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The protagonist, Quentin Coldwater is a nerd. He’s an academic over-achiever living a life of privilege, set on a path of success. He’s also extremely unhappy, feeling disconnected from the rest of the world. He struggles with his inability to connect with others and the meaninglessness of life. He has sought out and found some respite in the fantasy world of Fillory. A magical land created and explored in the books of an American author that lived in England. At the start of The Magicians Quentin in on his way to an interview as part of the admissions process for Princeton. But this does not end up as another normal day for Quentin. Rather than his ultimate destination, Princeton, Quentin ends up at Brakebills. Brakebills is a university in upstate New York where students learn magic.

While Hogwarts was not the first literary school of magic, it is the model Grossman has in mind and he is very up front about that fact. The students take part in a magical game called Welters. At one point a team member of Quentin’s, Josh, is absent at the start of a match. Quentin hunts him down and the following interaction takes place between the two of them.

Josh stood up. He saluted smartly. “Send me an owl.”
“Come on, they’re waiting for us. Fogg is freezing his ass off.”
“Good for him. Too much ass on that man anyway.”
Quentin got Josh out of the library and heading toward the rear of the House, though he was moving slowly with a worrying tendency to lurch into door frames and occasionally into Quentin.
He did an abrupt about-face.
“Hang on,” he said. “Gotta get my quidditch costume. I mean uniform. I mean welters.”
“We don’t have uniforms.”
“I know that, ” Josh snapped. “I’m drunk, I’m not delusional. I still need my winter coat.”

This sliver does a lot to reveal the similarities and differences. Brakebills is very much like Hogwarts in external ways, and completely different in substance. The school is for adults, not children and the life that Grossman portrays is much more in line with reality than fantasy. This is not a book to pick up for a young child. This story contains profanity, sexual content, graphic violence, as well as alcohol and drug abuse. This is where I ran into my first issue with The Magicians. I’ll get to that shortly, but first I’d like to finish laying out what the book involves.

Not all of Brakebills is lifted straight from Hogwarts, though I don’t think the reader with much experience in reading fantasy will find anything that could really be called new. What there is, as I have mentioned, is very well done. Grossman builds up to moments of palpable tension. He pulls the reader into the life of Quentin and shows real finesse at times. His characters very much come alive, in their brief moments of joy and in their many moments of pain, frustration and loss. Anyone who has felt the hurt of being outside, dealing with the cruelty of others or a general questioning of meaning will be able to relate well to the protagonist.

Eventually school is over and the students graduate. And here is the turn that I think the promotional material makes obvious but some may not want to know about going into reading the book. The second section of the story begins as Quentin and his fellow Brakebills alumni find out that Fillory is real. They immediately prepare to set out on an expedition to the land they’ve loved since childhood. That Fillory is better spelled N-a-r-n-i-a is just as obvious as the connection to Rowling’s work. Quentin and company enter fillory using magic buttons that take them to an intermediary world of fountains. Jumping into each fountain takes a person to a different world. They have to take care to jump into the correct pool at the base of the fountain that will take them to Fillory. Fillory is a land of talking beasts and magical creatures.

So what sets The Magicians apart from lesser books that lift heavily from other works? Why is The Magicians a strong story while something like Eragon is a weak rip-off? I think it boils down to two elements. First is Grossman’s strong writing. Even if this were just a big piece of fan fiction, it would be well written fan fiction. Secondly, this isn’t just an homage to the work of others. While Grossman has lifted the settings and externals, the substance is completely different often to the point of taking a position that is completely antithetical to the original work.

