The Alchemyst: Book 1 (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, #1)

by Michael Scott

Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on 28 September 1330. Nearly seven hundred years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life. The records show that he died in 1418. But his tomb is empty and Nicholas Flamel lives. The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects - the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world. And that's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it. Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it. Sometimes legends are true. And Sophie and Josh Newman are about to find themselves in the middle of the greatest legend of all time.

• ISBN10: 0552562521
• ISBN13: 9780552562522
• Publish Date: 5 August 2010 (first published 1 January 2007)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
• Imprint: Corgi Childrens
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Find more reviews like this one at The Literary Phoenix.

Something strange is happening at the bookshop across the street.

Sophie watches through the window of the tea shop as a magical battle ensues.  By the end of the hour, her and her twin brother finds themselves wrapped up in an adventure beyond their wildest dreams.  There are warlocks and golems and alchemists and ancient people.  One small problem?  Sophie and Josh just want to go home.  They're only 15 and a half and this is an awfully big adventure.

What they want doesn't matter, however.  There is something deeper, something far more important going on, and the twins may just be at the center of it all.

This book isn't particularly original, but it is interesting.

It's the same story we've heard before - there are twins.  Twins are the chosen ones.  They must be trained.  Lots of running away from the bad guys.  All this is stuff we've seen before in fantasy - in fact, it's a lot of very common tropes rolled together in one.  That's alright, I suppose.  They're tried and true, if not particularly original.

What I really liked about the story was the mythology in it.  With a title like The Alchemyst it's expected that things will be a bit unusual.  Michael Scott has woven in so many different mythologies as support for this one, and I think it's fantastic.  Our major players are from Greek, Egyptian, and Celtic mythology.  We see Greek fairly often, but Celtic?  I could count on one hand the number of fantasy novels that incorporate that particular pantheon.  I loved that aspect.

There's a lot of "I'll tell you later" and it's exasperating.

If I have one major pet peeve about novels, it's when they start with loads of action and refuse to explain what's going on until 75% of the book is through.  Not immersing you in the story - I'm talking about actual interchanges of: "What's happening?" and "I can't tell you now; it's too dangerous."  It's like the author is saying "WAIT HOLD ON I'VE GOT THIS REALLY BIG PLOT TWIST AND IT'S COMING HAHA YOU ARE AT MY MERCY."  I mean, you can more or less figure it all out early on, but the dragging along of other characters is just annoying really.

I honestly felt the writing was a bit flat.  I really appreciated the use of olfactory senses (smell) into the narration, but otherwise there were so many pieces of recycled dialogue, I feel like the story could have been half this length.  Also unnecessary character deaths?  Not ones you're brokenhearted about, but more like "I'm not sure why that happened, there were 489357 ways to avoid it."

As a kid, I would have loved this.

Unfortunately, while some children books translate over as light reads for adults very well, The Alchemyst is not one of them.  The mythology here was really interesting, but the whole things was a bit juvenile.  Which is fine, since that's the target audience.

All in all I think I would recommend this book to someone between the ages of 9-13, but otherwise this series gets a skip from me.  It's an interesting idea, but not very gripping and therefore not worth it to me to read the rest of the series. I  do think that young fans of Percy Jackson would enjoy this one.

[sa090]

I actually started this book while reading Sandry's Book, I never ever read two book in the same time, not because I lack the attention span to follow multiple stories (Hello my currently watching anime list) but because I needed a distraction and thankfully I did, this was a really fun story to read.

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The covers are some of the absolute best I've ever seen, I tip my hat to whoever designed them. The story isn't really groundbreaking, it's been done many many times before but it does have some unique-ish elements. The world he built with the Elder Race, historical figures and I'm sure others to come was brilliant to read about. I'm a big fan of both history and mythology so when a book combines both aspects into it and better yet actually has most of its characters based on real people or people that actually existed in legends makes it so awesome. This one did, only the siblings were made up, everyone else existed in myth, legend or real life. I also met a few names that I don't know much about so I'm definitely interested in learning more in either my own side readings or through the story.

Magic is amazing and the way Micheal Scott handled it gives it a somewhat unique take on it, the way it connects to someone's aura and of course the individualistic traits that come with it makes you think about the possibilities he can take with this. The different smells associated with it does too, I mean what exactly decides why each aura smells the way it does? Even though that particular scent might not be a favourite or important in any way to the individual? At this point all I can say is that there's more to it than just preferences so I'm looking forward to know what later on. The linkage between science and magic reminded me of the Toaru Majutsu no Index series with the two sides of the spectrum but with this one being more interlinked than actually opposing sides makes it all the more interesting.

Bringing in a super ancient Codex with some disturbing accurate prophecies here and there increased the mystery side of the series, also makes you wonder just how much of a choice do the two of them have? At the moment it seems that it's not much but I'm sure there's more to it than just that simple way of putting it. The way the story moved a little messy tbh, the entire book is told on the expense of two days in the verse which meant that Micheal Scott had to sacrifice some opportunities for world or rather history building that could've taken priority in this book but in another way the events themselves realistically indicate that there is no time to sit around and give the twins a thorough update on what's happening so while it may have made the book a little less enjoyable to me, I do understand the reasoning behind it. 5 more books exist in this series and I'm sure my answered are amongst their pages.

The last thing I really liked here would have to be the portrayal of a certain woman in this series, even captured she continues being one of the best and most vital characters in the series. Yes in a book about Nicholas Flamel I'd expect the series to have him be this untouchable awesome individual while those associated with him would've been less awesome but on the contraire, that woman continued being a badass and I honestly can't wait to see what else she's up to. Speaking of characters while the ancient ones were interesting, I can't say the same for Josh. For a 15 year old who basically had to rely on himself and his twin since his younger years I'd expect a little bit more of rational thinking. Yes, he's thrust into a world that destroyed every image he had about his boring life so being freaked out is acceptable but I meant in thinking before speaking with things that could kill you 1000x before you even realize what's happening sort of thing.

Getting a little more control on his emotions would be great as well, he was a little too hotheaded for my taste and it was like he was switching between emotions way too much. One minute he's angry, in another he's appreciative of what's happening and then back to anger before being way too overprotective and so on. This whirlwind needs to come under control a bit, with where they're headed I hope it will.

Final rating: 4/5

[Ace]

Not the most literary of novels out there but it's always a fun read. Over a year later after having first read it and even knowing what happened I really enjoyed it :)

[Eve1972]

I actually picked this book up by mistake, but decided "what the heck" I would go ahead and read it and I am glad I did! This was a great little read. I will defiantly check out the other two books in the series!