Alan Dean Foster: The Hour of the Gate (1984)

Edition: Orbit, 1991
Review number: 949

The novels in the original Spellsinger series make up a continuous narrative much more than most fantasy sagas do. This, the second, concerns preparations to resist the plans of the Plated Folk (insects) to overrun the Warmlands, where most of the animals of the alien world on which Johntom found himself stranded in Spellsinger live.

The Hour of the Gate is the least humorous novel in the series, and this exposes some shortcomings despite the clearly professional way in which the novel is put together. This is particularly the case with the description of the trip into the territory of the Weavers, where the companions encounter strange, almost allegorical monsters, which they relate to the causes of nightmares. The tone in this passage is different, the creatures are unconvincing, and Jontom's companions indulge in superficial philosophising.

Things improve towards the end, and there are some shocks in store for the first time reader. However, the end itself is a let down. Like the rest of this series, re-reading The Hour of the Gate has proved something of a disappointment.

Alan Dean Foster: Spellsinger (1983)

Edition: Orbit, 1984
Review number: 467

My memory of reading Spellsinger the first time, in my early teens, has left me with an impression of a rather better novel than is really the case. It is enjoyable, but distinctly unchallenging. It has one of the more annoying central characters in a fantasy novel (and, indeed, series) and though it sets up some potentially interesting situations, doesn't really resolve them or even use the tension which could quite easily be generated (for example, between Jon-Tom's desire to return home and his enjoyment of the clearly more interesting and fulfilling adventures he is having).

The plot is a humorous version of that staple of the fantasy genre, the normal Earth person who suddenly finds themselves in another world, where there is magic and where they are expected to be a saviour hero. (The sort of humour involved can be seen in this example: the summoning magician is searching through other worlds for an engineer, and finds student lawyer Jonathan Thomas Merriweather, who works in his vacations as a caretaker with the job title "sanitary engineer".)

Spellsinger fits comfortably into the tradition of non-satiric humorous fantasy which uses the absurdities of the conventional gestures of the genre to generate laughter. It is not up to the standards of the best of these stories (examples such as de Camp and Pratt's Incomplete Enchanter), but is enjoyable.