Into the Thinking Kingdoms by Alan Dean Foster

Etjole Ehomba and his companions have made it past the Sea of Ahoqua, but finding a ship to take them across the Semordria Ocean is impossible in the port city of Lybondai; or so says Haramos bin Grue, a merchant who claims to have a solution for them. But when he shows off his magical bar, complete with dining room, patrons and the token cockroach, it is a trap, and he steals away Ahlitah to sell him to the highest bidder. Etjole and Simna must steal him back, and get away from the magical creations and possessions of Haramos bin Grue.

But even after they have retrieved their companion, more perils lie ahead, from a swamp haunted by horses, even the spirits of those who have not been yet, to the thinking kingdoms themselves, which count themselves "civilized", but may try to control how their citizens think, or treat those not like themselves with cruelty unimagined by any others. They also pick up a new traveling companion, Hunkapa Aub, a Neander who is imprisoned by the citizens of Netherbrae, acting as a scapegoat for their problems. Lastly, they find the country of Larabonda, from which came Taryn Beckwith, but the return of Haramos bin Grue brings them more trouble, and when they travel to Hamacassar to find a ship capable of carrying them to Ehl-Larimar, Etjole winds up in trouble with the Logicians, a group capable of manipulating the very fabric of time itself. When they remove him from the ship they have hired to take them across the Semordria, it looks as though his journey is over. He has already escaped from so many dangers and perils, but how can he escape from the masters of time itself?

The middle book of a trilogy often suffers by comparison to the rest of the books. It is neither the exciting beginning nor the amazing end, and is too often boring, as the author seems to have run out of ideas and merely bulls his or her way through to get to the ending and thus the ending of the journey. But Alan Dean Foster doesn't suffer from this problem. The "Thinking Kingdoms" believe themselves civilized, but turn out to be savage and primitive in quite a different way, full of people who are all too ready to tell others how to think, bellieve, or who just are full of talk about being civilized, but in reality are little better than the "Savage" lands that Etjole and his friends travelled through to get there in the first place.

Once again, we are treated to Etjole's wonderful items, apparently made by everyone in his village but himself. It's as if he lives in a village of magicians and sorcerers and he is the only normal one (for extreme values of "normal" of course) living among them. Both his companions insist he is a sorcerer, a magician, a man with lots and lots of magic, titles that Etjole resists. And yet we get a feeling he is someone who protesteth a bit too much for my taste. Is it realistic that he is the only one (or one of the few) that have no magic in a village where everyone else is able to do such wondrous things? Well, we'll soon know, as the end is coming, and I am looking forward to it.