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The Magician King: A Novel (The Magicians) [Kindle Edition]

Lev Grossman
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (191 customer reviews)

Print List Price: $16.00
Kindle Price: $12.99 includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Sold by: Penguin Publishing
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Book Description

Return to Fillory in the riveting sequel to the New York Times bestseller and literary phenomenon, The Magicians


Quentin Coldwater should be happy. He escaped a miserable Brooklyn childhood, matriculated at a secret college for magic, and graduated to discover that Fillory—a fictional utopia—was actually real. But even as a Fillorian king, Quentin finds little peace. His old restlessness returns, and he longs for the thrills a heroic quest can bring.

Accompanied by his oldest friend, Julia, Quentin sets off—only to somehow wind up back in the real world and not in Fillory, as they'd hoped. As the pair struggle to find their way back to their lost kingdom, Quentin is forced to rely on Julia's illicitly-learned sorcery as they face a sinister threat in a world very far from the beloved fantasy novels of their youth.


Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2011: This second volume in Lev Grossman’s celebrated series picks up just after the events of its 2009 prequel The Magicians. Quentin, Eliot, Janet, and Julia are now the High Kings and Queens of Fillory, a fantastic realm not unlike Narnia, and they pass their days “deliquescing atom by atom amid a riot of luxury.” To ease his royal boredom, Quentin embarks on a quest with Julia. Despite his romantic visions of heroic feats and easy accolades, the quest goes horribly awry, and they find themselves back in the depressingly real world of Chesterton, Massachusetts. With the help of seedy underground magicians, a dragon, and a young boy named Thomas, they undertake a desperate journey back to Fillory. Grossman’s writing here is sharp and self-aware, and the characters feel like people you actually know, but cooler: they are delightfully profane and dripping with irony, they are arrogant and shallow, they are finding their way in a magically perfect world that somehow still lets them down, and they are learning to fight for the things they love. The Magician King is a triumph of (and an homage to) modern fantasy writing, and a must-read for grown-up fans of Narnia and Harry Potter. --Juliet Disparte

Review

“Hogwarts was never like this.”
(-George R. R. Martin, bestselling author of A Game of Thrones )

“A darkly cunning story about the power of imagination itself.”
(-The New Yorker )

“This serious, heartfelt novel turns the machinery of fantasy inside out.”
(-The New York Times Book Review )

The Catcher in the Rye for devotees of alternative universes. It's dazzling . . . A rare, strange, and scintillating novel.”
(-Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune )

The Magician King is a rare achievement, a book that simultaneously criticizes and celebrates our deep desire for fantasy.”
(-The Boston Globe )

“A spellbinding stereograph, a literary adventure novel that is also about a privilege, power, and the limits of being human. The Magician King is a triumphant sequel.”
(-NPR.org )

Product Details

  • File Size: 671 KB
  • Print Length: 418 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 043402080X
  • Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (August 9, 2011)
  • Sold by: Penguin Publishing
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B004XFZ8X2
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Enabled
  • Lending: Not Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,858 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Story is as unique as the last one, Julia is more of a main character in this one. J. Wohler  |  26 reviewers made a similar statement
And just when you think things can't get any worse for her, they get disgustingly bad. John Perich  |  25 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
102 of 107 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars After the "Ever After" August 9, 2011
Format:Hardcover
Can it possibly be only two years since I read Lev Grossman's The Magicians? If you asked me about that novel, I would immediately tell you that I loved it. Apparently, that's about all I could tell you. Having just read Grossman's engaging follow-up, I regret not having reread, or at least brushed up on, the first novel. References to prior events were plentiful, and rather than jog my memory, they highlighted just how fallible it is. Hopefully yours is better, or you will take the steps I didn't prior to reading the sequel. Oh, and it goes without saying that if you haven't read the first novel, don't start with this one.

Nonetheless, my inexact memory did not keep me from enjoying the latest adventures of Quentin Coldwater et al. Even I recalled that at the end of The Magicians Quentin, Julia, Elliott, and Janet had left our world to become the co-queens and kings of the magical (and not fictional after all) land of Fillory. The end. I thought that was the end. It was a good ending, and I didn't expect any more. As we catch up with Quentin and co., they are living their "happy ever after." It's glorious. It's perfect. It's boring. To some degree, this has ever been the issue of life in a magical world.

Quentin is itching for a quest, but this is countered by the reasonable fear of screwing up a perfect life. When a safe-looking mini-quest comes along, Quentin goes for it--and screws up his perfect life. The mini-quest evolves into a major-quest with the highest of stakes. While this primary drama is unfolding, there is a second story being told in reflection. The Magicians recounted the education and coming of age of Quentin, Elliott, and Janet. Finally we learn what "hedgewitch" Julia was doing all of those years, and how she learned her craft.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Like the second serving of an excellent dessert-- August 14, 2011
Format:Hardcover
After hearing about "The Magicians" on NPR, I picked up the first book in this series and was completely enthralled. It was a rewarding exploration of a problem that is rarely addressed--what could possibly motivate a character who, through power or technology, can address every level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...except, of course, for those difficult-to-get ones like meaning, self-knowledge, and so on. It was a Postmodern Harry Potter (I mean that in only the nicest possible way)--ironic, disdainful of happy endings, and realistic.

