The Paths of the Perambulator

Tytuł: The Paths of the Perambulator
Autor(zy): Alan Dean Foster
Rok wydania: 1985
Wydawnictwo: Phantasia Press

Dlaczego w bazie: The fifth volume in the Spellsinger series. Likeevery book in this series, it features the Clothahump turtle. After two volumes focusing on Jon Tom’s travels, with the turtle only at the beginning, here he is part of the group throughout the whole book, making this volume one of the heavily-turtle volumes. We show only a few sample quotes below:

Wishing for a sudden onset of blindness, Jon-Tom stared around the chamber. Sorbl was not all that had been transformed. For openers, the wizard Clothahump did not live in a rocky, moisture-drenched cave that looked out over an ocean. He lived in a giant oak tree whose interior had been dimensionally enlarged by one of the sorcerer’s spells. The oak grew in the middle of a forest called the Bellwoods, not by the shore of some unknown sea that foamed red instead of white against the rocks.
There was also the matter of the sun’s absence and its replacement by two unhealthy-looking orbs of green and purple. Clothahump himself was a turtle many hundreds of years old, not an arthropod of unknown origin.

“Anyone is capable of anything,” Clothahump informed him sternly. “There is nothing that can be imagined that cannot be done given enough time, devotion, intelligence, and blind luck.”
“So somebody has to find this thing, cope with whatever has it trapped, and free it before we all go nuts. Swell.” Again his fingers caressed the duar’s strings. “So why can’t somebody else do it for a change? Why not send a whole coterie of wizards after this thing?”
“Because, as you well know,” Clothahump said in his best lecturing tone, “I am the most powerful and important wizard there is, so it behooves me to act for the common good in instances where others would have not the slightest inkling how to proceed.”

“That’s what I enjoy about assisting you, Clothahump. You’re always so reassuring about the outcome.”
“Tut, my boy,” the wizard chided him sternly, “you must remain calm in the face of chaos. If for no other reason than to maintain control over your spellsinging.”
” ‘Keep control.’ ‘Stay calm’ Easy for you to say. You have some idea of what we’re up against, and you’re the world’s greatest sorcerer. Of course, you can keep your reactions under control. You’re sure of your abilities. I’m not. You know that you’ll be okay.”
Clothahump’s reply did nothing to boost Jon-Tom’s confidence.
“Are you kidding, my boy? I’m scared shitless.”

“But, Master, I don’t like the cellar.”
Clothahump looked disgusted and put his hands on his hips-well, on the sides of his shell, anyway. Being a member of the turtle persuasion, his hips were not visible.

Around them the forest stood silent sentinel, seemingly unchanged. Before him he saw their campsite and supplies.
Clothahump lay on his back, kicking violently and attempting to right himself.


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