Barmy Jeffers

The Barmy Jeffers series is a series of three comedic children's novels by J.H. Brennan, which center around the adventures of Barney "Barmy" Jeffers. He is an ordinary boy from our reality who inadvertently falls into an alternate reality which is an affectionate parody of fantasy tabletop roleplaying games in general, and Dungeons & Dragons in particular.
Books in the Barmy Jeffers series
Barmy Jeffers and the Quasimodo Walk (1988)
Barney "Barmy" Jeffers is an ordinary boy with an enthusiasm for roleplaying games. He has developed an unusual gait, called the "Quasimodo Walk" which he performs in order to irritate his younger sister. One day, while exploring an abandoned building, he performs the Walk on an impulse and accidentally falls through into an alternate reality.
In the other world, he meets the Reverend Lancelot Bong, a from the Order of the Church Militant, who takes him in. Bong explains that reality is like a Moebius Strip and that Barmy fell through from one "side" to the other as a result of the Quasimodo Walk - monsters can pass through the "twist" between realities, and the Walk makes Barmy resemble a monster. Bong proposes an expedition to find an expert in reality warps, so that Barmy can get home to his own reality.
They gather together a party of adventurers (each of whom embodies a parodic representation of a ). This is fairly easy, because in this reality adventuring into the monster-filled wilderness in search of treasure is a popular (if dangerous) career. In addition to Barmy and the Reverend Bong, their party consists of:
*Facecrusher - a female , and the expedition's leader.
*The Amazing Presto, a who trains Barmy in rudimentary magic.
*Ben, a friendly .
*Aspen, an attractive female fighter (probably a , in D&D terms) with a strange stone-ball weapon no-one else can lift.
*Pendragon, a who is largely ridiculed by the rest of the party.
*Rowan, a who is accompanied by an enormous dog named Eyenek.
The party rapidly discover that the specialist they seek has been captured by the villainous Baron Tanaka. When they infiltrate his castle, they discover that Lauren (Barmy's sister) has followed him to the alternate reality and become Tanaka's Court Wizard, by dint of impressing him with a battery-powered torch. She attempts to help the party, but they are captured anyway. Tanaka intends to execute them all, but Barmy uses a spell to summon an entity known as a "slith" which destroys the castle, and the party escape along with Lauren and the specialist who was imprisoned in Tanaka's castle.
The specialist demonstrates that all that is needed to create a portable "twist" is to make a large enough Moebius strip from paper and hang it up so that they can Quasimodo Walk through it. Lauren and Barmy do this, and return home.
The Return of Barmy Jeffers and the Quasimodo Walk (1988)
Some time after the events of the previous book, Barmy is awakened by a noise at his bedroom window (on the second floor of the house). It turns out to be a vampire who attacks him, but flees when Barmy fights back. Shortly afterwards, Rowan appears in his room and explains that the vampire was a "hit-vamp" sent by Baron Tanaka who survived the destruction of his castle and wants revenge. In addition, the Reverend Bong has disappeared in the wilderness and no-one knows what has happened to him. Barmy returns to the alternate reality, and again Lauren follows him. They are reunited with the rest of the party from the previous book (minus Bong) and set out to find him, and to defeat Tanaka once and for all.
They find the Reverend Bong in a vampires' nest, having been converted to a vampire, but he is restored to humanity when the vampire who converted him is staked and killed. The party then advances on Tanaka's new stronghold, but are captured by . The Baron attempts to feed the party to a monster (implied to be a sort of dinosaur) called the "Ooompatherium" but it is killed by a group of feral children that the party met in the vampire nest, and he is finally defeated.
Barmy Jeffers and the Shrinking Potion (1989)
This book is somewhat darker than the previous two.
Barmy has grown nostalgic for his previous adventures. He rigs up a Moebius strip as described in the first book, and deliberately Quasimodo Walks through it to get to the other world. This time, he arrives in an entirely unfamiliar place. He is discovered by an aged monk from a temple of immortal monks. It turns out that the monks are immortal because of volcanic fumes that fill their monastery and grant people who breathe them an extended lifespan and a very short temper. The monks enlist Barmy to recover a lost tablet which contains the secret alchemical ritual they use to create gold. They then give him a shrinking potion so that he can enter an anthill.
Inside the anthill, Barmy has a telepathic conversation with the Queen, who explains that she is only the mouthpiece, and that the entire ant colony is a unified consciousness. The ants give Barmy a special armour made of leaf-pulp, and transport him to the city where his friends from the previous books live so that he can get the party back together to find the monks' lost tablet. The ants then feed him royal jelly which restores him to his original size.
Once the party have reconvened (minus Rowan, who is busy elsewhere) they sail for the island where the monks' tablet is supposed to be. The tablet is inside the tomb of a long-dead king who had an affinity for giant spiders. When they arrive, they are captured by orcs who attempt to sacrifice them by throwing them into the top of the tomb. The party survive the fall, and are rescued from the pit by Rowan and Eyenek who have followed them to the island. With Rowan's help, they make their way into the depths of the tomb.
In the first area, they encounter a mechanical garden, with lakes of quicksilver and the Reverend Bong is killed by a crossbow trap. As they progress through the tomb, more party members are trapped, killed or paralysed. In the final chamber, the remainder of the party face an army of giant spiders who defend the dead king. The spiders overpower the party, but before they can be killed the monks appear, having also followed the party to the island. The tablet, which the party had just found, turns out to have a resurrection spell on the other side from the transmutation spell so the dead and paralysed party members can be restored.
Barmy then leaves the other world for good.

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