Just want to throw out a recommendation for The Magicians and its sequel The Magician King.

I did a couple of searches and found a few people recommending and discussing the first book, but none mentioning the second. Apologies if I missed any references to it.

A quick rundown for anyone who hasn't read the previous posts about the first book. Follows an Ivy-bound high school senior who matriculates to a secret American college for magic. The series has (afaik) a unique magic system, similar to A Land of Earthsea in its necessity for rote memorization, but doesn't use the "true name" feature present in Guin's books. The nature of magic in this series actually helps with the tone of the series, that magic is not fun. Indeed, my favorite thing about this book, and its sequel is how sad they are. More so in the second book you just get this feeling like the main character cannot win.

The second book follows the same main character, but also tells the story of a childhood friend of his who was rejected from the college, and learned magic independently.

In addition, Grossman's writing really is gritty (I know, buzzword). When a character who's never seen combat before witnesses it, they're often repulsed. When they come up against a terrifying opponent they're scared shitless. In addition to this, Grossman's gritty where a lot of other writers aren't, emotions. I know it sounds pretty shitty, but here's a small spoiler for the second book that highlights what I mean:

Spoiler

Quentin has just encountered Penny, who he's not seen since Penny lost his hands in their previous adventure. Quentin REALLY hates Penny.

"'There’s one square, just one, that’s a mile on each side, and it has a golden fountain in the center. They say the world it leads to is like heaven. They haven’t let me go through yet.'

Quentin wondered what heaven would be like for Penny. Probably in heaven you were always right and you never had to stop talking. God, he could be a dick where Penny was concerned. Probably in heaven you had hands."

Also, close to this scene Quentin says that he's always felt like he can relate to Penny, since both he and Quentin love magic compared to their contemporaries. For the person who said that none of the characters besides Penny loves magic, you also get to see another character who does in the second book.

I can see how some may not have liked the main character, because he does act like a shitty person, however you really get the sense that even he doesn't like who he is. As has been mentioned previously, escapism is a heavy theme here but something else that really manifests in the second book is the main character's escapism may be the result of depression. In the context of the first book it makes sense; the main character thinks his achievements will make him happy, but they don't, and so he keeps trying for something else.

Lastly, I will say that there is almost no character progression in the first book. There is a certain confidence the main character gains, but beyond that he still stays just as he is in the beginning. However, I don't think there was supposed to be any change in the first one, the character progression really occurs in the second book, and it's satisfying when it does. It doesn't feel forced.

 

I read The Magicians a while ago. Really disliked it. My Amazon review:

Basically I feel like it's the outline for a story, not a full story in itself. Everything is so rushed. We never see anything in detail. The characters are never really fleshed out, nor the world. What we have in The Magicians is what would have happened if JKR had tried to tell all 7 HP books in 100,000 words.

Also: I believe inverarity wrote a review of The Magicians that Lev Grossman responded to personally. In a really painfully awkward way.

 

Yep.

Convinced me not to get the book, when I read it years ago.

 

I actually got about half way through this book before I gave it up in disgust. I really really didn't like it, I want to be able to like the characters I'm reading about, it's part of the reason I read, to feel involved.

I didn't want to feel involved in this book.

 

I liked The Magicians well enough. A bit depressing, but a well written book. I wish the magic system was more thoroughly explored though. Left a review here on the boards somewhere which I cbf to find right now.

 

I enjoyed The Magicians when I read it, and bought The Magician King when it came out.

Then I reread The Magicians, and decided I wasn't going to read the sequel. Going back I realized it wasn't as good as I thought, it was mediocre at best.

 

Ouch, I read Inverarity's review, but didn't bother to check the comments section. Now that I think about it, there isn't a single mention of Harry Potter in the second book. Perhaps he really took the review to heart.

I read a review where someone said Grossman was a better teller than shower, and I can see that in respect to certain characterizations, but he has his moments. For instance, at one point Quentin thinks something along the lines of "If it comes down to a fight, I'm going to run," and except for one scene in the second book he pretty much sticks with this mantra.

On the point of the society, I actually was really interested in how they DIDN'T have a society. I mean they can do practically whatever, they don't have to worry about money, they don't really have to DO anything, so there's not very much productivity outside of academia. It's like you go through schools and you've "paid your dues" as Julia would say, after that you can do as you please. The look at Alice's parents I thought was perfect, it offered evidence for the less typical answer to the question, "Would we be better off without magic?"

