cleverpun’s 2019 Reading Journal: June · 5:10am Jul 3rd, 2019
The Magician King by Lev Grossman
This is the sequel to The Magicians, which I read back in January. Spoilers for it follow.
After the conclusion of the first book, Quentin has become one of the kings of Fillory, alongside three other people: his childhood friend Julia (who made a brief appearance getting rejected from Brakebills in the previous book), and two of his classmates from Brakebills.
But like in the first book, getting everything he ever wanted isn’t enough for him. He spends his days doing his royal duties, but they are all rather superfluous and leave him unfulfilled. Eventually, a call to retrieve some taxes from a backwater island at the end of Filloran territory blooms into a genuine adventure. But, like his previous adventure, all heroics come with a cost.
Interspersed and related to this, not quite every other chapter, is Julia’s story. We see what happened to her after failing the entry test for Brakebills. She takes it really hard, and rather than accepting it, she instead searches for magic elsewhere. Her gradual discovery of and adventures in the underground magic scene are not pretty.
My main issue with this book comes from the simple fact that I don’t like Julia. While her arc is interesting at points, she comes off as selfish and whiny. Admittedly, Quentin himself has these problems as well, but at least I identify with him to a degree.
Admittedly, Julia makes a very good foil to Quentin. They both, as mentioned, are often selfish and petty. They both learn the lesson to Be Careful What You Wish For. They both have a complicated relationship with magic itself, a thing that they have idealized and expect to solve all your problems, but only really creates more of them.
Like the first book, this one starts off fairly slow, and gradually ramps up the reveals and adventure until it reaches an actual, world-threatening climax. In this respect, Julia’s status as secondary antagonist does keep things a little more varied than the first book.
I won’t spoil this final conflict, but the book approaches a lot of the same themes as the first one. As mentioned, magic itself is an important theme. But this is also reflected in how people use magic, be it for good, ill, wish-fulfillment, a job, a hobby, and everything in-between.
If this book has a flaw, it’s that the first in the series tread this same ground, and then it was a lot more novel. But this book wasn’t bad. Excusing the fact that I didn’t like Julia, I still enjoyed my time with it. Both Julia and Quentin get some actual character development by the end, which is nice to see.
I’ll finish the last in the series before I make any judgements on the series as a whole, but if I were reading just these two, I would say that the second one is not as good as the first. There is a clearly transitional feeling to this book that feels like the setup for a sequel, whereas the first book stood perfectly well on its own.
Also, I didn't learn this until finishing the previous book, but apparently there's a series on the Syfy channel adapted from this series. But woof, those mixed reviews. Not sure it's worth the trouble.
Next up: The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman.
Personally, I bailed on the tv series within the first five episodes, and nothing I've seen of later episodes made me regret it. That said, I'm also hard to please with book adaptations and tone. Everything rubbed me the wrong way from the top down. (I can't get over Quentin being so OLD. He's a grad student anyway come book two, why was the age bump even necessary?)
5083565 According to an article I skimmed, the age change was a request from one of Syfy's executives. They wanted the actors to age convincingly. And if the TV series follows the same timespan of the books, it's easier to find an actor who will look that range of ages.
I'll agree with another article I skimmed; the change makes Quentin's naivete and childishness a lot harder to swallow. (And he was already a giant tool for most of book 1 anyway).
I'm not one who demands 100% accuracy from book adaptations, but the reviews and word-of-mouth I heard paint the series as starting pretty bad and only getting good around season 2 onward.
These reading blogs remind me that I should start keeping track of what I read on a monthly, or at least yearly, basis.