Book excerpt: A factory worker is kidnapped to help an elf reforge a broken spear, in this trilogy opener by the bestselling author of the Legend of Drizzt series. Gary Leger is desperate for adventure. Daydreaming is all that keeps him from going nuts while working a dead-end job in a plastics factory. The next best thing is burying himself in a good fantasy novel, and he spends much of his free time reading in the woods behind his house. That’s when adventure finds him. Or rather, that’s when he’s hit with a tranquilizer arrow . . . When Gary comes to, he’s still in the woods—but in a world inhabited by creatures from his favorite novels, like a pixie and a leprechaun. There’s also an elf on a dangerous life-quest who requires Gary’s assistance. As soon as Gary finishes helping him, he can go home. He simply needs to complete the task . . . while surviving encounters with trolls, an ice-hag, a dragon, and a sorceress bent on stopping them at all costs. This first novel in the Spearwielder’s Tale trilogy is a great choice for fans of Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger books and Terry Brooks’s Shannara series. Praise for The Woods Out Back “Written as a light-hearted adventure, the book works because the reader sees the world of Faerie through Gary’s eyes and Faerie is just as new to him as it is to the reader. . . . The book’s fast-paced, good-humored nature draws the reader in and makes the world of Faerie a fine place to visit—good thing there are two more installments!” —SF Site