The Magicians

A Novel

By: Lev Grossman

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

A thrilling and original coming-of- age novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world.

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he's still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn't bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation, he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin's fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren't black and white, love and sex aren't simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.

©2009 Lev Grossman (P)2009 Penguin

Critic reviews

"This is a book for grown-up fans of children's fantasy and would appeal to those who loved Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Highly recommended." ( Library Journal)
"Provocative, unput-downable....one of the best fantasies I've read in ages." ( Fantasy & Science Fiction)
" The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea." (George R.R. Martin)

Decent story, not the best performance

What didn’t you like about Mark Bramhall’s performance?

His voices for some of the characters was particularly annoying.

Any additional comments?

The authors choice of words got particularly more irritating as I read on. Yes he word choice was "the perfect word for the situation" For example, if you don't use words like "kludge" in your every day vocabulary, prepare to have a dictionary (or in my case Kindle) handy.

Not Harry Potter for adults

NO SPOILERS
I think the quote that George R.R. Martin gave sums it up "The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea." While many might come to this book thinking that just because the trappings are the same (i.e. a normal person is suddenly exposed to the fact that magic is real and goes to a school to learn how to perform it) that the two books would be similar…they are not. Just as whiskey and tea are both brown colored beverages, one would be sorely mistaken to think they were the same thing.

I read Harry Potter as an adult after my wife wore me down to read it. I enjoyed those books or at least the later books when everyone is a little older and the stakes are greater. But I don’t wear nostalgia goggles the way many do who read them as kids or young teens. Regardless, as previously stated The Magicians should not be thought of as Harry Potter for adults as the larger worlds that house these two stories couldn’t be further from each other.

The main difference in The Magicians is that there is no wizarding economy as there is in Harry Potter. In Harry Potter, once you learn that magic is real you then are thrown into the Wizarding world that, other than antiquated and full of magic use, acts basically like the real world. Other than it being focused on magic, the functions of people’s lives and the work they do is the same as in the muggle world. Diagon Alley features inns and shops just as a normal shopping district would and the wizards that work there have mostly mundane jobs to earn money. Just look at Arthur Weasley as a case in point, he works for a ministry that functions basically like any other massive bureaucratic institution, magical or not.

In The Magicians the construction of the magic world is basically just the real world but with magic does not exist. And without it everyone who can practice magic is left to wonder: what do I do now? There is no burgeoning economy to venture out into and ply a craft. Which is difficult for the main character who thought that magic was the answer to the purpose of his life.

What makes this book difficult for some people to swallow I think is that while magic exists it is not the answer to the underlying question of existence the way it is in other books. Imagine what you would do right now, like this very second, if you learned magic was real and you knew how to practice it. What would you do? OK now what would you do tomorrow? And then a year from now? And then for the rest of your life? In the end, like people who use hobbies, or relationships, or work to define who they are, they still have to be accept the person they are. Magic is real, but it isn’t the answer you were looking for.

In many of the negative comments of this book people complained about how all the character just aren’t good people. I won’t judge if they are good or bad, but I will say they are all flawed. The way most people in life are flawed. So throw magic into that mix and see what comes out.

If you get into the first book but think that the characters are shallow and not worth your time keep reading. There is wonderful character growth and development over the course of all three books.

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The narrator was excellent.

While at first I agreed with some of the other comments made that the voice didn’t fit a bunch of teenagers, about three hours in I think he found his footing and the characters really started to come alive. Now close to the end of the third book I couldn’t imagine anyone else having read this.

Potter for Pessimists ;)

And I say that in the most jolly of ways. The story is good, but I couldn't keep the Potter influence out of my mind. The author obviously anticipated this and makes blatant references, which I chuckled at. It was enjoyable, if predictable in parts, and the characters were lifelike. I do get annoyed with main characters that are perpetual pessimists and self-deprecating, but other than that I was into it. I'll listen to the next one/s.

Is there a part 2?

Why did the centaur people keep horses. Why did the horses not speak? Why didn't he find that magical stag first to wish everything right?

Grim dark CS Lewis

The dark magic was both entertaining and exhausting. At times I found that the characters were very compelling and interesting. While by turns they were dreary and petty. Weak, simple, and uninteresting. Overall the dark moods covered up the interesting parts and made the reading a morass.

I want to enjoy it but only give it..

3/5

Good story, but get to it already!

Struggled to finish. Good plot, but too many extra things going on. Overall, it's decent.

For anyone who found the television series first...

For those who enjoyed (or are enjoying) the SyFy adaptation of the series for it's characters and world - "The Magician's" is absolutely worth trying.

Along with Mark Bramhall's performance (which I personally feel couldn't have been better or more enjoyable), this first book takes all the details and insights that we've been given by the tv adaptation and presents them in technicolor (think "The Wizard of Oz" once we leave Kansas).

Would ABSOLUTELY recommend to other fans of the show. Personally, I cannot wait to see where book two of the trilogy takes us!

Mark Bramhall is a master

The way Mark read the story made it feel 10x better. The story was so different from other books it felt real.

Thank you.

The Magicians

I started this book because of the series on the television. There are similarities, but they are definitely two separate entities. I enjoyed the read.

Tries to be something that it isn't

This book really didn't do much for me. I'm not going to spoil the ending but I'd be lying if I said I was happy with how it ended. I just didn't expect that to be how it would end at all. I tried my best not to compare it to other books with similar storylines but the similarities are just too close to mention. Overall I have to say that I enjoyed the book because a good book should make you feel emotions for the characters and there were quite a few parts I noticed where I had very noticeable feelings one way or another which I was happy to feel.