The New York Times bestselling novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world, now an original series on SYFY“The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this.” —George R.R. Martin “Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy.” —Joe Hill “A very knowing and wonderful take … fantasy.”
—Joe Hill
“A very knowing and wonderful take on the wizard school genre.”
—John Green
“The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this century.”
—Cory Doctorow
“This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and classic fantasy novels in order to upend them . . . an unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story.”
—The New Yorker
“The best urban fantasy in years.”
—A.V. Club
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. . . .
The prequel to the New York Times bestselling book The Magician King and the #1 bestseller The Magician’s Land, The Magicians is one of the most daring and inventive works of literary fantasy in years. No one who has escaped into the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter should miss this breathtaking return to the landscape of the imagination.
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Ohhhhh myyyyy (yes, insert George Takei gif here). I read this book a couple of years ago and completely lost my cool about it. I geeked out, real bad. To date, it’s still one of my favorites. Lev Grossman is a brilliant writer, and rereading this again now just reaffirms that it’s no surprise the trilogy has garnered colossal success – it got its …
I read this book quite a while ago and recently watch the series on Netflix. If you have only seen the show, it isn’t quite the same and I think you will like the book more.
Quentin Coldwater is a strange, melancholy,misfit obsessed with a children’s book series about a magical land called Fillory. When he gets accepted to Brakebills College he …
I am in love with the Sci Fi show that is based on this book. So I thought I’d give it a try. Loved hearing the true story, but in a way, reading the book now feels like I’m comparing with cannon.
Cozy readers will really have to be interested in fantasy to want to pick up this coming of age story set in senior year of high school where the …
Oh how I love this book (the whole series, really): clever, fun and creative, with a devastating way of dropping plot twists and heartbreaking character pivots with offhand nonchalance. As a writer, I find Grossman’s imagination fascinating and inspirational. As a reader, all these years later I’m still not over what happened to Amanda Orloff.
There is almost no Harry Potter in this story beyond the fact that some kids go to an invisible school of magic for half a book, so if that’s what you wanted, don’t bother. You got suckered by the hype or maybe the Syfy series, which is a distortion. What readers really need to expect here is a heavy dose of “The Chronicles of Narnia.” The …
“Harry Potter for grown-ups” is a really reductive and misguided way of describing this. Yes, it’s about a magical university, but it’s also about a character realising that having all his wildest fantasies come true still leaves him feeling empty and depressed. The trilogy as a whole is a thoughtful exploration of ennui, a brilliant …
Harry Potter goes to college. Harry Potter for adults. I think Lev Grossman’s The Magicians suffers due to these comparisons but even without them the story feels contrived. I struggled to care about the characters and turn each page. It was slow-going. I did find the character of Alice intriguing and her story alone kept me going. Oh well. …
A superb high-resolution take on what it would really mean to have the secret ability to do magic – and what kind of situations, human interactions and personality changes that can create. It ends up being, like much great fantasy, explorative and illustrative of the human condition itself. The seduction of pursuing abstract knowledge, versus the …
This book is a fantastic start to an amazing series. Playing off the worlds of Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Naria, this book introduces us to a world where magic is in the hands of college-aged nerds searching for meaning and joy. It’s an amazingly fun ride and I highly recommend it.
Love them all (and the TV series)
I didn’t think I would enjoy the book as much as an I did. The book draws its inspiration from Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia like the part of a magical school and the magical doorways that take you into another world. Other than that the book is its own story. I like how the book despite it being about magic it makes you feel like what a …
It definitely kept me up all night
It was too similar to “The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe” only with sexual scenes and swearing. It would probably be better if I read the next in the trilogy but, I can’t get interested in purchasing them. There are too many other books out there to waste my time trying to get into this.
Do not read.
Brakebills school doesn’t coddle, sink /swim. You have to earn it
If you liked all the teen angst parts in Harry Potter, then this is the book for you.
I found it unreadable.
Follows the TV series and helps explain more of the story line.
Plot dragged in several places, wanted to put the book down, but forced myself to finish.
love it