The Magician's Land

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Grossman, Lev
On Shelf At: Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Grossman, Lev	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Grossman, Lev	4-week checkout	Due 05-16-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Grossman, Lev	4-week checkout	Due 05-21-2024

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A solid end to a terrific trilogy. submitted by eknapp on September 19, 2014, 9:37am Having been evicted from Fillory, Quentin takes a job teaching at Brakesbills. After blundering into Alice's niffin he gets fired and is recruited by a talking bird to help steal a suitcase full of unknown. He visits his old Brakesbills South instructor in Antarctica and makes it his mission to de-niffin Alice. Meanwhile Fillory is imploding and Eliot et al try to stop Armageddon.

Where the first two volumes basically told the world's most effed up coming of age story, volume three is tying up loose ends, albeit in dramatic fashion (Fillory's death is long and fascinating).

I find it interesting how Grossman tells an epic story about a magical world full of hidden wonders and talking animals, then he carefully strips all the grandeur out of it. The Tolkienesque sense of destiny, of deeper purpose, of something-greater-going-on isn't just missing...it's noted and then ripped out. For example:

>>>SPOILERS AHEAD

--Quentin succeeds in de-niffining Alice, but she despises him for it.
--Fillory's noble ram-gods Ember and Umber are actually selfish and cowardly when you get to know them, decidedly un-Aslan.
--When Quentin kills Ember in order to re-start Fillory, it is not a noble or heroic act, or a fulfillment of prophecy; it's just a dirty, brutal deed that arguably achieves a debatably greater good, maybe.
--When Quentin and his understudy attempt to use an ancient spell to create a new land, it turns out to be a claustrophobic shit-heap.

Nothing goes the way we've been trained to expect. And that's wonderful in its own way

Satisfying Conclusion to a great trilogy submitted by brady.emmett on July 3, 2015, 8:48am If you've gotten this far, you've already read Lev Grossman's other Magicians books. And if you haven't, why are you reading reviews for the third book in a trilogy?

Just know that the last chapter of the book just makes the whole series sing. Not that it didn't sing without the last chapter, because it did. But that last chapter just pulled it all together, puts the bow on the top, and sends you on your way.

Possibly the best of the series submitted by amykmilligan on July 21, 2017, 6:15pm I loved a lot about these books, but honestly, the main character is inherently such a creep that it was hard to really love them. I am happy to say that I felt like this book finally gave Quentin some character growth and helped redeem a lot of the issues I had with the story. If you are drawn to these as a deep fan of the Narnia series, it is worth reading this one.

As a side note, I also think the TV series adaptation does a better job with the story in that Quentin is more tolerable and the other characters are given a lot more depth.

better than 2, maybe as good as 1 submitted by apknapp on August 19, 2020, 6:11pm I enjoyed it more than book 2 just because I finally stopped wanting to punch Quentin all the time; he's actually grown into a decent human being. All the usual fun of Grossman's awesome writing.

Enrnfnx submitted by Anthany on July 20, 2021, 6:24pm Since c