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A review by midici
The Magician King by Lev Grossman
4.0
This book starts with usual recap of the last book, but then quickly gets down to business with some action. On the one hand, it's satisfying to read something where there is fast-paced action, but it meant less world-building than the first book, and I honestly love the world-building stuff. So the switch off between what was happening with Julia and Quentin when they go in search of the seven magical keys and Julia's mysterious back story works well for me.
The present story is told from Quentin's point of view as we get his impression of being a king of Fillory. Quentin likes being a king, but he wants to do some actual good in the world, and living in a fairly utopian fantasy-land surprisingly doesn't provide a lot of opportunities. His decision to take a day trip out to a little island sets him off on a quest to find seven keys. What started out as an amusing way to pass the time becomes much more serious when Quentin and Julia accidentally fall back to Earth, with no way to return to Fillory.
In the first book we got a good view of the magical elite: genius level students, accomplished magicians, all attending Brakebills (or other accredited schools), learning magic in a fairly structured way. The return to Earth brings about a discovery of how the other half lives. Julia's life spiraled out of control when she first failed the Brakebills exam. She eventually finds her way back to magic in a fashion that Quentin wasn't aware existed. Across the continent hedge witches gathered in safe houses to teach ech other whatever magic they could get a hold of. While most were content with doing magic on the side, Julia dropped everything to learn as much as possible. The more she learned the more frustrated she became - unlike Brakebills, most of the hedge witches were playing around with magic, and as Julia quickly became the most accomplished around her she struggled with the knowledge that others were better, with better access to what she wanted to know and she couldn't find a way to get what she wanted.
Julia doesn't learn until later that her progress is being watched by a group of magicians who were exactly like her. They failed the exam, but were determined to become magicians. When she learns enough, they invite her to stay with them and explore magic. Specifically, they want to know where magic comes from and if it's possible to "level-up" their own abilities.
Julia is a vicious character. She's unpleasant, competitive, and unsympatetic in many ways. She considers the Brakebill kids soft for learning the 'easy' way. But the Brakebill kids, including Quentin, know better than to delve into the sort of thing Julia and her group got caught up in specifically because of their education. Their encounter with the Beast taught them that there were many beings more powerful than them, and their teachers warned them that trying to get to the root of magic would lead to disaster. The disaster that falls on Julia and her group not only leaves most of them dead and Julia stripped of her humanity, but brings unwanted attention to Earth.
As the Dean speculated in book one, magic is a cheat. It's available on Earth, but Earth itself isn't magic. Magic leaks into Earth from other realms, Fillory specifically. Julia's actions led to the actual gods, beings of immense power, to start correcting the "mistake" and removing magic from the places it "shouldn't" be.
While Quentin still has moments of being unbelievably stupid and selfish, he grows up a lot in this book, almost as much in the first. He's able to keep himself together in the crises, he is determined to try and do the right things for his friends, even if he isn't always certain of what that may be. While Eliot seems to have flourished as High King, and Julia finds peace within herself through her transformation into a dryad, Quentin is starting to learn to use his own traits as a means of strength and stability, and satisfaction. Which he is going to need now that he's been kicked out of Fillory, the price for allowing Julia to be absolved of her part in the catastrophe that almost allowed for the destruction of Fillory, the Neitherlands, and all magic on Earth.
The present story is told from Quentin's point of view as we get his impression of being a king of Fillory. Quentin likes being a king, but he wants to do some actual good in the world, and living in a fairly utopian fantasy-land surprisingly doesn't provide a lot of opportunities. His decision to take a day trip out to a little island sets him off on a quest to find seven keys. What started out as an amusing way to pass the time becomes much more serious when Quentin and Julia accidentally fall back to Earth, with no way to return to Fillory.
In the first book we got a good view of the magical elite: genius level students, accomplished magicians, all attending Brakebills (or other accredited schools), learning magic in a fairly structured way. The return to Earth brings about a discovery of how the other half lives. Julia's life spiraled out of control when she first failed the Brakebills exam. She eventually finds her way back to magic in a fashion that Quentin wasn't aware existed. Across the continent hedge witches gathered in safe houses to teach ech other whatever magic they could get a hold of. While most were content with doing magic on the side, Julia dropped everything to learn as much as possible. The more she learned the more frustrated she became - unlike Brakebills, most of the hedge witches were playing around with magic, and as Julia quickly became the most accomplished around her she struggled with the knowledge that others were better, with better access to what she wanted to know and she couldn't find a way to get what she wanted.
Julia doesn't learn until later that her progress is being watched by a group of magicians who were exactly like her. They failed the exam, but were determined to become magicians. When she learns enough, they invite her to stay with them and explore magic. Specifically, they want to know where magic comes from and if it's possible to "level-up" their own abilities.
Julia is a vicious character. She's unpleasant, competitive, and unsympatetic in many ways. She considers the Brakebill kids soft for learning the 'easy' way. But the Brakebill kids, including Quentin, know better than to delve into the sort of thing Julia and her group got caught up in specifically because of their education. Their encounter with the Beast taught them that there were many beings more powerful than them, and their teachers warned them that trying to get to the root of magic would lead to disaster. The disaster that falls on Julia and her group not only leaves most of them dead and Julia stripped of her humanity, but brings unwanted attention to Earth.
As the Dean speculated in book one, magic is a cheat. It's available on Earth, but Earth itself isn't magic. Magic leaks into Earth from other realms, Fillory specifically. Julia's actions led to the actual gods, beings of immense power, to start correcting the "mistake" and removing magic from the places it "shouldn't" be.
While Quentin still has moments of being unbelievably stupid and selfish, he grows up a lot in this book, almost as much in the first. He's able to keep himself together in the crises, he is determined to try and do the right things for his friends, even if he isn't always certain of what that may be. While Eliot seems to have flourished as High King, and Julia finds peace within herself through her transformation into a dryad, Quentin is starting to learn to use his own traits as a means of strength and stability, and satisfaction. Which he is going to need now that he's been kicked out of Fillory, the price for allowing Julia to be absolved of her part in the catastrophe that almost allowed for the destruction of Fillory, the Neitherlands, and all magic on Earth.