The Pedant and the Shuffly

Rating:
Summary: 'Have you ever thought that you might not exist?'
Review: The most satisfying edition (of only two!!) is the hardbound from 1968, which has wider pages & lets you have more of a feeling of holding it in your hands.

'One light was burning in the great central tower of the hall, and out of the half-opened casement roaring organ music trickled. Sir Bertram immediately recognized the piece as Buxtehude's Festival Fanfare for organ, tympani, and tuned bass cannon.'

Sir Bertram Crabtree-Gore, a wandering sorcerer, wanders into the Flapping Forest (as it was known) and encounters the perils therein (namely a nasty sorcerer who attacks everyone he meets with sophistry & proves they don't exist, thus turning them into stained linen napkins). Apparently wearing a Hawaiian shirt, he must brave gothic mansions and mad organists to find a Shuffly to combat the monstrous horde of napkins.

If you like Avram Davidson, you'll probably like John Bellairs. He's just as erudite and funny, even if his later children's books are more dilute. They both like referring to the classics. Bellairs makes fun of the cliches of fantasy even more than in The Face in the Frost (which, when it isn't hilarious, is scary and wondersome - this book has just got the hilarious part). It's not just some mild, watery parody though, it's a really fun story. The author especially likes poking fun at stylistic cliches here. Later on he likes small, precise, somewhat anachronistic details to add absurdity and colour, but he used them here first.

'The spectral shape grew, and it soon presented (to the trained eye) the outline of a 1912 Haynes-Atkinson Structureless Inflatable Biplane.'

It's short, it's very funny, and you want to read it.

Rating:
Summary: Now this is just weird
Review: Who knew John Bellairs had a sense of humor? All right, his humor shines through in his many quirky spinechillers, but I had no idea he had written something like this.

"The Pedant and the Shuffly" is a cool enough title on its own, but it frames a very unusual and witty short fantasy. The premise is simple: Snodrog (don't laugh) an evil magician, uses cold logic to entrap and transform his victims into Flimsies (don't laugh). But soon, Wodehousian-named Sir Bertram Crabtree-Gore, a good magician, teams up with a Shuffly (don't laugh), and Snodrog soon has a worthy opponent(s)...

Bellairs' starkly descriptive prose is as good in this book as it is in his famed chillers and "Face in the Frost." Though this book is unusually short (about half the regular for his books) and relatively simple in plot, it is laced with witty satire in logic and Latin.

Kids will enjoy the cute plot. Adults will enjoy the witty undertones. Both will enjoy "Pedant and the Shuffly"!

Rating:
Summary: Now this is just weird
Review: Who knew John Bellairs had a sense of humor? All right, his humor shines through in his many quirky spinechillers, but I had no idea he had written something like this.

"The Pedant and the Shuffly" is a cool enough title on its own, but it frames a very unusual and witty short fantasy. The premise is simple: Snodrog (don't laugh) an evil magician, uses cold logic to entrap and transform his victims into Flimsies (don't laugh). But soon, Wodehousian-named Sir Bertram Crabtree-Gore, a good magician, teams up with a Shuffly (don't laugh), and Snodrog soon has a worthy opponent(s)...

Bellairs' starkly descriptive prose is as good in this book as it is in his famed chillers and "Face in the Frost." Though this book is unusually short (about half the regular for his books) and relatively simple in plot, it is laced with witty satire in logic and Latin.

Kids will enjoy the cute plot. Adults will enjoy the witty undertones. Both will enjoy "Pedant and the Shuffly"!