The Magicians: A Novel

Lev Grossman

Aug 2009 · Penguin

About this ebook

Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD will be on sale July 2024

The New York Times bestselling novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world, now an original series on SYFY

“The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this.”
—George R.R. Martin
 
“Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy.”
—Joe Hill
 
“A very knowing and wonderful take on the wizard school genre.”
—John Green
 
“The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this century.”
—Cory Doctorow

“This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and classic fantasy novels in order to upend them . . . an unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story.”
—The New Yorker

“The best urban fantasy in years.”
—A.V. Club

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. . . .

The prequel to the New York Times bestselling book The Magician King and the #1 bestseller The Magician's Land, The Magicians is one of the most daring and inventive works of literary fantasy in years. No one who has escaped into the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter should miss this breathtaking return to the landscape of the imagination.

Ratings and reviews

Starts off with a tangible chronicles of Narnia feeling then gets into a feeling of Harry Potter and then fills it all out with the sense of a deeper foreboding magical sense. Thank God there is a second book to keep this going though because the ending of this book leaves the feeling of needing more at least to attempt to put in your mind an ease to the questions that are raised. Already recommended to my reading buddy (that introduced me to The Iron Dragon's Daughter), so you know this is a good read.

Imagine Harry Potter continuing his magical education in college and then finding out that Narnia was a real place by going there after graduation and having adventures. That's the entire concept of this book. Once I got over the fact that chapters 1-5 of this book are a complete xerox of Philosopher's Stone, it was good. An adult, American HP, brutal, vulgar, crass, and realistic.

A bastardized American rip-off of Harry Potter and Narnia, which lacks the descriptive thought and complexity that made those worlds so compelling. The story feels truncated and unexplained. The characters are simply self- indulgent children and the only thing that differentiates them from each other is their appearance. It's a dry and unoriginal story that was poorly executed.

About the author

LEV GROSSMAN is the book critic for Time magazine and author of five novels, including the international bestseller Codex and the #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three children.