The Magicians: Amazon.de: Lev Grossman: Englische Bücher

Pressestimmen

Stirring, complex, adventurous ... From the life of Quentin, his slacker Park Slope Harry Potter, Grossman delivers superb coming of age fantasy. Junot Diaz, author of DROWN and THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO Anyone who grew up reading about magical wardrobes and unicorns and talking trees before graduating to Less Than Zero and The Secret History and Bright Lights, Big City will immediately feel right at home with this smart, beautifully written book by Lev Grossman. The Magicians is fantastic, in all senses of the word. It's strange, fanciful, extravagant, eccentric, and truly remarkable--a great story, masterfully told. Scott Smith, author of The Ruins These days any novel about young sorcerers at wizard school inevitably invites comparison to Harry Potter. Lev Grossman meets the challenge head on... and very successfully. The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. Solidly rooted in the traditions of both fantasy and mainstream literary fiction, the novel tips its hat to Oz and Narnia as well to Harry, but don't mistake this for a children's book. Grossman's sensibilities are thoroughly adult, his narrative dark and dangerous and full of twists. Hogwart's was never like this. George R. R. Martin The Magicians ought to be required reading for anyone who has ever fallen in love with a fantasy series, or wished that they went to a school for wizards. Lev Grossman has written a terrific, at times almost painfully perceptive novel of the fantastic that brings to mind both Jay McInerney and J. K. Rowling. Kelly Link The novel's climax includes some spectacular magical battles to complement the complex emotional entanglements Grossman has deftly sketched in earlier chapters. Very dark and very scary, with no simple answers provided -- fantasy for grown-ups, in other words, and very satisfying indeed. Kirkus This is a book for grown-up fans of children's fantasy and would also appeal to those who loved Donna Tartt's The Secret History . Highly recommended. Library Journal This is a sophisticated, subtle novel that is also magical fun. I can't imagine any lover of well-written classic fantasy... who won't adore it. The Times Remember the last time you ran home to finish a book? This is it, folks. The Magicians is the most dazzling, erudite and thoughtful fantasy novel to date. You'll be bedazzled by the magic but also brought short by what it has to say about the world we live in author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook and Absurdistan The Magicians brilliantly explores the hidden underbelly of fantasy and easy magic, taking what's simple on the surface and turning it over to show us the complicated writhing mess beneath. It's like seeing the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter through a 3-D magnifying glass author of the Temeraire series The Magicians is a spellbinding, fast-moving, dark fantasy book for grownups that feels like an instant classic. I read it in a niffin-blue blaze of page turning, enthralled by Grossman's verbal and imaginative wizardry, his complex characters and most of all, his superb, brilliant inquiry into the wondrous, dangerous world of magic author of The Epicure's Lament and The Great Man The Magicians is angst-ridden, bleak, occasionally joyous and gloriously readable. Forget Hogwarts: this is where the magic really is SFX 5 star review The Magicians is Harry Potter as it might have been written by John Crowley...This is one of the best fantasies I've read in ages Fantasy & Science Fiction The author has taken all that is held dear in the fantasy genre, reverently (most of the time) tipping the hat to Rowling, Tolkien, Lewis, Le Guin and others, and shown it from a completely different and unique angle Fantasy Book Review This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and classic fantasy novels (most obviously, those of J. K. Rowling and C. S. Lewis) in order to upend them, and tell a darkly cunning story about the power of imagination itself. The New Yorker

Kurzbeschreibung

Quentin Coldwater geht zu seinem Aufnahmegespräch nach Princeton - und findet seinen Gesprächspartner tot vor. Ein Umschlag mit seinem Namen darauf führt Quentin auf einen seltsamen Pfad, der sein Leben für immer ändert. Eine Welt der Freiheit und Macht, wo all seine Wünsche erfüllbar scheinen - doch der Anschein entpuppt sich als trügerisch...

