Zamonia

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Zamonia is a rather obscure fantasy world with a cult following, created by German author and cartoonist Walter Moers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Moers). It is the setting for such amazing novels as The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear (v), and The City of Dreaming Books (http://www.amazon.com/City-Dreaming-Books-Walter-Moers/dp/1585678996). The world is rather silly in the tradition of Terry Pratchett's Discworld (http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Main_Page), but its novels contain quite a bit of interesting philosophy and drama. They are charmingly illustrated with amusing cartoons, and yet are intended for an adult audience, which is awesome.

The only Zamonia book I have so far read is The City of Dreaming Books, in which an anthropomorphic dinosaur visits a city called Bookholm in search of a mysterious author. Bookholm's economy hinges almost entirely on the sale of books, and rests on top of a massive network of book-shelf-laden catacombs containing long-lost libraries and tome-laden tombs. Our hero is marooned in this cave network, and must outsmart deranged Lovecraftian monsters and amuzingly sadistic traps in order to survive.

Its a lot of fun.

Zamonia is awesome.

UPDATE: I am now reading Captain Bluebear.

[Yora]

Bookholm always reminds me a lot of Sigil. There would be no problem at al converting the entire story to Planescape. :smallbiggrin:

[Dr. Simon]

Rumo and his Miraculous Adventures is a a good one too, although similar to The City of Dreaming Books in terms of plot. There's some nice little overlaps between each of the stories but they don't form part of an ongoing series so you can read them in any order, I think.

It's been on my mind to attempt d20 stats for some of the Zamonian creatures (as a follow-up to my Dr. Who d20 series). I might have time to do it one day...

[Eldan]

Bookholm always reminds me a lot of Sigil. There would be no problem at al converting the entire story to Planescape. :smallbiggrin:

That's... that's perfect. No one in my Planescape group speaks any German, so chances are, they don't know it.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

It's been on my mind to attempt d20 stats for some of the Zamonian creatures (as a follow-up to my Dr. Who d20 series). I might have time to do it one day...
You may want to look at my d20 Zamonia homebrew (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12367110#post12367110).

That's... that's perfect. No one in my Planescape group speaks any German, so chances are, they don't know it.
Well, the books have been translated (quite well) to English.

[dehro]

in italian too..yay for zamonia

and moers
and having tales within tales
within tales

[Eldan]

I guess, however, that the original children's TV show wasn't translated?

I pity you all for your sad, sad childhoods. :smalltongue:

[Yora]

Yeah! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISnb1Bzl8l0&feature=related) :smallbiggrin:

[Eldan]

Yora uses Nostalgia!

It is very effective!

Eldan is giggling loudly in the library, despite having the sound turned off!

[Icewalker]

I hadn't heard of these books before quite recently, until I ran across this fantastic picture:
http://culpeo-fox.deviantart.com/art/Media-Overkill-265773685?q=favby%3Amirrorcradle%2F4485743&qo=19

I am intrigued and ought to read them if I get the chance. So many things to read though.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

There was a TV show? :smallbiggrin:

Why didn't I ever know about it until now?!

[Kato]

Oh you crazy foreigners adoring our childhood entertainment :smallbiggrin:
Nah, I remember watching the show though it is not really tightly connected with the books.
But the books are pretty good (though I like them slightly less than like... all my friends, who love them) It's fun how German books actually get translated into English and are well received... I wonder how good the translation is but I guess Moers relies on puns and such much less than e.g. Pratchett.

There are quite a few by now, half a dozen or so, though I didn't read all (I think... four(?)...) As I said, they are pretty neat but some concepts are just kind of too childish to me to love them but fun enough anyway.

[Yora]

It ran as the last segment of a weekly kids show that always had a rerun on Sunday Morning. Which apparently made it very popular with parents as well.
I got 54 episodes on cassette tape, but never got around to convert them to mp3.

[Kato]

Hm... seems to be enough up on youtube... sadly nobody seemed to care to make subbed episodes... I'm almost tempted to do so but I have other stuff I should be doing...

