The Alchemaster S Apprentice

A cat-like creature foils the plans of an evil alchemist in this comic fantasy by the author of The City of Dreaming Books. Malaisea, the unhealthiest town in the whole of Zamonia, is home to Echo the Crat, a multitalented creature resembling a cat in appearance but capable of speaking any language under the sun, human or animal. When his mistress dies, Echo finds himself out on the street. Dying of starvation, he is compelled to sign a contract with Ghoolion the Alchemaster, Malaisea’s evil alchemist-in-chief. This fateful document gives Ghoolion the right to kill Echo at the next full moon and render him down for his fat, with which he hopes to brew an alchemical concoction that will make him immortal. In return, he promises to regale the little Crat with the most exquisite gastronomic delicacies until his time is up. But Ghoolion has reckoned without Echo’s talent for survival and his ability to make new friends. Walter Moers’s magnificent translation of Optimus Yarnspinner’s novel introduces us to yet another of Zamonia’s hotbeds of adventure: Malaisea, a place where sick is healthy, up is down, right is wrong, and Ghoolion the Alchemaster reigns supreme—until Echo crosses his path. Praise for The Alchemaster’s Apprentice “Cheerfully insane. . . . Remains lively and inventive right through the final heroic battle between good and evil.” —New York Times Book Review “Moers’s creative mind is like J. K. Rowling’s on ecstasy; his book reads like a collision between The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Brothers Grimm. . . . What a delightful book.” —Detroit News and Free Press “Relentlessly whimsical.” —Library Journal “Cross The Lord of the Rings with Yellow Submarine, throw in dashes of Monty Python, Douglas Adams, Shrek, and The Princess Bride . . . That’s the sort of alchemy in which this sprawling novel trades.” —Kirkus Reviews

Using twenty-one drawings from the work of Gustave Dor-, the most successful illustrator of the 19th century, Walter Moers has created a wondrous and utterly delightful tale. In a world between legend and dream, in a time between childhood and adulthood, A Wild Ride Through the Night describes the exhilarating and comic adventures of 12-year-old Gustave, a boy who aspires one day to be a great artist. But before he can achieve this, Gustave must first tackle Mysterious Giants and a Siamese Twins Tornado; he also finds himself encountering the Greatest Monster of All, freeing a maiden from the claws of a dragon, riding through a forest full of ghosts, navigating a Galactic Gully and meeting a dream princess, a talking horse, scantily-clad Amazons and even his own self. Having made a wager with death for nothing less than his life and his soul, he must travel from the earth to the moon and back in a single night.

Malaisea, the unhealthiest town in the whole of Zamonia, is home to Echo the Crat, a multitalented creature resembling a cat in appearance but capable of speaking any language under the sun, human or animal. When his mistress dies, Echo finds himself out

In this whimsical fantasy adventure, a novelist’s search for an author takes him to a magical city, a villainous literary scholar, and perilous catacombs. Optimus Yarnspinner’s search for an author’s identity takes him to Bookholm―the so-called City of Dreaming Books. On entering its streets, our hero feels as if he has opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop. His nostrils are assailed by clouds of book dust, the stimulating scent of ancient leather, and the tang of printer’s ink. Soon, though, Yarnspinner falls into the clutches of the city’s evil genius, Pfistomel Smyke, who treacherously maroons him in the labyrinthine catacombs underneath the city, where reading books can be genuinely dangerous . . . In The City of Dreaming Books, Walter Moers transports us to a magical world where reading is a remarkable adventure. Only those intrepid souls who are prepared to join Yarnspinner on his perilous journey should read this book. We wish the rest of you a long, safe, unutterably dull, and boring life! Praise for The City of Dreaming Books “German author and cartoonist Moers returns to the mythical lost continent of Zamonia in his uproarious third fantasy adventure to be translated into English, a delightfully imaginative mélange of Shel Silverstein zaniness and oddball anthropomorphism à la Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. . . . A wonderfully whimsical story that will appeal to readers of all ages.” —Publishers Weekly “A salmagundi of whimsy, imagination and book lore—remarkable fun.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer “Moers puts Tolkien through some sort of Willy Wonka sweetening process and comes up with characters such as Optimus Yarnspinner, who, names being fate and all, just has to be a storyteller.” —Kirkus Reviews

