Book 3.6: The Magician King

Author: Lev Grossman
Dates read: August 21, 2011 - August 27, 2011 (7 days)
Pages: 400
Genre: Fiction, fantasy

This novel is a sequel to one of my favorite books of the past few years, The Magicians. Given how much I loved the first book, the sequel moved immediately to the top of my reading list and I bought it the day it came out.

Since I don’t want to potentially spoil aspects of the first book for anyone that hasn’t read it, I’m not going to discuss what this novel is about. If you’d like to see what The Magicians is about or read my thoughts on that book, here’s my entry on it from my first round of reading. Suffice it to say, if you’re interested in this series (which you definitely should be!), read the first one and I’m sure you’ll be on to this installment as soon as you’re finished.

This novel completely lived up to my very high expectations. The depth of character was pushed even further, and the scale of events heightened substantially as well. Interestingly, the one bone I had to pick with the first book, an aspect of the conclusion I found a little convenient and perhaps too upbeat, is explained and explored in great detail in this sequel, revealing it to be much darker and better justified than it initially appeared. I was actually surprised to find this book getting even darker than the first because I probably wouldn’t have thought it possible, but oh man, darker it does get. There were some moments where I thought things were a little contrived for the sake of plot progression this time around, but the book overall is just so good that this barely registered as a complaint. The ending leads me to believe there will be a third installment to make this a series, leaving me even more excited for the next one than I was for this novel.