My first problem, which I tie to the very adult content is wrapped up in why I read fantasy. I read fantasy on many levels as a form of escape, much like Grossman’s character Quentin did. Much of the fantasy I’ve read is not only fantasy but it is written for children. At the bottom of it all there is no real risk or fear. I read with anticipation, not of an outcome but rather how that outcome will be worked out by the author. There is often death or treachery but it takes on a fairty tale like quality. It does not feel real or cruel but rather cartoonish. Grossman completely jettisons any of this kind of approach. He tackles the safety of these childrens tales and eviscerates it. The violence in The Magicians is not cartoonish, it is often cruel even sadistic. There’s not much in the way of escapism here. What Quentin finds is that magic doesn’t change the basic underlying facts of life, not even traveling to another world does this. This is combined with the fact that much of Grossman’s realism includes behavior and speech that isn’t something that I would consider normal or appropriate. It may be for others but this isn’t a book I would feel comfortable recommending to friends or family.

Then there is my second issue. I’ve read that Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is intended to be a type of anti-Narnia. Well Grossman doesn’t just create an alternative world that is contrary to Narnia. He destroys Narnia from the inside. And this caused issues for me in both sections of the book at times. Not because of ideological difficulties with what Grossman puts forward but because it would frequently push me outside the story as it felt like Grossman would move from telling his own story to commenting on the story of another. It isn’t that what he has to say about the other stories isn’t interesting and that he doesn’t bring up intriguing issues and criticisms of both, but rather that it jarred me out of the narrative as the story became more a work of exposition. Something like the flashbacks to History and Moral Philosophy class that fill so much of Starship Troopers. The author shows his hand, that he is more interested in making a point than telling a story.

The fact that a major component of the book is polemic in nature means much of the discussion around the book will not be about plot or setting but rather about the argument the author sets forth. I don’t agree with Grossman’s premise or conclusions but I do admire how well he states his case throughout the entire book, not only in those portions that might feel a bit preachy. I’ve read in an interview Grossman did about The Magicians that he feels that Rowling lets her characters solve their problems, rather than resting on divine intervention like the characters of Lewis’s works. This is reflected in how he handles the world of each, though I would argue that this is not the case, especially in light of how Rowling’s series ended. I think it does explain why he is so much rougher on Lewis.

Anyone looking for a dark story that questions the assumptions and underlying principles of those that are not so dark should really enjoy this book. Any parent that picks it up for their young one because they hear it compared to Harry Potter is in for a rude surprise. Those looking for a fun little escape from the real world wont find it here, though things are so grim at times they made find the real world a bit of a relief after the weight of Grossman’s. The Magicians held my attention and I was impressed with Grossman’s ability, unfortunately at the same time I was a bit disappointed with how he used that ability. With something this subjective YMMV, and since release The Magicians has hit number nine on the New York Times best seller list.

Title: The Magicians
Author: Lev Grossman
Publisher: Viking
Pages: 402
ISBN: 978-0-670-020550-3
Rating: 7/10

I read this book after receiving a free copy from Tor’s program giving out an e-book a week. Sanderson has gained quite a bit of attention recently after being named the author that would finish Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I never got into the Wheel of Time books, so I wasn’t so hot to find out about the writing of the person who would be completing the saga, but I was interested a little more, knowing that Sanderson’s work was going to be even that much more under the watchful eye of a large set of committed fans.

The setting is interesting. The world is run by an Emperor who is also the God of the people. He is immortal and rules with tight control over everyone and everything. The population are split into two basic groups, Nobility and Skaa. The nobility live relatively well and consider the skaa to be a separate and sub-human species. The skaa are slaves, treated with less respect and care than animals.

Some nobility have special abilities and can exercise what is called Allomancy. They can consume and then ‘burn’ various types of metals to give themselves various powers. The protagonist, Kelse, is a skaa who is also an allomancer. The Emperor has tried to have him killed but he survived and now he plots to overthrow the nobility and the rule of the emperor.

The world itself has a medieval technology level, and is dominated by volcanic activity that almost constantly rains ash on everything. At night, mists cover the world and bring fear to the inhabitants. The land and snippets of its history are very well drawn out. Sanderson very nicely intersperses glimpses into the past while current events move forward.