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kein klassisches Fantasy 24. August 2010

Von Maik Danstedt

Format:Broschiert

Wenn man gewohnt ist bei Fantasyliteratur Dinge a la Tolkien zu lesen und auch den Harry Potter verschlungen hat wird einem "The Magicians" insgesamt komisch vorkommen.
Was tatsächlich anfängt wie ein Harry Potter für Erwachsene (junger High School Abgänger bekommt die Chance auf ein College für Magie zu gehen) entpuppt sich als Geschichte über einen jungen Mann, der nichts mit sich anzufangen weiß und danach trachtet seinem Leben einen Sinn zu verleihen. Dabei verschlägt es ihn auch nach Fillory, einem an Narnia angelehnten Abenteuerland.
Die Story hebt sich definitv von vielen anderen Fantasygeschichten ab, inhaltlich locker amerikanisch und macht an manchen Stellen den Eindruck als habe Quentin Tarantino nach einer duchzechten Nacht mit JK Rowling and CS Lewis ein Fantasybuch geschrieben. Bizarr, aber interessant.

Der Schreibstil ist flüssig, ich habe auch ein paar neue englische Wörter kennengelernt. Insgesamt gut und flott zu lesen - aber nicht für den Englischanfänger geeignet.

Ich muß zugeben, daß ich etwas anderes erwartet hatte - irgendwie klassischer, dennoch bin ich vom Buch nicht enttäuscht. Das Ende ist actionreich mit einigen überraschenden Wendungen. Die Hauptcharactere sind IMO gut ausgearbeitet, allerdings stößt man in der Story immer wieder an ein paar Ecken an wo man gerne etwas mehr erfahren würde. Für den Fortgang und die Logik ist das nicht tragisch hinterläßt aber ein leicht unrundens Gefühl.

Als Fazit würde ich am liebsten 3,5 Sterne geben - im Zweifel immer für den persönlichen Geschmack, also aufrunden auf 4.

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So so 23. Februar 2010

Von That Dude

I'm giving a 3 star rating for this book. While I can principally align with the previous commenter on the great characters, I think it's not so perfectly executed in the end.
If you're anywhere near like me, you will probably find the first half of the book really really exciting - a real page turner.
During that first half, you might kind of skip the parts that explain about the Fillory world, because they seem like really irrelevant fillers for the real story that's going on. Besides, the Fillory world very much resembles Narnia, so no credits for the imaginaton of the author in this regard.
So instead of reading the boring Fillory parts in the first half (which are presented as child memories of a book series that the main character had read), you will concentrate on the great characters and what's going on with them.
It came as a surprise to me that the Fillory world becomes very central to the plot later in the book, at which time I had to realize that I had no idea of the whole Fillory story - because I skipped these parts earlier (they are really boring).
The story gets really wild in the second half, but it feels like Alice in Wonderland, just brutal.
Lastly, I think the author hasn't found a satisfying end to the story at all. There's a female character that appears in the end (don't want to spoil it for you), who just doesn't make a lot of sense at this point in the plot, and I cannot imagine how the appearance of this female character could do anything to soothe the main character's pain.
So bottom line for me: it was worth reading, but the first half promised much more than the second half could keep.

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Brilliant fantasy literature for adults 29. November 2009

Von VH

Format:Taschenbuch

Fantasy doesn't have to be for teenagers only. And books about young wizards don't have to be about Harry Potter.
Grossmann's book takes up the idea of magic in our world and spins that thought further. Unlike Rowling, who didn't deviate an inch from simple dream-fulfillment narratives (cf. A.S. Byatt's scathing review of the books), Grossmann thinks things through to the end, be that the problem of living with superhuman powers in a human world to the fact that in a school for magicians, the same social mechanisms are at work that made you suffer before you discovered your arcane talent.
The characters are wonderfully drawn, realistic in their emotions, strengths and weaknesses without ever falling into steretypical patterns of flat characters.
Fillory (a Narnia-like place) provides a theme throughout the novel and the last part deals with it in more detail, but I don't want to spoil anything here. Sufficient to say that Grossmann does the same for fantasy worlds that he does to magical schools--he thinks things through to the last, unpleasant consequence and makes you wonder if we left Eden on our own rather than having been thrown out.
I particularly like the author's style, his narrative pace and his plot construction.
Absolutely recommendable and something I have sought for a long time.