N2: The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs

Book Review!

N2: The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs

Gygax’s “Appendix N” recommended John Bellairs’ 1969 novel Face in the Frost. I read a 174-page paperback version with a secondary copyright of 1978. For a second reading (to remind myself of several elements of the book to help me write this review), I listened to an audiobook version of the book. Bellairs wrote this novel after reading The Lord of the Rings and wanted to create a wizard who exhibited human flaws and phobias to contrast the mighty character of Gandalf.

The Good

*The hook contains wizards in danger and mysterious creatures in the forest.

*Bellairs created an atmosphere with a sense of danger.

*Wizard battles and magic items appeared in multiple places in the story.

The Bad

*The talking/singing magic mirror seemed a bit too silly for my tastes.

*The baseball references felt out of place and emphasized the odd fantasy-inclusive modern setting.

*While Bellairs gave one of the two main characters the wonderful literary-rich name of Prospero, he unfortunately named the other man Roger Bacon.

*The ending felt less rewarding than what I wanted for the characters.

D&D Connections & Inspirations

*The story shows the intense studies of translating old magical books to decipher a spell, thus lining up with the D&D system for wizard’s learning spells.

*Upon casting a spell, a wizard had to maintain concentration; the longer the chanting/concentration, the more powerful the spell (like the different levels of spells in D&D).

*Several D&D/LOTR-style monsters were mentioned.

*Prospero discovered wizard runes that equated to D&D wizards leaving arcane traps.

Overall

This book scores a 4/10 rating from me because I struggled to really care about what happened to Prospero and Roger until about a third of the way through the story. I actually sat the book down at one point and waited weeks before picking up the paperback again.