The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) in Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library

Sep 16, 2012 Harold Ogle rated it liked it

Shelves: magic, contemporary, fantasy, pop-culture, dimension-travel, alternate-universe

"The Lost Boys" meets A Separate Peace, with a lot of winks to other pop culture. The book is split into five parts, each one covering a separate period in the protagonist Quentin's post-high-school life. Quentin is a narcissistic addict and hyper-scholar, who, at 17, is offered a chance to apply for an exclusive boarding school, which happens to be the only school for magicians in the United States. The first two parts have to do with his education at this school on each of two campuses, the th "The Lost Boys" meets A Separate Peace, with a lot of winks to other pop culture. The book is split into five parts, each one covering a separate period in the protagonist Quentin's post-high-school life. Quentin is a narcissistic addict and hyper-scholar, who, at 17, is offered a chance to apply for an exclusive boarding school, which happens to be the only school for magicians in the United States. The first two parts have to do with his education at this school on each of two campuses, the third part with the first few months of his life after graduation, the fourth part with a journey he and his companions take to another place, and the last part with how he doesn't deal with what happens in that other place.

I found the book to be entertaining and yet frustrating at the same time. First of all, I can't really relate to the whole boarding school experience. I was born and raised in California, where such things are either absent or very, very secret....this is why it resonates so strongly as A Separate Peace, for me. Similarly alien setting, similarly creepy self-absorbed young adults, and a similarly bleak existential view of the world. Quentin never met an addiction he didn't like, and throughout the book he indulges in many of them: sex, lust, drinking, narcotics, resentment, self-pity, pride...he's like a personification of the id, running around with no brakes or controls. As such I could relate to Quentin - I recognize his agonized search for oblivion - but I found it hard reading at times nonetheless. I think part of it is that he hits bottom several times, but never gets any recovery, or makes any different choices with his life. He just gets up after wallowing in misery for a time, dusts himself off, and jumps right back into the behavior that made him so miserable in the first place (and second place. And third place. And fourth place. And so on).
That's "The Lost Boys" for you: terribly powerful beings with pretty much zero maturity.

There's some cool stuff about the book. For one thing, it is occasionally sesquipedalian, which is cool to see in a bestseller. A bestseller that requires one to think is a rare thing! For another, there is actually a character reason for the book to have an advanced vocabulary, as opposed to anything written by Jack Vance (who employs a much more complicated vocabulary but always just on the assumption that everyone in a SF setting would be quite learned): Quentin is an elite, nearly professional academic, after all.

Ostensibly, the book is about learning magic, then using magic in an Adventure of a Lifetime, and that's (I think) what most people really enjoy about the book. It's cool to see him learn to sense, control, and eventually master magic, and it's cool to see him use it in a Quest in a land with fantastical creatures. But really, that's all window-dressing for the core of the story, which is the tragic tale of Quentin never being satisfied with what he has. He repeatedly finds contentment and sometimes even happiness, but it's never satisfying to him (he is an addict, after all). So he always screws it up. The book is much like a Greek tragedy. Though we don't have a Chorus telling us that it won't end well for him, it's pretty clear very early on in the book that Quentin will never succeed, the failures will always be his fault, and he will never be able to admit that. So the ending of the book is very bittersweet, as it offers hope of a new beginning, even though we know that nothing has actually changed with Quentin and thus it's a false hope.

It's a well-written, very interesting book that can be emotionally frustrating and wrenching to the extent that you have empathy or even sympathy for Quentin.

Now, some minor niggles/unanswered questions of mine which are effectively spoilers, as they require intimate knowledge of the book:
(view spoiler) ...more

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Jul 07, 2017 Kati rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, in-czech, queer, urban-fantasy

Boring book about ugly people who revel in their misery and in making other people miserable. Not planning on getting further books in this series. I'll probably just stick with the TV show. ...more

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Sep 23, 2010 Pamela rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 06, 2009 emily rated it really liked it

Shelves: magic-witches-occult, queers-and-queer-relationships, 2008-to-2010, fantasy-urban-fantasy, 2011-to-2015, bildungsroman, owned-physical

i can't articulate this fully yet. it rocked my world. but mostly it reminded me powerfully of how i felt in college, and just after college; that sense of wonder, and the shock of reality, then realizing that happiness is something you decide to find, or make. ...more

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Jul 17, 2009 Kristen rated it really liked it

http://fantasycafe.blogspot.com/2009/... ...more

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Apr 06, 2017 Tani rated it really liked it

Shelves: male-author, 2017-novels, urban-fantasy

I feel like this is a book that defied my expectations at every turn. Going in, I had heard the 'Harry Potter for adults' hype, and so I was expecting something like a more detailed Hogwarts with adult characters. I kind of got that, but I also ended up getting a lot more. The first half of the book pretty much fit in with that expectation, but also hit some other stereotypes that I wasn't quite expecting.

