The Face in the Frost

"The Face In The Frost" is a richly imaginative tale of two wizards, Prospero (not the one you're thinking of) and Roger Bacon, who must overcome a third wizard, the evil Melichus before he destroys them, and a lot of other folks as well. Even if you think you've heard this story before, you've never come across a variation like this one. The closest analogue that I can come up with is "Howl's Moving Castle" for its eccentricity, but `Face' outdoes `Howl' is this respect as well as in its fear quotient. The scary scenes approach M.R. James in intensity, and they are always preceded by migraine-like aura. Prospero senses that something is slightly off about the inn where he is staying. He is still trying to figure out what is bothering him at four in the morning: "Strange thoughts began to come to him now: locked boxes and empty rooms. Four dials and a black hole. Four cards and a blank. And a dead sound on the stroke of four. Why did that mirror bother him? "Quietly, Prospero got dressed, took his staff from the corner, and opened the door of his room. The hall was dark and silent...He lit [a candle] and tiptoed down the stairs to the place where the mirror hung. Prospero stared and felt a chill pass through his body. The mirror showed nothing--not his face, not his candles, not the wall behind him. All he saw was a black glassy surface." Prospero explores further and finds his landlady standing fully-clothed in her room, with a butcher knife in her hand. "In her slowly rising head were two black holes. Prospero saw in his mind a doll that had terrified him when he was a child. The eyes had rattled in the china skull. Now the woman's voice, mechanical and heavy: "Why don't you sleep? Go to sleep." Her mouth opened wide, impossibly wide, and then the whole face stretched and writhed and yawned in the faint light." Prospero manages to escape the inn and town that was nothing more than an elaborate trap set up by Melichus to destroy him. He is reunited with his friend, Roger Bacon and they continue on their quest to find and destroy Melichus's evil magic. There are delightfully eccentric set-pieces in `Face:' a king who builds elaborate clock-works of the universe; a monk who collects strange plants; a talking mirror that divulges scores from a 1943 Cubs-Giants baseball game. I suspect the author wove his fantasy out of migraines, nightmares, and a love of mechanical oddities and spells that turn tomatoes into squishy red carriages. Prospero himself has a "cherrywood beadstead with a bassoon carved into one of the fat headposts, so that it could be played as you lay in bed and meditated...On a shelf over the experiment table was the inevitable skull, which the wizard put there to remind him of death, though it usually reminded him that he needed to go to the dentist." I'd better put an end to this review before I quote the whole book. It's so good, it sucks me in every time I open it---Enchanting, in the original sense

This is fantasy reduced to its purest form. From a laugh out loud first few pages you are plunged into nightmare and horror through to a purely satisfying ending. In decades of reading fantasy I know of no story that better illustrates the form. Something different than Tolkien's idealized fairy-tale, and something better than mere horror, this is a superb book. Prospero - and not the one you are thinking of, either - and Roger Bacon must solve the riddle of an unreadable book before that riddle and a more powerful wizard kills them. The threat is all the more real because neither you nor the characters understand it; we understand the side effects well enough. But Bellairs lets you guess what might happen unless Prospero and Bacon act. Nameless horrors can be the most frightening of all. Bellairs died far too young, leaving only a handful of children's books, outlines for a few more and this tale. We can only wish there were more. Originally published in paperback by Ace in 1969, that early edition was brilliantly illustrated by Marilyn Fitschen. Her perfectly apt, child-like illustrations didn't make it to this new hardbound edition, so you miss the macabre heraldic device of Melichus, and the spooky illustrations of Bellairs' scenes. It's a loss only partially made up for by the fine Anton Pieck cover drawing, completely appropriate to the story's secret. The paperback was printed, unhappily, on typical Ace cheap paper, and is now browned and brittle. Finding it isn't easy and may no longer be worth the effort. Still, despite the missing drawings, it is wonderful to have The Face in the Frost back in print. This should be on your short list of the best fantasy stories written. It's a story you will read again and again Highly recommended; simply superb.

This splendid little fantasy gem, the only adult-oriented fiction by children's author John Bellairs, mixes two rare moods. Bellairs's genial and charismatic protagonists, wizards Prospero (no, not that one) and Roger Bacon, contribute warmth and wit to the novel, while the nameless horror that begins to stalk Prospero is every bit as creepy as anything H.P. Lovecraft or W.H. Hodgson ever dreamed up. As it turns out, the kind and simple heroes and the vile and alien villain are two great tastes that taste great together. The delightful characters involved me in the story in a way the flat ciphers who generally inhabited Lovecraft's stuff never did, enhancing the eerieness. And the fact that these lovely characters were battling such disturbing phenomena increased my respect for them, enhancing their charisma. Bellairs also has a terrific writing style -- simple, spare, yet highly evocative, and with an unsurpassed eye for detail. And the book features cute illustrations by Marilyn Fitschen (the one of Prospero's house is worth the price of admission all by itself). The Face in the Frost is either a minor classic or a major one -- I'm just sorry it took me this long to get around to reading it.

This is a fantasy novel that rejects all the cliches that have plagued the genre over the years. It starts innocently enough, with a good natured Wizard by the name of Prospero starting what looks like simply another day. Incidents shortly take a sharp turn after that, as he finds himself the focus of supernatural events that are beyond his powers. From there, the tone alternates from humor to mystery to horror as Prospero and his friend, Roger Bacon, strive to unravel the mystery behind a supernatural force threatening not only themselves, but the world itself. This is an intelligent book, and makes no attempt to talk down to its audiance. The humor serves to underline the tension, rather than belittle it. Another pleasent surprise, is that the horror and suspense of this story is not immersed in blood and gore, which is all too frequently found in most horror attempts. I would recommend "The Face in the Frost" to anyone appreciating horror or Fantasy. Even those who do not care for the Fantasy genre should still appreciate this story, as it serves more as a backdrop than as a main element of the story itself

"A few centuries (or so) ago there lived a tall, skinny, scraggly-bearded old wizard named Prospero, and not the one you're thinking of, either." John Bellairs' first full-length novel is a tour de force of fantasy--it's fast, funny, and terrifying, all at once. Bellairs' heroes, Prospero and Roger Bacon, must join forces when the evil Melichus begins to assert an uncanny control over the world and its weathers. They go on a serious and yet deranged quest, and in the end there is a memorable confrontation between good magic and wicked wizardry. Fans who know this book are crazy about it; it is not quite like anything else in fantasy, and it deserves to be more widely known (and more often reprinted!)