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

Aug 29, 2015 Carrie rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, magicians, magic, library, urban-fantasy, wizards, witches, magic-school

I strongly hoped I would fall in love with this book, as I had heard it was like Harry Potter only more adult. I will give it a hat tilt, it did have some comparisons. We have a magical school, a school sport (no flying brooms mind you.) It even had different "houses", so to speak. These being the groups you wind up in after your discipline is figured out.

What I hadn't heard about The Magicians was the Narnia aspect of it. Because Fillroy = Narnia.

So like I was saying, my hopes were high. But s I strongly hoped I would fall in love with this book, as I had heard it was like Harry Potter only more adult. I will give it a hat tilt, it did have some comparisons. We have a magical school, a school sport (no flying brooms mind you.) It even had different "houses", so to speak. These being the groups you wind up in after your discipline is figured out.

What I hadn't heard about The Magicians was the Narnia aspect of it. Because Fillroy = Narnia.

So like I was saying, my hopes were high. But sadly love did not come to me. That feeling of warmth and tingles failed to make an appearance. I did however like and enjoy aspects of the book.

I was turned off at times, one of these times was all the swearing. I can't say all but some of it. Don't get me wrong I've read many a tale with cursing, heck I can swear like a sailor myself at times. My point is that it didn't feel right. The flow, it felt fake at times.

Another turn off was Quinton, our main dude. He at first I found likable but then as the story continued on he just got on my nerves. I kept on thinking okay he'll redeem himself now....pages after pages later, I was still holding on to that hope. There's always book 2? Right??

While I'm on a roll, let's continue. For sure I thought there was going to be storyline and characters just forgotten about, and to some degree they were. They were bloody well just left simmering in the back, meanwhile I was thinking, gah did the author forget? Apparently he never, but I'm still in the dark. Book 2 will light my way? Right??

Now don't get me wrong I did say I liked and enjoyed aspects. I'm a sucker for magic schools, I love the magical world, I'm drawn to the mage class. So of course I would at least like the book. The storyline was able to hold my attention disbite any of the negatives I have pointed out. So for the better part of it I was happy. I will read book 2, I have to, unanswered questions and the what not.

3 star rating:
-.5 stars for the fake feel of the swearing.
-1 star for the my unhappiness with Q
-.5 for almost letting things simmer away to nothing. ...more

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Aug 30, 2009 Jeffrey rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, read-in-2009

Quentin Coldwater is a disaffected youth who hates his life when he visits a professor with two friends to have a special exam to get into a school, but the man there is dead. A paramedic at the scene gives him an envelope which contains a sixth book in a series of novels by an author named Plover about a fantastical world called Fillory, modeled in some ways after Narnia, and while following a piece of paper from the envelope that has blown away in the wind, Quentin bumps into Eliot a student a Quentin Coldwater is a disaffected youth who hates his life when he visits a professor with two friends to have a special exam to get into a school, but the man there is dead. A paramedic at the scene gives him an envelope which contains a sixth book in a series of novels by an author named Plover about a fantastical world called Fillory, modeled in some ways after Narnia, and while following a piece of paper from the envelope that has blown away in the wind, Quentin bumps into Eliot a student at a magical school called Brakebill, who takes Quentin inside where he takes and exam to see if he is qualified to attend. The exam is one of the best parts of the novel.

After his acceptance into the school, the novel tracks his five years at school where he takes various courses, meets other young magicians who are studying magic and eventually meets Alice, a girl he falls in love with. Alice, is a super magician who found her own way to Brakebill even though her brother mysteriously died there. She loves Quentin. Eliot, Janet, Josh, and ALice are physical magicians, who have the power over physical aspects of the world. Quentin, cannot find his discipline but is assigned to the Physical Kids anyway.

During one particular class with Professor March, Quentin inadvertently disrupts a spell by March which opens a spell portal and a monster that the teachers later call the Beast enters the classroom. The Beast plays an important part in the novel, but we are not shown what until the end.

After graduation, Penny, one of the other young Magician's actually finds a button that can only be a means to travel to the world of Fillory. What had seemed to be some fantastical story land in the background of the story was actually a real place. The Physical Kids, Penny and Richard, a previous graduate travel to Fillory using the button. There Quentin, Alice, the Physical Kids and Penny ultimately confront the Beast, who turns out to be a character from the Plover books.

Although I liked the novel, I never loved it, and it seems to end at a place with a new beginning in the offering. Although billed as a coming of age novel, I thought Quentin never really succeeds in meeting his destiny and take charge. He is never the crucial player but maybe the story does pivot on him. The ultimate denouement is kind of cruel and painful so I am not sure if the author is trying to say that in order for Quentin to grow up he has to lose something.

Grossman, however, does show a creative flair in his magical system.

Try it. ...more

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Jan 01, 2014 Tess rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, teen-young-adult

Honestly, I felt like this book was a big f-you to anyone who ever wanted to go to Hogwarts or dreamt of finding a secret cupboard to Narnia.
Quentin was an unlikeable main character who is constantly bored and unsatisfied with his life, no matter how miraculous it becomes. He even stops and says at times how he should be happy, but he just isn't. Someone should have given him a Prozac and the story would be much better. Probably.

The world was neat and I liked the magic school when Quentin wasn't ...more

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Feb 12, 2012 John rated it liked it

Probably more like 3.5 stars, though I'm not sure how I could possible be lukewarm on this novel, since most everyone who's rated and reviewed it seems to either love it or hate it.

The novel follows Quentin Coldwater, who begins the novel as an academic all-star (but one who's slightly eclipsed by his best friend both in excellence and in practical matters) in his senior year of high school. An avid reader of fantasy--particularly a Narnia-like fantasy about a land called Fillory--in his younge Probably more like 3.5 stars, though I'm not sure how I could possible be lukewarm on this novel, since most everyone who's rated and reviewed it seems to either love it or hate it.

The novel follows Quentin Coldwater, who begins the novel as an academic all-star (but one who's slightly eclipsed by his best friend both in excellence and in practical matters) in his senior year of high school. An avid reader of fantasy--particularly a Narnia-like fantasy about a land called Fillory--in his younger days (and still one, albeit as a guilty pleasure), he is invited to take a test to get into a very exclusive college: one that teaches magic (which turns out to be real, obviously). In a sense, the rest of the novel is an exploration of the Wilde maxim about one of the great tragedies in life being to get your heart's desire. In another sense, you might say it's a character study of the varieties of brilliant, over-achieving nihilists.

It is, no doubt about it, a dark novel. Calling it "Harry Potter for adults" is less accurate than to call it a deconstruction of Harry Potter. There's no Dark Lord to defeat here--well, there sort of is in the end, but not really. The darkness to be fought comes from within one's self as one reacts to a world that can never seem to measure up to the fantasies of childhood, that never seems to have the heroic spirit we imagine for it as children.

Magic, in the end, isn't so magical as Quentin thinks. It's hard work, tedious work. It rarely solves problems of any real importance, and it ultimately has nothing to say about giving a life meaning, fulfillment, or happiness. I had originally understood The Magicians to be a stand-alone novel, even though I knew it was followed by The Magician King. However, given how little real growth Quentin manages, that character arc itself makes the novel feel less than complete, even if the plot elements are fairly well wrapped up. He's been through a lot, he's changed a bit, but has he grown? Not really. But then, perhaps that's all part and parcel of deconstructing the naive fantasies of childhood and of, well, naive fantasies.

It doesn't mean I have to approve it.

But anyway, I did enjoy it well enough on its own terms--well enough that I'll pick up The Magician King. ...more

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Aug 23, 2011 Daniel rated it really liked it

Shelves: scifi-fantasy

I started this book, both somewhat hesitantly and with anticipation. With anticipation because the scuttlebutt is that it's a pretty good, adult fantasy ("'Harry Potter' for adults" as one review put it), and hesitantly because hype rarely leads up to match the product.

For the most part, I really liked this book.

At times the Harry Potter similarities were almost too much to bear, and each time I felt that, it seems the author or his editor must have felt it too, and something changed.

**POSSIBLE ...more

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Oct 14, 2020 Tom rated it liked it · review of another edition

Depressed, self-absorbed and self centered kids go to a Hogwarts-esque magic school and then persue adventures in a Narnia-esque magic land. Bad stuff happens. People aren't nice.

Tribute... or a dark knock-off... of JK Rowling and CS Lewis? I don't know. But in this new universe F-bombs are aplenty, sex (straight and gay) is frequent, drugs and alcohol abound. And it's all pretty negative and doomed.

Narnia has the glow of childhood memory for me. So I wasn't thrilled to see it all smudged up. I ...more

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