Spellsinger

Foster, Alan Dean. Spellsinger. Book 1 of the Spellsinger Adventures Series. 2011. 290p. ISBN 9780743498258.

Jonathan-Thomas Meriweather is a pre-law student at UCLA who works as a sanitation engineer (also known as a janitor) for the school, and who appreciates music and marijuana. When he wakes up in the middle of a forest from an epic party the night before, he is thoroughly confused. Why is he not in his bed? Why is this otter wearing clothes and standing on two legs threatening him with a sword? Thinking this must be a dream, Jonathan gets himself stabbed, which reveals to him that he is very much here, in this fantasy world where animals are anthropomorphic.

Brought to meet the great turtle wizard Clothahump by the otter, Jon-Tom, as he becomes known, is informed that the turtle is in fact the one who summoned him here. Looking for an engineer, the turtle brought him over to help defeat an unspeakable evil that threatens their world with destruction.

Armed with nothing but law, politics, and history, Jon-Tom joins a merry rag-tag of animal and human adventurers looking to warn all of the world's communities of the impending doom that will come from their insect-like neighbors, who have acquired a powerful weapon and who hope to finally achieve the conquest they have been denied for thousands of years. From a card-cheating rabbit to a Marxist-spewing dragon and an angry indented bat servant, the group must make its way across the continent before it is too late!

While Jon-Tom learns to master the magic that defines the land, he and his companions gets in all sorts of trouble. Hilarious and poking fun of fantasy tropes, the Spellsinger nevertheless delivers an interesting world building and memorable characters!