Her Bone Season novels ( The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Representatives of each belief system-Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South-are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear.
They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods-but not the fire-breathing type. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons-beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance-set on destroying humankind. No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. The essence of being a magician, as Quentin learns to define it, could easily serve as a thumbnail description of Grossman’s art: “the power to enchant the world.”Īfter 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame. A beautiful scene in Fillory’s Drowned Garden reconnects Quentin with the innocent, dreaming boy he once was yet affirms the value of the chastened grown-up he has become. Human emotions and desires balance unearthly powers, especially in the drama of Alice’s painful return. Lewis, as Narnia is the obvious prototype for Fillory the philosophical conclusion Grossman draws from his land’s narrowly averted apocalypse is the exact opposite of that offered in Lewis’ overbearing Christian allegory. But his deepest engagement remains with C.S. Rowling’s great action scenes, though his characters’ magical battles have a bravura all their own.
THE MAGICIANS LAND GOODREADS SERIES
He slyly alludes to the Harry Potter series and owes a clear debt to J.K. As in the previous novels, Grossman captures the magic of fantasy books cherished in youth and repurposes it to decidedly adult ends. They fill in some blanks about what really happened to the Chatwins in Fillory and provide clues that will help Quentin’s old comrades Eliot and Janet, still ruling over Fillory, who have been warned by the ram-god Ember that the land is slowly dying. This involves stealing a suitcase that once belonged to Plum’s great-grandfather Rupert, one of the five Chatwin siblings whose adventures in Fillory were the subject of best-selling books Plum thinks are fictional-until she opens the suitcase to find Rupert’s memoirs.
But when his student Plum stumbles across the school’s resident malevolent demon, which Quentin refuses to kill because it was once his lover Alice, they’re both thrown out and forced to take a risky freelance magic job. Deeply satisfying finale to the best-selling fantasy trilogy ( The Magicians, 2009 The Magician King, 2011).Īfter being dethroned and exiled from the magical kingdom of Fillory for helping his friend Julia become a demigoddess, Quentin returns to Earth to teach at his alma mater, Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy.
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