The Magic Spectacles

James P. Blaylock

Aug 2012 · Hachette UK

About this ebook

A suddenly appearing curiosity shop owned by a small man who might, or might not, be the Man in the Moon; a pair of strange spectacles buried in a fishbowl full of marbles; an old window glazed with sea-green glass found beneath a suburban house; and two adventurous boys who but the spectacles and climb through the window into a land of goblins, ghosts and rope ladders that reach to the moon.

Who exactly is Mr Deener, the fat man who makes magic out of bits of coloured glass, has a passion for glazed doughnuts, and whose seeming twin brother sleeps fitfully in an attic room? And who are the little men that rise out of the forest on windblown sycamore leaves in order to whisper into Mr Deener's ear? Is Mr Deener, like a fallen humpty Dumpty, broken apart? John and Danny need to know. To find their way home they'll have to put Mr Deener back together again and solve the mystery of the sleeping land - a task that leads them to the pool of reflections in the deep woods and ultimately to a house built of light and magic and memory that sits at the edge of the heart's ocean...

About the author

James Blaylock (1950 - ) James Paul Blaylock was born in Long Beach, California, in 1950, and attended California State University, where he received an MA. He was befriended and mentored by Philip K. Dick, along with his contemporaries K.W. Jeter and Tim Powers, and is regarded - along with Powers and Jeter - as one of the founding fathers of the steampunk movement. Winner of two World Fantasy Awards and a Philip K. Dick Award, he is currently director of the Creative Writing Conservatory at the Orange County High School of the Arts, where Tim Powers is Writer in Residence.