The second book though offers a lot more world building, and a lot more showing. You get to see Julia's training, the society of hedgewitches, a bit of a productive magician's career, and the plot relies heavily on the magic system.

On another note, I've just started American Gods. Are the rest of Gaiman's works similar?

 

A lot of people have said that the sequel is better, so I may get around to reading (and reviewing) The Magician King eventually. I actually felt kind of bad when Grossman took offense to my review. He was at least civil about it.

Pretty much. Gaiman is clever but kind of a one-note author, when you get down to it. I still have fond memories of Sandman, but nothing he's done since has really impressed me.

 

Was checking out parts of this thread since I've been looking for new reading material. I only read the first twenty pages so they may be mentioned after all but both the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks and the Sir Apropos of Nothing books by Peter David are definitely worth checking out.

The first is somewhat dark and includes magic and assassins. The second is satire of typical fantasy fare, the protagonist is an antihero that its difficult to sympathize with but this just makes the messes he gets into more amusing.

 

I actually preferred the first book, but didn't find it to be exceptional, merely good in spots. It had its faults, but given the mood I was in when I read it, I could overlook them and I actually enjoyed it at the time. The author's a competent wordsmith, though not a particularly adept storyteller. I did find the (I thought at the time) ambiguous ending to be elegantly done--right up until I mentioned this to the guy in the office next to mine, who said "Oh, did you know there's a sequel coming out?" So much for the ending.

The second book was 'meh.' Two stories told in parallel: I wasn't particularly interested in the flashback and the other, being a cookie-cutter quest with paint-by-number main character growth and a rather trite message, didn't hold enough interest to carry the novel. If you're going to weave together stories like that, you need both to be sufficiently compelling and interesting as to be read apart, yet gaining something more when interwoven. (The latter two books of Lord of the Rings come to mind.) The sequel didn't deliver on either, at least for me--just some fleshing out of a minor character and some more disappointing life experiences for Quentin.

 

The Night Angel Trilogy was mentioned on page 40, though the discussion didn't amount to much. Personally, I enjoyed the first one, but the other two got pretty painful. Brent Weeks has said that Robert Jordan was a big inspiration, and it really, really, really shows after the first book. If you haven't read Wheel of Time, then I guess they could be good, but otherwise, meh.

 

Are there any high epic fantasy Tolkien books worth reading? I need my fix, probably read ASoiaF a dozen times.

I like the whole political different kind of POVs too btw.

It can be Urban too, not futuristic Urban though.

I don't like intergalactic space kind of books for some ironic reason...

 

To the guy looking for epic high fantasy: Wheel of Time series. I also thoroughly enjoyed the first book of the Stormlight Archive. Can't wait for the second one.

Guess I'll be reading Tad Williams the next time I pick up the genre. <_<

 

Definitely read the Wheel of Time, it's up beside Harry Potter as my favourite series of all time. And if you still need something, maybe check out some of Raymond E Feist's work, particularly the Riftwar Saga, none of his later works are ever quite as good.

 

Yea, I haven't read much of the Wheel of Time series. I tried years ago but the pacing was too slow for me and I didn't make it through the first few chapters. I'm planning on giving it another shot considering the number of recs it has in this thread and that my tastes have matured a bit since then.

 

I think most of the first book is really slow (and feels like a LotR clone). I found I only really got pulled in by what happens at the end of it.

But yeah, it's worth forcing yourself through the start. As generic and slow as it feels.

 

So I've been reading the Banned and the Banished series lately after seeing some recommendations in this thread. The first book was passable, though kinda generic. I've moved onto the second book and my interest is tanking fast.

The authors writing style feels so excessive "epic" to the point I can barely see it any other way than the author trying too hard. I don't know what it is exactly but I'm finding myself infuriated by the littlest things. One of the phrases that has bugged me tons is the ogre character saying he's "thick of skin". Every damn time I facepalm. Others include: "cold of heart" and "dark of colour". Strangely, the excessive use of apostrophes doesn't bother me at all.

It's not that the premise or story is dull, but it isn't interesting enough to keep me reading in the face of this annoyance. Basically, does the quality of the storytelling improve and/or the story become more interesting? What draws people to this series?

 

Thanks.

I picked up The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (haven't seen any reviews of that in this thread) and the Stormlight Archive.

I take is the WoT series is like ASoiaF as far as pace? First book drags on and it eventually picks up?

 

Not really. The first few books are fine pacing wise, it's around the middle of the series that it slows a bit, and the newer ones are faster paced again. Although it's never particularly fast paced in the entire series.