The Magician's Land: A Novel (The Magicians, #3)

by Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD is out now!

The stunning #1 New York Times bestselling conclusion to the Magicians trilogy

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
 
ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS • The San Francisco Chronicle • Salon • The Christian Science Monitor • AV Club • Buzzfeed • Kirkus • NY 1 • Bustle • The Globe and Mail

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.

• ISBN10: 0670015679
• ISBN13: 9780670015672
• Publish Date: 5 August 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Viking
• Format: Hardcover (Deckle Edge)
• Pages: 416
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780670015672

Reviews

[ross91]

Oh God, what a journey!
At first I wasn't feeling it... the beginning was kinda hard to get through and it seemed I couldn't read more than 10 pages without the urge to put it down and do something else. I wasn't interested in the story and the new characters wasn't great enough to keep me curious about the future developments.
But then (show spoiler)[ Alice reappeared ] (hide spoiler) and everything was awesome again.
Suddenly I couldn't stop devouring it and I managed to read the remaining half of the book in just two days.
As always, the writing style is magnificent. Everything is lyrical and poetic and beautiful and sad and melancholic and special. I especially enjoy the sad parts because Lev Grossman has this special talent for making me feel all the unpleasantness the characters feel in very great details and emotional depth. I don't know... It's like the author is writing about me as well, it's like I recognize myself on the pages and I fell like someone really understands me. It's a special feeling I always look for when I read a book, but I rarely find, and when it happens it's like I've found a long lost friend or a part of me that I let go when I was younger and I didn't even know I had lost it. It's an amazing and melancholic and unique feeling and Lev Grossman is one of the few authors that managed to let me feel this way in all of his books. It's amazing. I wish I would have been so great with words as well.
As for the plot, as I said, it wasn't the best one in the trilogy, even if the last 30% was awesome and interesting and I wanted to find out what happened but at the same time I didn't, because I didn't want to let go of this world.
I especially appreciate Quentin's development throughout the series and the fact that he recognized himself how much he had changed since the beginning of his journey.
(show spoiler)[ The best part for me was the realization of what Fillory really meant for Quentin and what home really meant for him. Also, I loved the interactions between him and Alice and how their feelings toward each other were described, how they both changed in the last seven years but at the same time how it was possible for them to reconnect and begin a new "something" together. ] (hide spoiler)
Overall, I really liked this trilogy, it wasn't perfect but I felt like it was talking specifically to me nonetheless.

[sarahjay]

I almost don't even know how to rate this. It's not perfect. But I ultimately loved this trilogy so much for so many reasons so I'm just going to give it a 5.

I am now going to be VERY HIGHLY INVESTED in the TV show.

[malberto]

Just glad is finally over.... Kidding, but seriously, i bet the story would much more exciting if it was from the point of view of someone external to the physical kids, really liked the parts in Plum's POV. Also, the ending pissed me off a little.

May be the best book in the trilogy and it's the last one. Not filled with all the cliches and parody of Harry Potter and Narnia and it actually tells a unique and compelling story that weaves all the threads together. This is a series that I felt like it matured as it went (literally) though I suppose I liked the middle novel the least. The author also spins a lot of interesting side stories and reincorporates material and plot points from earlier, which I really appreciate. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some outrigger and our sort of sequels to this series.

[Lianne]

I won an ARC of this novel courtesy of the GoodReads First Reads programme. This review in its entirety was originally posted at caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2014/08/27/review-the-magicians-land/

I found The Magician’s Land more interesting than the previous two novels. The little heist story seemed a little out of place at first but it was interesting to catch up with Quentin and what he had been up to since the end of The Magician King. I think what I also enjoyed about the novel is that there’s a pressing sense of urgency this time around: you know something bad is going to happen to Fillory and whatnot and all of the characters are driving along to their respective endpoints. There’s direction this time, which is a good thing.

Granted, there’s still a sense of foreboding and bleakness that runs rampant as in the first two novels. However, the final message that I got upon closing this book is that despite of how stark and vicious the world can be, you can make a difference one way or the other, through your intentions and with what you are capable of doing.

But a major reason why I also enjoyed this story a lot more than its previous two installments is because of Quentin himself: he’s a lot mellowed out compared to when readers were first introduced to him. This time around he is able to purposefully work towards a solution without feeling as held back as in the second novel. Sure, he’s still sort of drifting and still lacking some purpose and direction in life, but at least he’s more self-aware and aware of the people and things around him, which is more positive than in previous installments.

The other characters were a bit of a hit-and-miss as the previous volumes. We got to learn a lot more about Janet this time, which was great because she seemed the least developed prior to this book. I’m not sure where that takes her moving forward, but at least we got a sense of why she is the way that she is now. Other characters remained more or less the same…unlike The Magician King, new characters like Plum were interesting, and not as depressed or angry as some of the other characters (Plum might be one of the few characters lacking a sort of angsty backstory, to be honest).

Overall, The Magician’s Land felt like a fairly good conclusion to the trilogy, capping on Quentin & his friends’ journeys over the course of three novels.