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{{work}}
{{quote box|[[File:Alchemaster_3015.jpg|frame]]}}
 
{{quote| "A culinary ignoramus would have spat out a Sewer Dragon's knilch at once. It tastes extraordinary -- like nothing else. Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes -- they'd sooner eat the same things all the time -- but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes. It's the same with the alchemist: nothing strange, novel or surprising can deter him. On the contrary, he goes looking for such things. Are you ready for the next course?"}}
 
''[[The Alchemaster's Apprentice]]'' is a fantasy novel by German author [[Walter Moers (Creator)|Walter Moers]], and the fifth book that takes place on the fictional continent of Zamonia (the previous four being ''[[The Thirteen and A Half13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear (Literature)|The Thirteen and A Half Lives of Captain Bluebear]]'', ''Ensel and Krete'', ''[[Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures (Literature)|Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures]]'' and ''[[The City of Dreaming Books (Literature)|The City of Dreaming Books]]'').
 
The story follows Echo, a Crat (which is basically a normal housecat, except for the facts that it can talk and has two livers) who, after his kindly owner dies, finds himself homeless and living on the streets in Malaisea, the sickest and unhealthiest town in all of Zamonia.
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{{tropelist}}
=== The book provides examples of: ===
* [[Arc Words]]: "Nobody understands the Leathermice!" {{spoiler|Not, as it turns out, even the Leathermice themselves.}}
* [[Baleful Polymorph]]: Happens to Echo a couple of times as the result of some of Ghoolion's more "special" meals. During these scenes he also experiences [[The Mind Is a Plaything of Thethe Body]], as he quickly begins thinking like the creatures he's transformed into.
* [[Cats Are Mean|Crats Are Mean]]: Well, not ''mean'' so much as lacking in empathy. Though a friendly and amiable creature for the most part, Echo has his moments of cruelty.
* [[Disney Death]]: A particularly shocking one comes when {{spoiler|Echo, about halfway through the book, is led to believe that he's just ate his friend Theodore T. Theodore. Lucky that the wild fowl Ghoolion served him wasn't Theodore after all, but neither Echo nor the reader find out that Theodore is still alive until the very end of the story, where he re-enters the narrative just in time to play [[Deus Ex Machina]].}}
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Echo.
{{quote| "I'm very partial to black humor, so you're welcome to poke fun at a poor little Crat with one paw in the grave. However, please forgive me for not laughing at this particular moment. The laugh stuck in my throat and I was so hungry I swallowed it."}}
* [[Faux Affably Evil]]: Ghoolion swings between this and [[Affably Evil]]; he's genuinely charming, but it's impossible to tell how much of it is an act to manipulate Echo and how much of it is heartfelt.
* [[Food Porn]]: Ghoolion is an impossibly good cook, and even if some of the food sounds weird to us non-gourmets (see page quote), it's lovingly described and the taste sensations meticulously detailed.
** In the afterword, Optimus Yarnspinner calls the story a "culinary tale," and it's not hard to see why.
* [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]]: Doubly so, in fact. ''The Alchemaster's Apprentice'' is presented as [[The City of Dreaming Books (Literature)|Optimus Yarnspinner's]] reworking and modernization of the novella ''Echo the Crat'' by [[Meaningful Name|Gofrid Letterkerl]], further reworked and translated from Zamonian by Walter Moers.
* [[Lost in Translation]]: Many puns; for example the name of the Leathermice. The German term is "Ledermaus", which means the same while also being a pun on "Fledermaus", the German word for bats.
* [[Love Potion]]: Izanuela makes one for Ghoolion, to make him fall in love with her. {{spoiler|Too bad he's not only completely immune to it, but was perfectly aware of what she was doing all along.}}
* [[More Than Mind Control]]: Echo is subjected to a variant of this, partly through what appears to be a [[Magically -Binding Contract]], and partly through Ghoolion's expert manipulations of him -- which is why he doesn't flee from the Alchemaster despite having many opportunities and even making several attempts: he just can't bring himself to go through with it, even if he knows perfectly well that staying means death.
* [[Omniglot]]: Crats can understand and speak any language, and as such communicate effortlessly with any living creature. Echo makes good use of the ability.
* [[The Owl -Knowing One]]: Theodore T. Theodore, who serves as [[The Mentor]] to Echo in the first half of the book.
* [[Planet of Steves]]: ''All'' the Leathermice are named Vlad. Echo makes the mistake of asking them what he should call them, and then has to sit through the introductions of Vlad the First through Vlad the Two Thousand Four Hundred and Thirty-Eighth.
* [[Whole -Plot Reference]]: The plot of ''Alchemaster's Apprentice'' is overtly taken from the novella ''Mirror, the Kitten'' by 19th century novelist Gottfried Keller, where the story's setting is late-medieval Switzerland.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Fantasy Literature]]
[[Category:The AlchemastersAlchemaster's Apprentice]]
[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:German Literature]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alchemaster's Apprentice, The}}
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