Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him.
Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory—but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything.
The Magician’s Land is an intricate thriller, a fantastical epic, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It’s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.
**
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, August 2014: In The Magician's Land, the third book in Lev Grossman's Magicians series, Quentin Coldwater returns as a jaded, slightly humbled, white-haired 30-year-old whose life hasn't turned out exactly as he thought he would--exiled from both the magical land of Fillory and then fired from the magic school Brakebills in quick succession. The series, infused with heavy doses of Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and Lord of the Rings, used these fantasy tropes in the first two books to explore adolescent alienation and twenty-something excess. Now, Grossman ushers the sarcastic, pretentious, and flawed cast of magicians into a painful maturity. Traumas from their youth tinge their life with regret, love lost doesn't stay lost, and magic--which despite making almost anything possible--doesn't simplify the complexity of adulthood. This is a book about grown-up fantasy nerds for grown-up fantasy nerds, but it's also a page-turner with some serious literary ambition. Adult readers longing for that lost childhood sense of awe that can only be found in make-believe will feel it here, the best and most mature book in the series. --Matt Kaye
From Booklist
Starred Review The third and concluding volume in Grossman’s epic Magicians trilogy finds former High King Quentin ejected from the magical kingdom of Fillory and, in short order, given the boot from a too-brief teaching stint at his old alma mater, Brakebills. What is Quentin to do? At loose ends, he joins a ragtag group of magicians—including Plum, an expelled Brakebills student—on a quest to find a mysterious case, contents unknown but presumed to be invaluable. Meanwhile, it appears, amid intimations of apocalypse, that Fillory is coming to an end, and the novel’s action begins bouncing back and forth between the kingdom and the real world, where Quentin and Plum are now living in a New York town house, with Quentin determined to use an arcane spell to create a new magician’s land. At this point, Quentin’s former inamorata Alice shows up; but wait! Isn’t she dead? Hmm . . . there is much more to the story, but suffice it to say that it is endlessly fascinating and always proceeds apace. In sum, this is an absolutely brilliant fantasy filled with memorable characters—old and new—and prodigious feats of imagination. At one point, Quentin muses, “Magic and books: there aren’t many things more important than that.” The Magician’s Land is ineffable proof of that claim. Fantasy fans will rejoice at its publication. --Michael Cart
Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him.
Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory—but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything.
The Magician’s Land is an intricate thriller, a fantastical epic, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It’s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.
Description:
Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him.
Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory—but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything.
The Magician’s Land is an intricate thriller, a fantastical epic, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It’s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.
**
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, August 2014: In The Magician's Land, the third book in Lev Grossman's Magicians series, Quentin Coldwater returns as a jaded, slightly humbled, white-haired 30-year-old whose life hasn't turned out exactly as he thought he would--exiled from both the magical land of Fillory and then fired from the magic school Brakebills in quick succession. The series, infused with heavy doses of Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and Lord of the Rings, used these fantasy tropes in the first two books to explore adolescent alienation and twenty-something excess. Now, Grossman ushers the sarcastic, pretentious, and flawed cast of magicians into a painful maturity. Traumas from their youth tinge their life with regret, love lost doesn't stay lost, and magic--which despite making almost anything possible--doesn't simplify the complexity of adulthood. This is a book about grown-up fantasy nerds for grown-up fantasy nerds, but it's also a page-turner with some serious literary ambition. Adult readers longing for that lost childhood sense of awe that can only be found in make-believe will feel it here, the best and most mature book in the series. --Matt Kaye
From Booklist
Starred Review The third and concluding volume in Grossman’s epic Magicians trilogy finds former High King Quentin ejected from the magical kingdom of Fillory and, in short order, given the boot from a too-brief teaching stint at his old alma mater, Brakebills. What is Quentin to do? At loose ends, he joins a ragtag group of magicians—including Plum, an expelled Brakebills student—on a quest to find a mysterious case, contents unknown but presumed to be invaluable. Meanwhile, it appears, amid intimations of apocalypse, that Fillory is coming to an end, and the novel’s action begins bouncing back and forth between the kingdom and the real world, where Quentin and Plum are now living in a New York town house, with Quentin determined to use an arcane spell to create a new magician’s land. At this point, Quentin’s former inamorata Alice shows up; but wait! Isn’t she dead? Hmm . . . there is much more to the story, but suffice it to say that it is endlessly fascinating and always proceeds apace. In sum, this is an absolutely brilliant fantasy filled with memorable characters—old and new—and prodigious feats of imagination. At one point, Quentin muses, “Magic and books: there aren’t many things more important than that.” The Magician’s Land is ineffable proof of that claim. Fantasy fans will rejoice at its publication. --Michael Cart
Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him.
Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory—but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything.
The Magician’s Land is an intricate thriller, a fantastical epic, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It’s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.
**