Literature / The Golden Hamster Saga

The Golden Hamster Saga is a series of children's books written by German author Dietlof Reiche, translated into English by John Brownjohn, and illustrated by Joe Cepeda. The series follows a golden hamster named Freddy Auratus, who learns how to read and write and can communicate with humans by typing on a computer. Other characters include his owner Mr. John, the civilized tomcat Sir William, the singing guinea pigs Enrico and Caruso, and Freddy's six-year-old original owner Sophie.

The books in the series are:

1. I, Freddy (1998)
2. Freddy in Peril (1999)
3. Freddy to the Rescue (2000)
4. The Haunting of Freddy (2001)
5. Freddy's Final Quest (2003)

---

The Golden Hamster Saga contains examples of:

• Abandoned Area: In Freddy in Peril, Freddy, Sir William, and the guinea pigs hide out in an empty house scheduled for demolition.
• Acid Reflux Nightmare: At the beginning of Freddy to the Rescue, Freddy is awakened by someone screaming "Help! The Hamster Killer! It's outside my burrow!" in Interanimal. When Freddy tells the other animals about it, Sir William tells him he ate too much before bed and advises him to only eat a morsel or two of lettuce for supper in the future. But a few minutes later, there's another scream, and this time Sir William hears it too.
• Acting for Two: In-universe example. In Freddy's Final Quest, the characters go to see a stage production of Freddy in Peril, with the same two actors playing both Enrico and Caruso and Fleischkopf and Brewster.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: In Freddy in Peril, Freddy and Sir William return to the abandoned house, only to find that the villainous Professor Fleischkopf has broken in and captured Enrico and Caruso and is waiting for them.
• Alphabetical Theme Naming: In Freddy in Peril, the protagonists are helped by a tribe of rats who give every rat born around the same time a name starting with the same letter.
• Angst Coma: Freddy sinks into an apathetic state when he's upset. When he's moved into Mr. John's apartment in I, Freddy, he realizes that it won't be safe for him to venture outside his cage when there's a cat around and is so upset about the loss of freedom that he enters a hibernating stupor. Luckily for him, Sir William turns out to be non-violent.
• Animals Fear Neutering: Averted. Sir William tells Freddy, "All truly civilized tomcats are neutered."
• Animal Talk: All mammals except humans can communicate through a telepathic language called Interanimal.
• Bilingual Animal:
  • Freddy is a downplayed example — he can't speak like a human, but he can type, which allows him to translate for the animals.
  • Freddy's Final Quest has Tjark the robotic hamster, who is programmed to speak English, and who picks up Interanimal in minutes.
• Broken Masquerade: At the end of Freddy to the Rescue, enough people know Freddy can read and write that Mr. John decides it would be safer to make the fact public. That way, if anyone tries to hurt Freddy, they'll have his fans to contend with.
• Buried Alive: In Freddy to the Rescue, Freddy is in a field hamster burrow when a bulldozer drives right overhead, causing the tunnel to cave in around him. He tries to dig himself out but soon becomes exhausted. He's eventually rescued by Enrico and Caruso.
• Cathartic Chores: Freddy calms himself by rearranging his larder.
• Cat Scare: In The Haunting of Freddy, the protagonists are discussing how to deal with the spirit of Grim Harry when the door to the great hall suddenly slams open. Everyone is startled before they realize it was just a gust of wind.
• The Cavalry: In Freddy in Peril, Enrico and Caruso manage to communicate to Mr. John that Freddy has been kidnapped by the Mad Scientist Professor Fleischkopf. Mr. John races to Freddy's rescue with the help of Sophie's father Gregory and the reporter Linda Carson. They arrive just as he's about to be dissected.
• Code Name: The Muskrats, a group of animal rights campaigners in Freddy to the Rescue, call themselves Muskrat One, Muskrat Two, and Muskrat Three, although they keep forgetting not to use their real names.
• Cope by Creating:
  • Freddy deals with the traumatic events of Freddy in Peril by writing them down.
  • More broadly, in Freddy's Final Quest, Freddy realizes that reading and writing is a coping mechanism for his unnatural situation of being a wild animal who lives in an apartment, as golden hamsters aren't domesticated. If he lived in the wild, he wouldn't want to read or write.
• Copycat Mockery: In The Haunting of Freddy, the rabbit Marmaduke puts on airs by strutting around on his hind legs like a human. Enrico and Caruso walk on their hind legs behind him and imitate his gestures to make the assembled rabbits laugh. Every time Marmaduke turns around, the guinea pigs run down a hole before he can see them.
• Cut Phone Lines: In Freddy in Peril, Professor Fleischkopf unplugs Mr. John's computer while he's on a business trip so Freddy can't email him for help.
