Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Day of the Dissonance [Book Review]

[I do spoil some major things in this book, but I don't reveal the ending.]

"The Day of the Dissonance" is a book written by Alan Dean Foster. It was published in 1984. It is the third book in Foster's "Spellsinger" series. I already reviewed the last two books which were "Spellsinger" and "The Hour of the Gate." My main complaint of those books were they they were presented much too slowly which made them feel like they would stall out. The second book's main issue was that it was much too serious, after the first book was mostly comedy and fun. So how did book #3 turn out?

"The Day of the Dissonance" is still very slow. I suppose they all must be like that. But in this case, I didn't mind. The story is so relaxed and adventurous, I was always entertained and looked forward to see what happened next. Sure it stalls out a lot, but the scenes where it does stall out were genuinely fun and interesting.

The story here is that Clothahump the wizard has fallen ill, and he sends Jon-Tom on a long journey to find a fabled town with an even more fabled shop that will have his cure. Along the way, he joins back up with Mudge the otter and a few more new characters which included a an old ferret, an Amazonian tiger woman with a southern accident, and a unicorn... a gay unicorn.

The gay unicorn was named Drom, and telling you he was gay was a major spoiler. I just could not help doing it since it was one of the best characters in the story, and the fact that he is gay is actually really fun and hilarious. I won't go into how him being gay actually factors in, but it does, and it is handed really well.

The characters get into some of the most dangerous situations in the story yet. Cutthroat pirates, vicious bandits, overweight fairies. They also face off with a magician who was quite a devilish antagonist. All this just to get some medicine!

You know what? I think this book redeems the series so far. I had a lot of problems with the first two, but I really liked this one. It doesn't rely too much on the first two. It recaps you enough so that you can pick it up. I do recommend it, and I may read more of them later on. I am going to take a break from the series though. They are huge commitments and I like to keep up the variety. I am very happy to see one make me so happy though. I am hopeful that the series keeps this up for its remainder.

This blog was written on September 21, 2024.

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