First, to address the obvious. I really really enjoyed the descriptions of Brakebills, the I feel like this is a book that defied my expectations at every turn. Going in, I had heard the 'Harry Potter for adults' hype, and so I was expecting something like a more detailed Hogwarts with adult characters. I kind of got that, but I also ended up getting a lot more. The first half of the book pretty much fit in with that expectation, but also hit some other stereotypes that I wasn't quite expecting.

First, to address the obvious. I really really enjoyed the descriptions of Brakebills, the magical school. It has that wonderful magical school feel that draws me to the trope, and I gobbled it up. It's a quirky place with strange tests and lessons, and it just has that magical feel that I look for in a magical school. That part of the book is absolutely wish fulfillment for me because I would go to that school in a heartbeat, despite the descriptions of the hardness of the work and the frustrations therein.

I also really enjoyed Quentin as a character during this part, despite some minor quibbles. One is quite specific: (view spoiler). The other is more a personal ambivalence for the amount of alcohol that's consumed during this time period; alcohol doesn't treat me very well physically, so it's hard for me to imagine wanting to imbibe so much. (Yup, I know it's a college trope. I just didn't love it.) But other than, I really liked Quentin during this era. He's a character with some serious issues with depression, and I feel like I wasn't terribly dissimilar at that age, so I connected really strongly with him at first. I didn't really connect with most of the other characters during this stage, but since it's so strongly in Quentin's head, that was pretty OK.

Once I got through the first half of the book, though, I really struggled with the next 70-80 pages. I had really expected Brakebills to be at least the entirety of the first book, and it's not, which derailed my expectations pretty neatly. My recovery was not aided by the phase that Quentin then proceeds to go through. I felt like it was a very realistic phase, but it was one that was hard for me to read about. And some of Quentin's actions during this time are just completely not OK with me, so I got very frustrated and angry with him. The book definitely lost some of its enchantment here for me. It felt like I'd suddenly been booted into a pretty straight literary fiction book, and it was not a happy transition for me.

And then things picked right back up! I had not expected the turn that things took at this point, but it featured one of my favorite tropes, so I was quite happy with it. The emotional hangover from the transition between Brakebills and this section lingered, though. I lost a lot of my affection for Quentin during this section, although I'm not sure if I have the same reasons as everyone else. Quentin's depression, aimlessness, and disenchantment with the world are feelings that I know very well, and I felt like they were extremely important and valid feelings. I don't dislike him for those. I do dislike the actions that he takes as a response to those feelings, and the way that he mentally defends his own actions, even when he knows that he was wrong. I am hoping that I will be able to like Quentin a little more in the second book, but I definitely left this book feeling disgruntled with him.

I was very happy with the action that happens during this latter part of the book, though. There were a lot of pieces of information from throughout the book that are taken and fit together in brand new ways in this part, and it was very exciting. I gasped aloud several times during this section, as revelation after revelation completely blindsided me. I was completely satisfied with this aspect of the book.

Over all, although I had a few issues with Quentin, I still really enjoyed the book, and after the set-up that ends the book, I am very much looking forward to reading the next installment in the series! ...more

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Jul 14, 2010 Peter added it

Shelves: fantasy, general-fiction, favorites

Such a great book. It's often described as the "adult Harry Potter" which isn't totally off-base, but also misses a lot of what makes the book great. It definitely tips its hat to many classic fantasy series including Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Wizard of Oz, but its more than that. It explores not only the conventions of fantasy literature (in a very clever way), but the appeal and the psychological motivations that are fulfilled by it--particularly for children w ...more

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May 05, 2016 Elizabeth rated it it was ok

One of the rare instances when I think the book is worse than the tv show. I liked part one, in the university, and could have lived without almost everything after that.

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