Well, you can always learn German.

[Raz_Fox]

I remember, as a youth, passing by the thick blue spine of Rumo and his Miraculous Adventures time and time again. Once, I pulled it out, and thought to myself - no, this book will be entirely too silly. I had read silly fantasies before, and had not enjoyed them too much - no, this book would not do. But there was something about it that drew me again, and something about it that made me, every time, remove my curious hand and pass it by.

One day, thank heaven, my curiosity overcame me. I pulled out that big, thick book, with its silly dinosaurs and hounds and robots on the cover, and I decided that I might as well give it a try. And I sat down in a comfortable chair - well, to tell the truth, on a comfortable beanbag, you know, the kind that they toss on the floor for those people who would lounge about on the floor anyway - and I set to work.

By the time I had to leave the library, I had been introduced to Rumo, a most unusual hound, and a race of cannibal cyclopses, and Smyke, a creature that was something between a slug and a shark, who told stories of a most marvelous world, stories within stories, stories about dinosaurs who had survived in a mountain and were besieged by an army of clockwork soldiers who had the most unusual origin, having been created when a band of tinkers and a band of scientists and a band of blacksmiths and a band of clockmakers all happened to run into each other, all on their way to different conventions in this city or that, in the aftermath of a terrible battle-

I devoured that book. The rest of my day was simply devoted to that book. And so it was with the City of Dreaming Books, which is sitting on the floor next to me at this moment, that book which made me love foxes. And, soon, I hope to own yet another of his novels... but that's a story for another time.

So, yes, it could be said that I like Moers. It could be said that I like Moers a lot. That scene, the market-scene in Rumo, that went on for several chapters - it terrified me, not because of what happened, but because of how vividly his detailing brought the market to life! It was as if I was there, and I could see everything described, hear, smell, taste the magnificent market-day of the city of the Wolpertings... I once opened up Rumo, after deciding that this writing thing was something that I greatly desired to do professionally, and I had to put it down after only a chapter, overwhelmed by how rich Moers' writing is.

And any writer who makes me care for a dinosaur novelist and a young deer-wolf pugilist moving in a very fantastic, bizarre and alien world is a good writer indeed; any writer who can make me fear deeply a tick-tock general with a heart of pure evil, and at the same time be fascinated by him, is a good writer indeed. If he can make me accept that these undead yetis, the flesh stripped from their bones, now reawakened by thinking sand, provide a ferrying-service in the underdark, and are characters to care about - to the point where their heroic sacrifice is supremely tragic - where other writers could not make me believe in their mere, ordinary humans, then I would say that he is a very good writer indeed.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I first picked up The City of Dreaming Books at a library. I didn't find the cover (http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=the+city+of+dreaming+books&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1600&bih=799&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=FzmEwX1djaZiAM:&imgrefurl=http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/walter-moers/the-city-of-dreaming-books-9780099490579.aspx&docid=CkQFuLRXXI7mJM&imgurl=http://www.randomhouse.com.au/content/titles/9780099490579.jpg&w=600&h=916&ei=XoDqToTjC-SfiAK1q8S0BA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1041&vpy=114&dur=359&hovh=278&hovw=182&tx=103&ty=205&sig=108223385216371819556&page=1&tbnh=147&tbnw=97&start=0&ndsp=35&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0) very appealing, thinking it childish and gaudy, but I had a long internet-less ferry ride ahead and I needed something to do. I liked it even less after reading the first chapter, considering it to be badly-translated over-glorified swill. I only actually started liking the book after the four-page description of Optimus's reaction to the mysterious manuscript.

I became truly fascinated when Optimus arrived in bookholm. I found the place so utterly enthralling, reading riveted as I kicked myself so not having thought of it myself. The book's pace was so slow and the descriptions were so long that the experience should have been painful. Yet, everything was so perfectly creative that the book was like a euphoric drug that injected the mind full of pure creative energy.

[Eldan]

And I still don't understand where they pulled the name Optimus from for the English version. I mean, I understand not using the German name, but Optimus?