• Death Is a Sad Thing: When Freddy is a baby, his Great-Grandmother lives in the same cage as him and his siblings, until she enters Eternal Hibernation. Freddy thinks she's asleep until the pet store clerk takes her away. Freddy's siblings don't care much, since hamsters aren't social animals, but Freddy greatly misses her because she was the only other hamster who was interested in thinking and talking instead of fighting.
• Department of Redundancy Department: In the first book, Freddy lists a hamster's three worst enemies as shortage of food, dirt, and shortage of food.
• Direct Line to the Author: Freddy wrote all five books on Mr. John's computer, besides the epilogue of Freddy's Final Quest, which was written by Mr. John.
• Dramatic Sit-Down: In Freddy to the Rescue, Mr. John tells Linda to sit down before Freddy shows her he can type. It turns out that rather than being shocked, Linda already figured out Freddy's secret because of the miniature rope ladder leading from the floor to the top of Mr. John's desk — there's no food or exercise equipment on the desk, so she correctly guessed the ladder was there to give Freddy access to the computer.
• Dreaming Of Things Gone By: In The Haunting of Freddy, the ghost of Grim Harry can cause people to have visions of past events. He puts images in Freddy's head so Freddy can write a historically accurate account of the events leading up to Harry's death, and forces Annabelle and Sebastian to have horrifying visions.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In Freddy to the Rescue, the field hamsters are in despair over the bulldozers that have been destroying their burrows and killing them one by one. Enrico and Caruso try to cheer them up with a skit in which Caruso plays a bulldozer, but the hamsters boo them off the stage and chase them out of the cave.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Professor Fleischkopf is researching the nature of intelligence so he can find out how to influence it genetically and rid the world of "knuckleheads."
• Expospeak: The other animals accuse Freddy of this whenever he uses words like "email" or "internet."
• Eyes Never Lie: When Professor Fleischkopf first looks at Freddy, his gaze is so cold and sinister that Freddy involuntary snarls.
• Famed In-Story: Freddy becomes a bestselling author after he stops hiding the fact that he's a literate hamster.
• Fat and Skinny: Fat, black-and-white Caruso and skinny, red-and-white Enrico.
• Find the Cure!: In Freddy's Final Quest, Signor Goldoni's son has an incurable genetic blood disorder that will soon kill him. Goldoni thinks that if he could get some of the family's DNA from before the disorder appeared in their bloodline, he would be able to develop a cure. He invents a time machine and sends Freddy, Sir William, Enrico, and Caruso back to twelfth century Assyria, where his ancestor Cavaliere Goldoni was a crusader, to try to collect a DNA sample.
• First Kiss: In Freddy's Final Quest, Freddy kisses Zuleika, the first female of his species he's met since he was a baby.
• Fright Deathtrap: In The Haunting of Freddy, Grim Harry first appears to the elderly Agatha Templeton. He gives her a fatal heart attack, possibly by showing her images of people being tortured in the 1500s.
• A Hero Is Born: The first book begins with Freddy's birth in a pet store.
• Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: When Professor Fleischkopf introduces himself to Mr. John as Professor Schmidt, Freddy suspects he's lying because he hesitates slightly before saying the name.
• Human Ladder: During the rabbits' show in The Haunting of Freddy, Lucinda sings a song about her Trademark Favorite Food celery, which she insists on doing on top of a three-story pyramid of nine rabbits. Then she sees Enrico and Caruso walking towards her nibbling on celery. She demands that the other rabbits put her down, but after the difficulty of forming the pyramid, they don't want her to leave before finishing her song. Lucinda struggles until the pyramid collapses.
• I Don't Pay You to Think: Professor Fleischkopf's dimwitted henchman Brewster asks "Have we really broken into this joint to snitch a hamster?" Fleischkopf replies, "Once and for all, Brewster: I'm paying you to obey orders, not to ask questions."
• I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: In Freddy to the Rescue, the animal rights activist Jenny flirts with a guard named Eddy to get him to help the animals infiltrate a construction site. Freddy originally suggested using Linda Carson, but Eddy's dog preferred Jenny's perfume.
• I Have Your Wife:
  • The first time Professor Fleischkopf enters Mr. John's apartment, all the animals hide, but Fleischkopf threatens to go after Sophie if he can't find Freddy. After he leaves, the animals agree that the only solution is for all four of them to go on the run so that the next time Fleischkopf visits the apartment, he'll know that Freddy is gone and taking Sophie hostage is a waste of time.
  • Later, he captures Enrico and Caruso and only releases them after Freddy turns himself in.
