|
Tim C
, January 01, 2013
"The Magician King" is the sequel to "The Magicians." If you loved Harry Potter and Narnia when you were a kid, but now prefer your fantasy with more emotional complexity and adult attitude, you'll find the whole package in this first-rate modern fantasy. It follows a group of apprentice wizards from their earliest training at a boarding school that has Hogwarts-like features (but darker and grimmer), through adventures in an alternate world that resembles Narnia without the theological allegory. It's not just derivative, for all that it deliberately draws on our memories of those literary universes. In "The Magician King," Quentin, the driven young magician king, and his friends and lovers return to Fillory, the magical world they discovered (illicitly) in the first book. The stakes are higher, however, and the dilemmas sharper, as Quentin and his childhood friend Julia are forced into more desperate measures and darker magics. Grossman creates characters who are truly believable and compelling, and explores the psychology of power, love, and loyalty in a depth rarely found in fantasy.
|