Audio Book Review: Spellsinger Dramatized Adaption by Alan Dean Foster

This is a fun fantasy listen.
Spellsinger [Dramatized Adaptation]
By Alan Dean Foster
Narrated by: Multi

Duration: 8 hours 1 minutes
Release date: 10-30-20
Publisher: GraphicAudio
Genres: Apocalyptic & Dystopian, Immersive & Radically Different, Science Fiction & Fantasy
My Rating: 4.0 of 5.0 Overall; Story 4.0; Narration 4.0.

Summary:
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.

Review:
Jon is a serious college student who enjoys music, playing his own instruments, enjoying eyeing the girls, and occasionally enjoying a reefer. One evening he is pulled into an interdimensional portal to a world filled with talking animals and full of legal and illegal sorcery. Jon battles one of the first creatures he meets, an otter, and ends up being taken before a powerful wizard who is also a bit of a senile bumbler. The wizard, a turtle, had tried to call out another powerful sorcery but ended up with Jon who appears to have no sorcery skills…until he picks up a strange instrument and things happen.

Jon teams up with the turtle and the rascally otter who takes him into town to get decked out with clothes that will blend in and a weapon or two. After Jon sets off a riot in a bar, they escape to an outcasts camp. Once again, Jon stirs up trouble and now they escape again with a female warrior. They return to the wizard hoping that he has found a way to return Jon to his real world. That doesn’t exactly work.

Now the full team is traveling to seek support to fight the dark evil that the wizard knows is coming. Along the way, Jon’s singing conjures up a Marxist dragon who will help them only because Jon convinces him they are comrades.

I do enjoy a good graphic novel now and then. As the story started, I wasn’t sure but quickly I learned that this is surprisingly fun. I enjoyed the discovery of Jon’s skills, I loved the variety of characters and the support they give each other. The story does set up as a battle of good and evil with the evil insects reminding me of the Orc Army. I would be interested in listening to more and I recommend this to fans of fun fantasy.

Audio Notes: There is a large group of narrators that help to make this fun. I liked the narration but did find the background noise to be too loud and distracting sometimes.

Narrated By: Gregory Linington, Paul Reisman, Chris Genebach, Todd Scofield, David Jourdan, Rose Elizabeth Supan, Bradley Smith, Alyssa Wilmoth, Jeff Allin, Ren Kasey, Yasmin Tuazon, Andy Clemence, Scott Mccormick, Michael John Casey, Shanta Parasuraman, Ken Jackson, James Konicek, Michael Glenn, Mort Shelby, Terence Aselford, A Full Cast, Nanette Savard, Richard Rohan.

Source: 3/14/2021 Two for One Young Adult Credit Deal at Audiobooks.com. This qualifies for 2022TBR and 2022Audiobook goals.