A delightfully illustrated cult novel, literary satire and epic adventure. 'Within the first 15 pages I was carried away by the sheer craziness of it all. Some Minipirates find a baby bear with blue fur inside a walnut shell floating on the ocean towards a giant whirlpool. They rescue him and teach him about knots and waves, and that a good white lie is often considerably more exciting than the truth. Then, when he outgrows their ship to such an extent that he is in danger of sinking it, they abandon him on an island with a bottle of seaweed juice and a loaf of seaweed bread. Thus Bluebear comes to the end of his first life and embarks on his second. By the end of the book, he has expended exactly half of his 27 lives. Again and again, Moers confounds our expectations as the narrative twists and turns, travels backwards and forwards in time. Part science fiction, part fairy tale, part myth, part epic, the book is a satire on all these genres and so constantly satirises itself. Very amusing' - Daily Telegraph

Alfeo Zeno must clear Nostradamus' name after he's accused of poisoning a person to advance his own reputation.

The Alchemist's Apprentice is a tragi-comic novel about love, loyalty and the power of imagination, in which the line between the universe of fiction and the world of reality disappears. Madagascar Rhodes was probably the most famous author in the world. His magical, heart-warming novel, the eponymous The Alchemist's Apprentice (about the adventures of a young Jewish girl in Malta during World War II) enchanted millions of readers. And yet, strangely, you've never heard of him. Or his amazing book. In fact, it's as if Madagascar Rhodes never existed. To unravel the tangled threads of reality and - what? Fantasy? Dreams? Plain old-fashioned fabrication? - you have to go back to the beginning. To a rather odd New Year's Eve party in 1996. Or earlier, to a chance encounter with a ghostly girl in a sunny English garden. Or perhaps it all really began when an unsuccessful novelist called Roderick Bent embarked on a routine train journey from King's Cross and found himself travelling into an inexplicable nightmare ... 'Funny, weird and intricate ... A gifted, original writer' Sunday Telegraph 'Intelligent, provocative and utterly beguiling ... Dronfield writes with a breezy good humour and insouciant flair and ... offers some thought-provoking meditations on the nature of fiction and its relationship with reality. He also has a flawless control of the mechanisms of fiction, playing his literary tricks with baffling dexterity' The Times 'A captivating metaphysical mystery and an otherworldly love story' The Sunday Times 'The story mixes elements of Iain Banks' wilfully perverse attitude with the absurdity of Douglas Adams at his best ... A fine read' Scotland on Sunday 'Entertaining, funny, well observed, with a wicked viciousness when observing everyday people' BBC Radio Scotland 'A genuinely magical novel: funny, clever and weird' Michael Marshall Smith '... absolutely huge fun, satisfying, twisty and cool in every way. ... Go for it- funny, clever and, in a world starved of individual voices, *different*- a story about books, alternative worlds, mysteries and the love a man can have for a large badly behaved dog' Jenny Colgan

Sam's desire to protect his sister leads him to magic he never imagined. The powerful arcane arts have kept Olway safe for generations, taught only to those tested and proven to have real potential at the prestigious Academy. That power has never been found on the edge of the kingdom where Sam and his sister struggle to survive. Until now. A terrible mistake puts Sam at the mercy of a master of the arcane arts who brings Sam to the Academy to help learn what happened to the last of the Alchemists. Posing as a student, and with no magic of his own, he tries to navigate the Academy and discover the secrets of Alchemy. When he discovers a dangerous power that could destroy the Academy, Sam is tested in a way he'd never imagined. Having no magic of his own, his mind and wits might not be enough to stop a dangerous power that has turned its attention upon the Academy-and is now focused on Sam.