Magician King

✍ Scribed by Lev Grossman

• Publisher: Plume;Penguin Group US
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 274 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

**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.

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 )