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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
The book description seems to put a strange emphasis on mirrors, and how they affect the personality (??) of the wizards. Hmm, seems almost like a deliberate misdirection...
This story reads like a children's story a la The Once and Future King--childlike on the surface, but genuinely scary and creepy in parts and not childlike at all. I enjoyed it very much, especially the deep friendship and companionship between Roger and Prospero, the interesting conception of wizardry, the atmospheric creepiness. A funny little detail: the moon in their world has a woebegone face.
The plot, as others have mentioned, meanders in the beginning, then rushes into a wizard-ex-machina. However, it didn't really affect my enjoyment of this story. The coincidental absurdity of it fit in with the general vibe quite well.
Highly recommended, a little gem.
This story reads like a children's story a la The Once and Future King--childlike on the surface, but genuinely scary and creepy in parts and not childlike at all. I enjoyed it very much, especially the deep friendship and companionship between Roger and Prospero, the interesting conception of wizardry, the atmospheric creepiness. A funny little detail: the moon in their world has a woebegone face.
The plot, as others have mentioned, meanders in the beginning, then rushes into a wizard-ex-machina. However, it didn't really affect my enjoyment of this story. The coincidental absurdity of it fit in with the general vibe quite well.
Highly recommended, a little gem.
Fun moments of humor, great moments of scary dread, but overall kind of hard to follow at times. Not the best plot structure, but more of a tale of random scenes of fantasy. I found myself struggling to get through it, not very invested in the story. It started off promising, but just started to drag after a while.
Ugh, this was a dud for me. There's a particular brand of fantasy that comes off and complete random nonsense and this falls squarely into that category.
When I think of classic fantasy this is the sort of book that comes to mind. I love that our heroes are older men who know about as much as we do in the story and I loved the humour though I missed that somewhere in the middle of the book.
I really wanted more from this book, because there was a lot of potential. The descriptive writing, for one, is EXCELLENT. John Bellairs does an amazing job with setting tone and building a growing sense of unease and tension. The chapter in the fake Five Dials was great. The beginning with Prospero, his mirror, and the building creepiness is great. This is definitely some of the best descriptive prose I've ever seen. The narrative and characters, as is with most high fantasy, however, is where the novel is weak. Prospero and Roger Bacon are enjoyable enough—I kept imagining them as Gandalf and Bilbo in my head—but I felt like I still knew very little about them by the end of the book. This is a story of comings and goings and getting from point A to point B that doesn't ruminate on thoughts or motivations. Side characters briefly pop in here and there and just when you become interested in someone quirky, he disappears. And yes, "he"—women are noticeably and almost entirely absent from the narrative, almost eerily so, even for a book that was written in the 60s. It was a fun little read, and maybe the only high fantasy novel I've ever read that desperately needed to be longer in order to achieve a greater sense of depth.
Some of this book is great. Some of this book is not so good. So it averages out to three stars. Definitely worth a read, it's a likely ancestor of Susanna Clarke's JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL.