The Magician King

July 25, 2011
Grossman's stylish sequel to The Magicians smoothly fuses adventure fantasy, magic realism, and mythic fiction. It's been two years since Quentin, Eliot, Janet, and Julia have become kings and queens of the magical utopia of Fillory, but Quentin is becoming bored with his seemingly idyllic existence. Spurred on by a dark prophecy of the "Seeing Hare," "one of the Unique Beasts of Fillory," he and Julia decide to embark on a trip to a faraway island, but their voyage turns out to be more perilous than expected and they end up back on Earth. With no apparent means to return to their home at Castle Whitespire, they must somehow find a way back to Fillory and save their realm from imminent destruction. Grossman effortlessly injects innumerable pop culture and literary references (Monty Python, Harry Potter, Pink Floyd, the Lorax, the Teletubbies, etc.) into the fantastical storyline. Mainstream fiction and fantasy fans alike will find this fairy tale for adults rewarding. 10-city author tour.

Starred review from July 1, 2011

Now a king in the magical land of Fillory, Quentin embarks on a quest to save the universe in Grossman's searing sequel to The Magicians (2009, etc.).

It's been two years since Quentin assumed one of Fillory's four crowns along with Eliot and Janet, fellow graduates of the Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, and Quentin's high-school friend Julia, a Brakebills reject who managed to acquire magical powers on her own. Truth to tell, he's a little bored with his cushy life at the Castle Whitespire, so he seizes on the excuse of a tax-collecting mission to sail for Outer Island, rumored to be the home of "the key that winds up the world." It's an ugly surprise when he and Julia find the key and it dumps them back in their hometown on Earth. Searching for a way back to Fillory, they learn that something is very wrong in the Neitherlands, the mysterious embarkation point that leads to all other worlds, and that the key they found is one of seven required to fend off an apocalypse. Interspersed chapters flash back to Julia's dark adventures before she reunited with Quentin. She discovered a network of people sharing magical knowledge outside the approved Brakebills framework, and her prodigious skills eventually earned her entrance into an elite circle of brilliant, self-taught magicians seeking "an advance so radical it will take us into another league...we think there's more to magic than what we've seen so far." Indeed there is: The ancient forces recklessly summoned by Julia and her friends provoke a spectacular magical battle, a terrifying transformation for Julia and the loss of everything Quentin has ever wanted. Echoes from The Chronicles of Narnia, in particular The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, continue to reverberate, but Grossman's psychologically complex characters and grim reckoning with tragic sacrifice far surpass anything in C.S. Lewis' pat Christian allegory.

Fabulous fantasy spiked with bitter adult wisdom—not to be missed.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2011

If Time'book critic Grossman's The Magicians was Harry Potter with a darker edge, then this sequel sounds like "The Chronicles of Narnia" way updated. Quentin and his friends now rule as the kings and queens of Fillory, and it's getting dull. So he and Julia board a magical sailing ship to sojourn to edge of the kingdom--and end up back at Quentin's parents' home in Chesterton, MA. That's horrifying enough, but they're suddenly in danger, and Julia's weird black magic comes in handy. Since The Magicians was a New York Times best seller and New Yorker Best Book of the Year--and a mind-stretchingly fun read--you might want to consider multiples. With a ten-city tour.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2011
Here's the sequel to Grossman's best-selling adult fantasy The Magicians (2009). Once upon a time there was a king of Fillory named Quentin, who was bored, bored, bored. The sovereign remedy for this malaise, he decides, is an adventure that will lead to the discovery of a golden key that winds up the world. Ah, but if one key is good, seven are better! And so the adventure becomes a quest. In the meantime, the reader is given the lengthy backstory of Queen Juliacall her the witch queen. This requires a great number of flashbacks, which is fine except that they retard the forward momentum of the plot. And, through it all, Quentin is proving more hapless than heroic. As in The Magicians, there is as much of the arch here as in the Arc de Triomphe, and the irony is as thick as frosting on a wedding cake. And, goodness, do all these goings-on require such a surfeit of Anglo-Saxon vulgarisms? Ah, well, no matter. Fans of The Magicians will find this sequel a feast and will be delighted that a jaw-dropping denouement surely promises a third volume to come.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)