Tag Archives: Lev Grossman

#BookReview ‘The Magician’s Land’ by Lev Grossman @leverus #fantasy #magic

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Thrown out of Fillory and back in the non-magical world, Quentin Coldwater retreats to his former magical university in Brooklyn. Brakebills. He becomes a professor where he teaches his discipline, described as ‘mending small things.’ Remember this, it will be important later. The Magician’s Land is the final book of the magical trilogy by Lev Grossman and like book two, The Magician King, this final instalment is action-packed. Lev Grossman The story moves between present and past, Fillory and earth, above ground, in the air and underground. Seeking adventure, and money, Quentin meets a new group of underground magicians and accepts a task for payment of $2m. On the team is Plum, who admits she once attended Brakebills too.
In parallel we get the stories of Quentin, Eliot [still in Fillory] and Plum. In order to understand the threat in the present, we have to go back in time to fill in the real story of what happened to the Chatwin children [whose true adventures inspired the novels of Fillory]. And it becomes plain that the Fillory known by Quentin from his childhood love of those novels, is incorrect. The novels were fictional and Fillory is not what it seems.
Depending on them all, is the very existence of Fillory.
A cracking finale.

Click the title below to read my reviews of the first two novels in the trilogy:-
THE MAGICIANS #1THEMAGICIANS
THE MAGICIAN KING #2THEMAGICIANS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Queen of the Tearling’ by Erika Johansen #1TEARLING
‘The Invasion of the Tearling’ by Erika Johansen #2TEARLING
‘The Lost Girl’ by Sangu Mandanna

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MAGICIAN’S LAND by Lev Grossman @leverus http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1rD via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Magician King’ by Lev Grossman @leverus #fantasy #magic

4 Replies

As The Magician King begins, Quentin is living in Fillory. And he is king, or a king, one of four human kings and queens who rule this magical land. In the first book of ‘The Magicians’ trilogy by Lev Grossman, we saw Quentin accepted at a magical university in New York and finally find his way to Fillory, which he thought was a fictional world from a children’s book. Now, in the second book, he is living his childhood fantasy but is bored. Lev GrossmanLife is like living in a 20-star hotel and he is getting fat. Then one day, out hunting the Seeing Hare, one of the Unique Beasts of Fillory – this world is full of magical beasts which can talk or have special powers – a new adventure starts.
The big difference for me from book one of the trilogy is that the action starts straight away. All the setting-up has been done, the background is in place, Fillory is understood, key characters  are established. Most intriguing is the presence of Julia, who was Quentin’s love interest in the non-magical world, briefly at the beginning of the first book. Quentin was offered a place at Brakebills, the magical college. Julia wasn’t. But now she is a magician too. She learned her magic the hard way, in the magical underground in the ordinary world. And she is moody and edgy. She talks to the animals, speaks in an old-fashioned cadence, she dresses in black. She is interesting. I liked Julia.
Quentin and Julia set sail on a magical ship, heading for the Outer Island to collect overdue taxes. They end up back in the real world, trapped, and unable to return to Fillory. Of course they manage it in the end, via the underground magic network, trips to Cornwall and Venice, an Australian magician, and a dragon.
This book is three quests, one after another. The action is continuous. I saved books two and three to read while on holiday, and read them back –to-back.

Click the title below to read my reviews of the two other novels in the trilogy:-
THE MAGICIANS #1THEMAGICIANS
THE MAGICIAN’S LAND #3THEMAGICIANS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt
‘In Ark’ by Lisa Devaney
‘Ferney’ by James Long

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MAGICIAN KING by Lev Grossman @leverus http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1rx via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Magicians’ by Lev Grossman @leverus #fantasy #magic

5 Replies

In the first sentence of The Magicians by Lev Grossman, Quentin Coldwater does a magic trick with a nickel. A human version of magic. A great opening to a new fantasy trilogy. Lev GrossmanAnother series about magic, I hear you ask? Well this is nothing like Harry Potter. Quentin is due to sit an entrance exam for Princeton when he wanders into the grounds of a mysterious school in upstate New York. In a large room full of unknown teenagers, he sits the oddest test he has ever known. Then he is told he has passed and is accepted at Brakebills, a school of magic. For the first few months his best friend is a glass marble on which he practises his magic.
This is an adult tale. Brakebills is not Hogwarts and Quentin is a young man on the cusp of adulthood, with lingering adolescent depression and lack of confidence. The teenage magicians practise their magic, get drunk and have sex. At his ‘youngest’ moments Quentin remembers the magical tales he loved as a child about a land called Fillory. When he is down, he wishes he could escape to Fillory. And at first, he thinks Brakebills might be Fillory. But it isn’t because Fillory, of course, is fictional.
There are three books in the series and out of necessity in this book Quentin learns his magic. There were times I wished it would move more quickly, the carrot of Fillory is dangled in front of Quentin so much. In Harry Potter – oh how Lev Grossman must be tired of the comparisons – the threat of Lord Voldemort hovers from the first pages. There is no dark threat hovering over Quentin, just teenage angst, teenage love, and a longing to escape his daily life into Fillory. When he does reach Fillory, will it be what he expects?

Click the title below to read my reviews of the next two novels in the trilogy:-
THE MAGICIAN KING #2THEMAGICIANS
THE MAGICIAN’S LAND #3THEMAGICIANS

If you like this, try:-
‘Divergent’ by Veronica Roth #1DIVERGENT
‘Insurgent’ by Veronica Roth #2DIVERGENT
‘Allegiant’ by Veronica Roth #3DIVERGENT

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MAGICIANS by Lev Grossman @leverus via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1oy