At this point, the only seriously negative review of this book on Amazon points out that it's thick with in-jokes and pop culture references. And it is, and in a certain sense that's an easy, jarring, almost parasitic sort of humor, I can see how it might seriously put a wrench in one's suspension of disbelief. But in Grossman's world the device adds to the feeling of being immersed in the geek/internets jaded, referential culture--and I think it reflects how Grossman's characters, at least at the beginning of their story arcs, are consumers rather than producers. Until we meet Julie, our wizards are fonts of received wisdom, brilliant students perhaps, but inward-focused beasts more enthralled with their own wit and personal tragedies than putting their near-omnipotence into any meaningful use. I'm strongly reminded of Pamela Dean's "Tam Lin" title, where the characters spin delightful chains of wit, fabulous crystals of logophilia that could only develop in the zero-G environment of fiction.

Aaanyway...I did love this book, it might actually have been as good a story as the first.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Stuck in the Neitherlands - spoiler alerts August 29, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The concept that drew me to these two books was that they're an adult literary treatment of a concept that has largely been addressed with either young adult or pulp adult writing and characters. I feel like The Magicians squeaked by in meeting that criteria (although the moral center did not hold). The Magician King does not. I think this does work as pretty good fantasy. There's a good deal of inventiveness, plot twists based on the created rules of the world, characters we basically care about. There's one very high quality creation in the gods which is severely underexploited. But overall, it's not great fantasy.

But it is definitely not literary. The quality of the writing has dropped significantly from the first book, and a great deal of it seems plain lazy. I don't think any of this would bother me except for the fact that I think Lev Grossman has the chops to do this right. There have been astounding sequences - e.g. Brakebills South, and I think that LG has brought a character to the page that is new to literature but common to life - nose to the grindstone type, with the realistic tradeoffs that are made to become good at something. There's a working metaphor with magic and writing that is working under the surface that he is able to tap to create a credible portrait of a teenager learning to become a powerful magician. That's no mean feat.

The book that comes to mind, and that I'm probably unfairly expecting, is The Corrections. The Corrections starts in the slang and quotidian of the suburbs, but elevates that life to literature. I think part of the reason that this works is that The Corrections knows what it is: literature.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars It feels disconnected
This second book is unfortunately not as good as the first one. Where I found the Magicians to be deep, I found this too light on several keay areas. Read more
Published 6 hours ago by Julian Cenit
5.0 out of 5 stars The New Alice in Wonderland
This book is completely amazing. It has the feel of Lewis Caroll's works, but with an odd, yet succinctly perfect emotional facet.
Published 3 days ago by dcc
5.0 out of 5 stars Love.
This book was just as much as a pleasure to immerse myself in as 'The Magicians'... I might say I enjoyed this book more because I thought it was more consistent, emotionally, if... Read more
Published 4 days ago by MsAF
5.0 out of 5 stars Got darker and richer and more complex.....
...as with the Magicians, the further it got from familiar territory (Harry Potter/Narnia) the better it got. Read more
Published 5 days ago by Richard Boersma
3.0 out of 5 stars So far not so great
I'm honestly not all that enthused by this story so far. I'm about a third of the way through, and not much has happened in the story. Read more
Published 27 days ago by BetsiJay
5.0 out of 5 stars Good sequel
this was actually better than the first book, I think. Great characters and not so much detail that you get bored. Read more
Published 1 month ago by sm
5.0 out of 5 stars LOVE IT
I loved the first book and this one is almost better...an adult version of Harry Potter if I had to explain it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by oswanson
4.0 out of 5 stars Loved it, and hope we will get another!
I loved the Magicians and really enjoyed the second book. I am hoping to be able to read more in the future.
Published 1 month ago by Slaytonerik
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow
That was an intense read, something about the way Lev writes connects with who I am at a deeper level than anything else I have ever read before. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Michael Montgomery
3.0 out of 5 stars A Diamond Still in the Rough
Admission: I did not read the first book 'The Magicians', so some of my review may reflect that missing base of knowledge of Fillory and the remaining characters that survived the... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Blue Method
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More About the Author

Lev Grossman is the author of the New York Times bestselling novels The Magicians and The Magician King. The New Yorker named The Magicians as one of the best books of 2009. In 2011 Grossman was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer by the World Science Fiction Society.

Grossman is also the book critic at Time magazine, and he has written about books and technology for the New York Times, Salon, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Lingua Franca, the Village Voice and the Believer, as well as NPR.

He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three children. He's 43, slightly built and probably wouldn't last long in a post-apocalyptic, eye-for-an-eye world.

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Could someone confirm the ending?
That was the end in the physical edition as well. I think the point is that he realized that the Neitherlands were recovering and growing in a new direction, and so could he.
Sep 29, 2011 by R. C. Nielsen |  See all 2 posts
Why are certain particularly philosophical segments of my kindle book...
I also bought the kindle edition, and didn't have that problem. I have noticed, I'll occasionally hit something (I'm not sure what) on the Kindle that brings up underlines in any book I read. It's fairly annoying.
Aug 22, 2011 by Catherine |  See all 2 posts
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