• Impoverished Patrician: In The Haunting of Freddy, the Templetons are descended from a sixteenth-century baron, but they're running low on money and their castle has fallen into disrepair.
• I Never Got Any Letters: In Freddy in Peril, the rats lead Freddy to an inhabited house with a Macintosh he can use to send Mr. John an email. Unfortunately, Professor Fleischkopf has hacked into Mr. John's email account and deletes the message before Mr. John can read it.
• I, Noun: I, Freddy.
• I Shall Taunt You: In Freddy in Peril, Professor Fleischkopf and Brewster try to use a vicious, cat-hating dog named Rex to track down the protagonists. Sir William lures Rex away from the other three by yelling "Rexy is a cat lover!" Enraged, Rex yanks his leash out of Brewster's hand and runs after Sir William, who leads him on a lengthy chase before giving him the slip and reuniting with Freddy, Enrico, and Caruso.
• Mad Scientist: Professor Fleischkopf dissects hamsters' brains while they're still alive and conscious. He spends most of Freddy in Peril trying to kidnap Freddy so he can find out why he can read and write.
• Make an Example of Them: In the backstory of The Haunting of Freddy, Baron Templeton forbids peasants from using weapons to hunt on his land. In 1593, he redefines "weapons" to include animals, ruining the livelihood of Grim Harry, who uses ferrets to hunt rabbits. Grim Harry, who feels that the law is unjust, continues to hunt using ferrets. He's caught and publicly hanged. The Baron goes to a great deal of effort to make sure there are as many spectators as possible so everyone will know what happens to people who defy him.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: In Freddy in Peril, Freddy asks the rat Karen Graywhisker if Graywhisker the Great is her father. She answers, "Maybe, maybe not. He's our tribal chief, anyway."
• Missing Mom:
  • In The Haunting of Freddy, all we learn about Annabelle and Sebastian's mother is that she's "not here."
  • In Freddy's Final Quest, Hakim Yakoub refers to his ten-year-old daughter Atira as "motherless" and says that she'll be left an orphan if he dies.
• My Instincts Are Showing: Sometimes Sir William's less-civilized reflexes get the better of him. For example, when he meets Karen in Freddy in Peril, he arches his back at her before he regains control of himself and apologizes.
• Nearly Normal Animal: Freddy and his friends are Largely Normal. They can communicate across species and understand human speech, but Freddy is the only one who can actually communicate with humans.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Freddy in Peril, Mr. John leaves town for a few days. Sophie and her father Gregory visit his apartment every day to feed his pets. Sophie worries that the building will catch fire and the pets will be trapped in the apartment. Gregory agrees to leave the door unlocked, reasoning that Sir William will be able to pull the handle down in case of an emergency and that Mr. John doesn't have anything worth stealing. Professor Fleischkopf enters the apartment that night, forcing the animals to go on the run.
• Off the Record: In Freddy to the Rescue, an automobile factory is scheduled to be built in a wheat field inhabited by endangered field hamsters. The mayor claims there are no hamsters in the field, but when Mr. John and Linda go to interview him, he admits off the record that he's willing to kill a few dozen hamsters in order to create hundreds of jobs.
• Painting the Medium: Important words and shouted dialogue are in Johnny Lunchpail, the same font used on the covers.
• Pet's Homage Name: The whistling guinea pigs Enrico and Caruso.
• Pit Trap: In Freddy to the Rescue, the Muskrats bury boxes around a construction site in the hopes of capturing field hamsters and moving them to another field. They only succeed in capturing Freddy and Sir William.
• Predator-Prey Friendship: Freddy the hamster and Enrico and Caruso the guinea pigs are friends with Sir William the cat.
• Race Against the Clock: Tjark has a time machine built into him, but his batteries only last 48 hours, so the protagonists need to finish their mission in that amount of time or they'll be stuck in the Middle Ages forever. In practice the time limit ends up being closer to one day because Tjark is forced to burn hours' worth of energy traveling and breaking his fall from a table, and because Tjark expends more energy under stress just like any other animal. They finally make it back to the present with less than a second to spare.
• Resourceful Rodent: In the first book, Freddy figures out how to use one of Sophie's pencils as a lever to open his cage.
• Reverse Arm-Fold: Some of the illustrations show Freddy standing like this.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Enrico and Caruso like to speak in rhyme, to Freddy's annoyance.
• Sapient Eat Sapient: Sir William is too civilized to eat pets, but when he's away from Mr. John's apartment he has no qualms about eating wild mice. Freddy is shocked the first time this happens in Freddy in Peril, but he eventually gets used to the idea and compares it to hamsters eating live mealworms.