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

And I still don't understand where they pulled the name Optimus from for the English version. I mean, I understand not using the German name, but Optimus?

I don't see why not. Its a pretty decent name.

[Yora]

I first picked up The City of Dreaming Books at a library. I didn't find the cover (http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=the+city+of+dreaming+books&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1600&bih=799&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=FzmEwX1djaZiAM:&imgrefurl=http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/walter-moers/the-city-of-dreaming-books-9780099490579.aspx&docid=CkQFuLRXXI7mJM&imgurl=http://www.randomhouse.com.au/content/titles/9780099490579.jpg&w=600&h=916&ei=XoDqToTjC-SfiAK1q8S0BA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1041&vpy=114&dur=359&hovh=278&hovw=182&tx=103&ty=205&sig=108223385216371819556&page=1&tbnh=147&tbnw=97&start=0&ndsp=35&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0) very appealing, thinking it childish and gaudy, but I had a long internet-less ferry ride ahead and I needed something to do. I liked it even less after reading the first chapter, considering it to be badly-translated over-glorified swill. I only actually started liking the book after the four-page description of Optimus's reaction to the mysterious manuscript.

I became truly fascinated when Optimus arrived in bookholm. I found the place so utterly enthralling, reading riveted as I kicked myself so not having thought of it myself. The book's pace was so slow and the descriptions were so long that the expired should have been painful. Yet, everything was so perfectly creative that the book was like a euphoric drug that injected the mind full of pure creative energy.
It works, because it's all from the main characters perspective, and he actually is an incredible boring person. Which the book manages to make fun off, even though he's doing all the narrating.

[Eldan]

Has anyone else read his fairy tale, which I have no idea how to translate the name of into English? The parody of Hänsel and Gretel?

Its pretty funny. Written by the same Mr. Yarnspinner, in his crazy mess-with-critics phase. He often stops telling the actual story for a few pages to launch into a long rant about critics, and how he is so much better than anything else.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Has anyone else read his fairy tale, which I have no idea how to translate the name of into English? The parody of Hänsel and Gretel?

Its pretty funny. Written by the same Mr. Yarnspinner, in his crazy mess-with-critics phase. He often stops telling the actual story for a few pages to launch into a long rant about critics, and how he is so much better than anything else.

I really hope it has been translated to English. If not, I'm going to have to learn German.

[Yora]

Wikipedia says no.

However, I advise anyone to very carefully consider actually learning german. It's easily as difficult as french, if not even more so, and will most likely only be of any use to read german literature. Which has a nasty habit of using really difficult german.
If you decide to learn a new language just for the fun of it, pick something else. :smallbiggrin:

[dehro]

I have..it was fun, though I still prefer Rumo of Zamonia.

[Iruka]

I'm currently rereading City of Dreaming Books since its successor Labyrinth of Dreaming Books was recently published.
I noticed that I forgot quite a lot, for example the trumpone concert (I hope that's what they are called in english). I could have sworn that took place in Rumo.
And in case someone here didn't know about it:
Most of the names of authors and composers from Zamonia are anagrams of the names of authors from our world, for example Ohjann Golgo van Fontheweg is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[Yora]

Woski Ejstod and Orca de Wils are easier.

And Werma Tosler.

[Eldan]

Woski Ejstod and Orca de Wils are easier.

And Werma Tosler.

Okay, I got most of these, but who's Werma Tosler supposed to be?

[Iruka]

Okay, I got most of these, but who's Werma Tosler supposed to be?

I'm pretty sure you know that author.

small hint
First name is six letters, male.

[Eldan]

*headdesk*

Okay. That was obvious.

[dehro]

I'm so oblivious to the obvious that it never occurred to me that those names could be anagrams of actual writers.
and now I know I'm none the wiser because I'm also crap at anagrams

I'll have to check if those names have been translated somehow or if they've remained the same in the italian version I read...
..just because I'm clutching at straws for being stupid.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I'm so oblivious to the obvious that it never occurred to me that those names could be anagrams of actual writers.
and now I know I'm none the wiser because I'm also crap at anagrams

I'll have to check if those names have been translated somehow or if they've remained the same in the italian version I read...
..just because I'm clutching at straws for being stupid.