In the beginning I thought that this would be a very typical story with a team of plotters setting up a somewhat daring and intricate plan to take out the empire. Then with some danger and action along the way, they would see it all come together. Something like “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” or a larger scale of many films set in World War II where a small group sneaks into enemy territory and does great damage to the bad guys.

I was pleasantly surprised as the story took unexpected turns and held a few surprises. This isn’t too easy to do any more. So much has already been said and done. The story is the first in a trilogy but stands alone very well. I think many readers will continue, not because they’ve been left with a cliff hanger but because they look forward to returning to this world and its characters. There are some questions left unanswered but nothing key to the immediate plot of the book. Though while I read the book itself I had a rough time putting it down. Sanderson did an excellent job of setting up more than one thread that slowly unwound for me. It was fun and kept pushing me deeper into the book to see how things would work out.

The magical abilities of the allomancers are interesting and unique. They are not overwhelming. They are not insanely powerful, leaving the reader to wonder why characters didn’t just use their powers in a more intelligent fashion to get things done. They fit well into the ‘real’ world and make the story much more interesting, while not taking it beyond that to farcical or boring. The most detailed action scenes are between allomancers and either other allomancers or regular humans. These conflicts are done very well. Their is quite a bit of violence and killing. The world is also home to a number of creepy and at times unsettling inhabitants.

I think Jordan fans should be encouraged that a solid author with good skills will be finishing up the material that Jordan left behind. Any other fan of fantasy should very much enjoy this book. It is a stand out in a genre that at times can feel limited or full of people doing a lot of the same thing. Admittedly fantasy is not my favorite, I’m more of a Sci-Fi guy, so maybe my view of the state of fantasy is biased, but either way I think this book stands out and do not hesitate to recommend it.

My only negatives were that a couple items were foreshadowed a little too well. Sometimes it was a touch frustrating waiting for characters to figure out something that was a bit obvious. This is a small thing though as it did not happen too often. Those small moments were quite outweighed by the good. I have seen some complain that character development was good for a few main characters but not others that were a part of the team working to overthrow the empire. I didn’t really see this as a drawback. They added good color to the story but if each had their story told at length the book would have been huge. It was long enough already.

The move by Tor to distribute this for free will be paying off, as I have enjoyed this enough that I’ll be buying the other two books in the series.

Author: Brandon Sanderson
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Pages: 672
ISBN: 0765350386
Rating: 9.5/10

Throughout much of his life, J.R.R. Tolkien worked on a series of stories set in his well known middle earth. A few he considered his “Great Tales” and he would return to them often, writing them multiple times and in multiple forms. One story that he worked on often over many years was the tale of Hurin and his children Turin and Nienor. Following his death, Tolkien’s youngest son Christopher has worked to collect, edit and publish much of what his father wrote but never published. The tale of Hurin’s children has been told in part already in some of those works. But it is in this book that for the first time the complete tale is told from start to finish of “The Children of Hurin.”

Some insight into what I think of this book is revealed in the fact that I preordered a copy before it was published last year. I was very excited when it arrived, made it about a third of the way through and then set it aside for quite a while. It was just recently that I saw my copy sitting on a book shelf and decided that I would finish it. It really didn’t take too much time. The story is not very long. The reason I had trouble was because I had been hoping for something along the lines of “The Hobbit” or “The Lord of the Rings”, Tolkien’s most widely read efforts. They read like most modern novels, whereas much of the material published since Tolkien’s death is written in a more classical and frankly, difficult to read style. Christopher acknowledges that those works are perceived in this manner in his preface by stating, “It is undeniable that there are a very great many readers of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ for whom the legends of the Elder Days (as previously published in varying forms in ‘The Silmarillion’, ‘Unfinished Tales’, and ‘The History of Middle-earth’) are altogether unknown, unless by their repute as strange and inaccessible in mode and manner.” I have read the first two from that list of three and would say that yes, they are in many ways work to read.

