"Malaisea is the unhealthiest town in the whole of Zamonia, home to Echo the Crat, a multi-talented creature that resembles a cat but is capable of speaking any language under the sun. When his mistress dies and Echo finds himself starving on the street, 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...

"It has been more than two hundred years since Bookholm was destroyed by a devastating fire, as told in Moers's The City of Dreaming Books. Optimus Yarnspinner, hailed as Zamonia's greatest writer, is on vacation in Lindworm Castle when a disturbing message reaches him, and he must return to Bookholm to investigate a mystery. The magnificently rebuilt city has once again become a metropolis of storytelling and the book trade. Yarnspinner encounters...