• Scam Religion: The field hamsters in Freddy to the Rescue worship a clay jar called the Jar of Hope into which they put offerings every week. They hope the jar will protect them from bulldozers, but their offerings are really being eaten by the priest Fronso.
• Scheherezade Gambit: In Freddy's Final Quest, Enrico and Caruso are captured by starving Crusaders. Luckily for them, one of the monks Speaks Fluent Animal, and he forces them to spend hours putting on skits, planning to eat them as soon as they run out of ideas.
• Sensory Overload: Freddy's sensitive ears and nose make him prone to this. When he first meets Mr. John, he finds the smell of cat and guinea pig so overwhelming that he falls over backwards, then scurries into his cage.
• Shoo the Dog: In I, Freddy, Sophie's mom grudgingly tolerates Freddy at first, but when she discovers she's allergic to his fur, she makes Sophie give Freddy to Mr. John.
• Signature Scent: To Freddy, many people have one.
  • Sophie smells like sunflower seeds.
  • Sophie's mom smells like lavender and chervil.
  • Mr. John smells strongly of cat and guinea pig.
  • Professor Fleischkopf smells like his sulfurous anti-dandruff shampoo.
  • Linda Carson smells like apple and peach blossom.
  • Jenny, a.k.a. Muskrat Three, smells like rosemary.
  • Atira, a young girl from medieval Sidon who appears in Freddy's Final Quest, smells like jasmine.
• Skeleton Key: Early in Freddy in Peril, Professor Fleischkopf tries to break into Mr. John's apartment using two different skeleton keys. It doesn't work, and he eventually gives up.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: In Freddy's Final Quest, the monk Francis turns out to be one of the very few humans who can understand Interanimal, allowing him to translate Enrico and Caruso's skits for Cavaliere Goldoni.
• Taught by Television: At the pet store, Freddy learns tricks to charm potential buyers by watching a video of bears begging for food on the store's TV.
• Temporal Mutability: Freddy's Final Quest uses enforced immutability. Signor Goldoni invents a time machine, but determines that because going back and altering history would cause a paradox, and because a human would hardly be able to do anything without altering history, it must be impossible for humans to time travel. He calls it the Goldonian Law of Time Travel. Instead, he sends Freddy, Sir William, Enrico, Caruso, and the robotic hamster Tjark back in time because animals have no history or cultural influence.
• Temporal Sickness: In Freddy's Final Quest, Freddy and Sir William both feel severely nauseous for several minutes after they arrive in the 1100s. Enrico and Caruso both feel fine. When the protagonists return to the present day, everyone feels even more sick than before, and even Enrico and Caruso are affected this time.
• That Liar Lies: In Freddy to the Rescue, Freddy tries to tell the field hamsters that if they stay in their field, they'll all be crushed to death, and they need to find a new home. Fronso yells, "He's lying! The hamster killer will disappear. That's certain, because the Jar of Hope has heard your prayer," and accuses Freddy of trying to steal the field hamsters' stores.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!:
  • Mr. John refers to his cat as William, but when Freddy calls him that, William replies, "Sir William, if you please. Everyone calls me Sir William."
  • When Professor Fleischkopf dismisses his henchman Brewster in Freddy in Peril, Brewster says, "Mr. Brewster, if you don't mind."
• They Would Cut You Up: In I, Freddy, this is why Mr. John tells Freddy not to tell Sophie that he can read and write.
  Mr. John: It wouldn't be long before some smart showman came along, eager to make a fortune out of Fantastic Freddy, the hamster that can read and write. Either that or you'd wind up in the hands of scientists eager to dissect your brain for research purposes. Does either of those prospects appeal to you?
• Unfinished Business: In The Haunting of Freddy, the poacher Grim Harry is barred from the afterlife because right before he was hanged, he vowed revenge on the descendants of the baron who condemned him.
• Vanity License Plate: One of the illustrations in Freddy in Peril shows Professor Fleischkopf's license plate as saying TST TUBE.
• Verbal Tic: In The Haunting of Freddy, the rabbit Nibbles stammers the first word or two of each sentence, then jumps into the air and says the whole sentence without difficulty.
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: In Freddy to the Rescue, Mr. John decides to let Linda in on Freddy's secret so she can help save the field hamsters. The only reason Mr. John knows there are hamsters in the wheat field is because Freddy heard one of them screaming for help, and Linda isn't going to help them unless she knows what Mr. John's source is.
• Word, Schmord!: In Freddy's Final Quest, Goldoni explains that the time capsule is protected by gravitational fields. Enrico says, "Gravitational, shmavitational. Who cares?"

---