This book was written either by someone who really loved Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia and found great inspiration from those and other magical books when he decided to write this, someone who really hated Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia and decided to show the world how ridiculously easy it is to write a magical adventure book, or doesn’t really care one way or the other and wanted to make a pretty penny because those books are popular and someone might pick it up and not care that it’s annoyingly similar. No, really, without knowing much background about the author or his motivations for the book (and I’m too lazy to look into it, feel free to do the research for me and comment :P), it’s too similar to not be intentional one way or the other. I just can’t tell if it’s a tribute or mockery.

Working in used books with a strict trade-in policy, I don’t get much exposure to general fiction that comes out in hardcover. We generally only take the already popular authors, the ones that are sworn to sell (Patterson, Hooper, Balogh, whatever), so when I saw this on the shelf I thought it would be a nice change of pace. Me? Read a new hardback book? It’s usually unheard of. Lately I’ve been into magical tales of wonder and adventure, but primarily kids’ magical tales of wonder and adventure; The Magicians appeared to jump out at me as something that might get me back into adult reading. (Not that there’s anything wrong with kids reading, and I plan to do a lot of it presently, but every so often you do miss seeing the word ‘fuck’ in print, I’m not going to lie.)

A socially awkward but extremely intelligent high schooler named Quentin finds himself being examined for magical prowess and gets admitted into a super secret magic institute that is not Hogwarts because it’s in New York and only has an English “feel” to it. All the while, he pines over the world of one of his favorite childhood books, The Chronicles of Fillory, or something like that, and wishes desperately that he’ll one day be able to visit and go on adventures and quests and beat up mean people, and all.

Long (long) story short, he’s sorted–er, grouped with some older kids (being so advanced, as he is), they play a sport that doesn’t seem to have any purpose to the book at all except perhaps to insert a skill into Quentin or one of the other characters that they otherwise couldn’t believably have which helps them defeat some evil later in the book, and, oh, they find a way into Fillory.

I kept reading, thinking, “okay, something interesting is bound to happen next, right?” and I was rewarded with plot elements that are never tied up, characters that are never seen again or were otherwise unnecessary, and a total repeat of the entire Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia except with different names, lots of cursing, and a bit of Tolkien thrown in.

I don’t read much fantasy, and this is why: There is a moment when most of the loose ends are brought back together, the bigger more demanding questions are answered, and characters are more or less safe or sound. This is not the end of the book. I know why books don’t end here, there’s always one or two other questions, or a character’s unwillingness to just stay put. Personally, if I ever write a fantasy/adventure novel, it’s just going to end there. No quest back home. There won’t be fifty more pages dedicated to healing and displaying how the hero can utilize all the fantastic things he learned on his quest. To me, those parts are the most boring to read (with the exception of Lord of the Rings, where I think it was written quite well, though I admit that sometimes I don’t even watch the end of the movie).

It’s at this point when I think: “When will this adventure end? I’m already done reading it.” I always want to close the book and start something else, and by rights I probably should… but I figure it’s so rare that I read a book like this that I might as well read it to the end.

Was The Magicians a bad book? No, it really wasn’t. Aside from the obvious copycat elements, the main characters were strongly developed, the description was beautifully executed, and I didn’t put it down after the first chapter, thinking: “This book is going to suck, I shouldn’t waste my time.” I wanted to keep reading not out of loyalty to something I’d started, but because it was well-composed. I want to read another of his books just for the writing style.

Do I otherwise recommend it? Probably not, unless you’re into this sort of thing and don’t care that it’s just like those other books… It’s opened for a sequel at the end, and that worries me; either I’ll have to read it, if I remember, or it’s just done open-ended and he did that out of spite for people like me who complain about things that aren’t quite sewn together well enough.