
Viking, 2011
Cover art: “La Grotte (The Grotto),” 2003 © Didier Massard
The Magician King by Lev Grossman is as good as I wanted the first book in this series to be.
The big flaw with The Magicians was that toying with the genre sometimes overshadowed telling the story. That’s not the case with this second book. The parameters of Mr. Grossman’s magical world are already defined and the genre gimmicks are already established. There’s no need to rehash them and so he doesn’t.
Which means that The Magician King can focus on simply telling a good story. The storytelling in this novel is more cohesive and coherent than its predecessor, and as a result it’s much more powerful and effective.
The Magician King has the substance that the premise of the first book promised but mostly failed to deliver.
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