On another note, if you haven’t read them, pick up The Reluctant Swordsman series by Dave Duncan for a nice light read.
I did think that there were a few spots where Foster wasn’t quite sure just how seriously to take it, which led to some jarring inconsistencies. But overall, yeah, an amusing light read.