11.18.2010
The Magicians
by Lev Grossman, 402 pgs paperback
Prequel to 'The Magician King'
Overall Grade: A
A terrific start to a very promising series; the sequel comes out next summer.
Quentin is one of those ridiculously smart kids in a gifted program, who does nothing besides academics and reading. He even teaches himself card tricks so he'll have some sort of hobby for college applications. He's headed dead-on for an Ivy League school and a banal life. Secretly he wishes life were more like his favorite magical series 'Fillory and Further' which we gather is kinda like the Chronicles of Narnia. Anyway, he arrives at a college interviewer, only to find the alumnus dead, and a envelope addressed to him containing a sixth, unpublished Fillory manuscript, and a note. But before he can read the note, the wind sends it flying, and in pursuit of the note, Quentin ends up at the magic college of Brakebills. Here he learns that, yes, magic is real, but it's really really really crazy difficult. And yes, he has the aptitude to become a magician, but it might kill him in the process, and he would have been better off not being used to being a prodigy.
The majority of 'The Magicians' is like an adult version of Harry Potter at Hogwarts. Like the back summary says, "hedonism and disillusionment". And somewhere along the way, he and his classmates learn that Fillory might not just be fiction...
Labels: genre: fantasy, genre: fiction, media: book