Unfortunately I didn’t find “The Children of Hurin” to be much more approachable or easy to enjoy. I think that Christopher’s motivation is to bring these tales to a wider audience, but I doubt very much he succeeded. There are a few problems that plague the book. The first is that there is a constant use of proper names, for places and people, that for most readers will be unfamiliar. Not only that, they will be difficult to pronounce. The book does have a small pronunciation guide in the beginning, but the bottom line is that often I felt like I was reading a book written in another language. To some extent it is, Tolkien’s own elvish tongue. But without some familiarity or explanation much of it just slides past and makes reading the story difficult. Main characters change names throughout the story and keeping track of it all can be difficult. Here is a short paragraph about Hurin’s wife Morwen.

“Hurin wedded Morwen, the daught of Baradund son of Gregolas of the House of Beor, and she was thus of close kin to Beren One-hand. Morwen was dark-haired and tall, and for the light of her glance and the beauty of her face men called her Eledhwen, the elfen-fair; but she was somewhat stern of mood and proud. The sorrows of the house of Beor saddened her heart; for she came ans an exile to Dorlomin from Dorthonion after the ruin of the Bragollach.”

That isn’t an unusual passage. That is the style and much like most of the entire book. Antiquated english with an immense amount of proper names and relationships constantly spread throughout.

The setting is Beleriand, some 6500 years before the events of “The Lord of the Rings”. This land would eventually be mostly destroyed in a war that would end the First Age. So the places do not correspond to the landscape of middle-earth in “The Hobbit” or “The Lord of the Rings.” The main evil in the land is Morgoth. He has come to middle-earth and set up shop in Angband. Hurin, a man, dares to defy Morgoth. Morgoth captures him and binds him to watch what befalls his wife and children that Morgoth has cursed.

This curse and how it works itself out is the redeeming quality of the story. The vast majority of the book focuses on Turin. He is an amazing warrior and leader of men. At the same time he is incredibly proud and rarely listens to anyone else. This failure of character on his part is pushed along by the malevolence of Morgoth and so a flawed man is also trapped in the machinations of an evil power. The working of the story brought to mind the great Greek tragedies. The reader confronts issues of fate and free will. It is a beautiful story, it is just not written in a manner that is going to connect well with a modern audience. And I doubt J.R.R. Tolkien would have ever released it in the present state. This may sound presumptuous on my part. In fact I know it is, but in the first appendix Christopher gives a history of how this tale developed as well as snippets from the other versions that existed.

J.R.R. had begun to tell the story in verse. The small sections of that poetry that are given in the appendix to this work, and that go beyond what was published in “The Lost Tales” is much more descriptive and beautiful than what is given in “The Children of Hurin”. Often Children reads more like a history book than a novel. The facts are all there, and at times the life is too. But too often it just feels like a listing of facts about events, people and places.

So how can I rate the book as a 7 out of 10 with all these issues? Well for some people, nothing that gives them more information about middle-earth and its history can be bad. They are probably cursing my name in the tongue of Mordor at this very moment. They loved “The Silmarillion” and they probably adored this work too. I share some of their passion, and despite its weakness, I did enjoy this story, especially once I had moved fully through the telling and could look at the arc of the entire story. It is a work of great skill and though I don’t think it is Tolkien’s best, it is still much better than many others.
For someone who is a casual fan or answers “I’ve seen the movies” when you ask them about “The Lord of the Rings”, this is not something they would probably enjoy. Getting them “The Hobbit” to read would probably be a more pleasant experience for everyone involved. Or just wait and see if New Line can ever get done with the legal barriers and make a film of that was well.
The edition that I bought and matches the ISBN I’ve given is a hard-cover with beautiful art by Alan Lee. The cover dust jacket is gorgeous and there are full color illustrations throughout. The appendixes include the history of the tales as I’ve mentioned, genealogies, a list of names and a map of Beleriand. There is also a preface, slightly longer introduction and pronunciation guide. The preface, introduction and appendixes were all written by Christopher Tolkien.

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Pages: 313
ISBN: 0618894640
Rating: 7/10