Reading the excerpts can give you a pretty good idea.

[Partysan]

Oh gods, I'm so in love with these books. Well, the last two didn't fascinate me quite as much, but I'm still a great fan. Have been for years.
The author seems to be a rather strange figure, although in a charming way. Almost never appears in public or gives interviews, and the at least one if the like two he's given is actually given in impersonation of... how do they call him in the English version? Yarnspinner someone said? (Literally his name means Mythsmith.)
Another interesting thing is that he illustrates himself and plays around with the designs a lot, like that double page in Rumo where they're in that dark tent and the pages are black and the writing white. Which is why I try to buy the first printing of the books for the original layout.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

One thing I didn't like about TCoDB is how self-referential it is. "Dear readers" is thrown around a lot, and it gets obnoxious.

[Eldan]

The author seems to be a rather strange figure, although in a charming way. Almost never appears in public or gives interviews, and the at least one if the like two he's given is actually given in impersonation of... how do they call him in the English version? Yarnspinner someone said? (Literally his name means Mythsmith.).

Myth-mason, I think, is a slightly closer translation. But both are nice.

[Partysan]

Myth-mason, I think, is a slightly closer translation. But both are nice.

Indeed you're right. Don't know what I was thinking there. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Yora]

One thing I didn't like about TCoDB is how self-referential it is. "Dear readers" is thrown around a lot, and it gets obnoxious.

I think this is kind of the main point about the whole book. Primarily it's about writers and the literature industry.

I got Labyrinth of Dreaming Books for Christmas from my parents. Read the first chapters last night (we get our presents a day earlier around here). I always remembered having loved The City, but after just the first page I instantly remembered what makes these books so remarkable. All these jabs against celebrity writers and critics is just so spot on, with lots of very subtle puns and references I would have no idea how to translate.
This should provide me with lots of stuff to do on the train ride home.

[Eldan]

I got it for my brother. The other Moers books are the only books I've ever seen him read. (Quite sad, really, he hates reading).

That said, since he reads at a pace of two or three pages per week, I'll probably be done with it before him, and without him noticing I had it :smalltongue:

[Adumbration]

Oh mi gosh, I never thought I'd find other fans on this forum! I haven't read those books in a while, but I loved Rumo and the Captain Bluebear's adventures. :smallbiggrin: The imagery is just so vivid... And people never understand what I'm talking about when I try to explain why they should try the series. I'm reduced to saying "Trust me, they're great!"

I don't know about the dinosaur author, for some reason I always thought it was a little dry compared to the other books. I never really grew attached to the main character like I did with the others.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I started reading Captain Bluebear today, and I'm roughly a third of the way through. Its no City of Dreaming Books, but still entertaining. I'll write a full review when I've finished.

[Yora]

We listened to the Audiobook of Enzel and Kretel at my parents. It's another one of the Dinosaur-written ones, and one from his phase where he was deluded by his fame and believing everything he does to be a masterpice.
I think we got about 90 to 120 minutes in, and the actual plot can be reduced to 3 minutes. The rest is just brilliant mocking of rural german tourism and literature. The first 20 minutes are just description of the tourist resort, followed by 15 minutes of plot, which suddenly stops for the author to make a 30 minute description of his study, before contiuing with the story.
At some point he just stops telling the story, because he's such a literary genius that he has mastered to such a degree where it improves the overall quality of his work even when he gets into an unrelated rant.
I especially like the part when, as a protest against editorial faschism, he only keeps writing "brumli, brumli, brumli, brumli, brumli. Brumli, brumli, brumli. Brumli." Just because he can, and no editor who wants to keep his job would dare to alter it.
In the book, it's just a visual gag. As an audiobook, the narrator reads it all, the full two minutes or so it takes. :smallbiggrin: