Product Description

Set in the land of Zamonia, this exuberant, highly original fantasy from Walter Moers features an unlikely hero. Rumo is a little Wolperting - a domesticated creature somewhere between a deer and a dog - who will one day become the greatest hero in the history of Zamonia. Armed with Dandelion, his talking sword, he fights his way through the Overworld and the Netherworld. He meets Rala, a beautiful Wolperting female; Urs of the Snows, who thinks more of cooking than of fighting; Gornab the Ninety-Ninth, the demented king of Netherworld; Professor Ostafan Kolibri, who goes in search of the Non-Existent Teenies; Professor Abdullah Nightingale, inventor of the Chest-of-Drawers Oracle; and, worst luck, the deadly Metal Maiden.

Astonishingly inventive, amusing, and engrossing, Rumo is a captivating story from the unique imagination of Walter Moers. Illustrated with the author's own line drawings and filled with humor, this rambunctious novel will delight fans tired of the usual epic fantasy. The comparisons are many - Douglas Adams, Lewis Carrol, J.K. Rowling, Dr. Seuss, R. Crumb - but Moers is clearly an original. Long live Zamonia!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #152827 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-28
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 684 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Set in the land of Zamonia, this exuberant, highly original fantasy from German writer and cartoonist Moers (The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear) features an unlikely hero, Rumo, a little horned puppy (or Wolperting) who lives on a farm with a family of seven dwarfs. Rumo's rise to greatness begins when he's kidnapped by a Demonocle, "a vicious type of one-eyed giant," who takes him to Roaming Rock, a floating island. There Rumo befriends Volzotan Smyke, a Shark Grub, who can live on land or in water but "thought it wiser to convey the impression he was a sea creature pure and simple." Innumerable picaresque adventures follow, one of the funniest involving gambling and the hazards of winning. Illustrated with the author's appealing line drawings and full of sly humor, this rambunctious novel will appeal to fans tired of the usual epic fantasy, though they should be prepared for some violence in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
Another grand tale of Zamonia, first visited in The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear (2002), relays the adventures of half-deer, half-wolf Rumo the Wolperting, who's very good at fighting. In the beginning, all he knows is that he's teething, and his Hackonian keepers are being stuffed into bags and taken somewhere. Taken, too, he becomes a prisoner of the Demonocles on Roaming Rock. Thanks to gambling-shark grub Volztan Smyke, he gets a name, hears fantastic stories, and eventually fights free of the Demonocles. Thereafter, he goes to many fantastic places, ending up in the city of Wolperting, where he wins the double-bladed sword Dandelion and the beautiful Rala. In the forest to get wood for a gift for Rala, he encounters a talkative tree, and when he returns to Wolperting, everyone is missing. So it's off to the near-mythical Netherworld, where he takes on Gornab the Ninety-Ninth, mad king of Hel, and General Tick-Tock and his Copper Killers, a clockwork army. A brilliantly imagined, well-executed jaunt through strange lands full of wild characters. Regina Schroeder
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Kirkus Reviews, July 01, 2006
Cross Lord of the Rings with Yellow Submarine, throw in...Monty Python, Douglas Adams, Shrek and The Princess Bride...