The Magicians

I live in the Harry Potter generation.

If you mention muggles, Voldemort, Dumbledore, or almost anything from the series in a conversation the chances are high that the person to whom you are speaking will catch the reference, regardless of whether or not they've read the series. Now that is impressive.

I mean, the Harry Potter books are such a cultural phenomenon that they had midnight release parties for each new book. I've never read a series that had that loyal of a following besides Harry Potter. And I am not ashamed to say that I went to two midnight release parties. And furthermore, I won the Harry Potter Spelling Bee at the release party for book seven. The winning word was Serpensortia, in case you were curious.

So how does a young adult fantasy author write a book today without being compared to HP? The fact of the matter is they can't. In today's publishing world everyone is looking for 'The Next Harry Potter.' They're all waiting for lightning to strike twice, so as soon as an author proposes an idea it's going to be held up to Harry Potter to see if it can make a comparable amount of money.

Some authors try to fight the Harry Potter stigma, but others just work with it. Lev Grossman is one of those. From one angle you could look at 'The Magicians' as Harry Potter at college in America. But, seeing at Grossman had the idea before the Harry Potter books began to be published, and because the novel is so much more than that, that's a bit of a one-sided view. But Grossman knows that that comparison will be drawn, and he seems to be okay with it, even referencing Harry Potter a few times throughout the book. But then, his whole book sort of plays off and references book series that are staples of the landscape of fantasy today. The land of Fillory is clearly a parallel to Narnia, and Middle Earth, like Hogwarts, is referenced outright, with one of the characters seeking to find it so that he can 'bang an elf.'

That delightfully classy piece of dialogue brings up a good difference between The Magicians and most other fantasy. It's about college aged kids, and they act like college aged kids. There's a good amount of sex, rather a lot of drugs, and perhaps magic replaces the rock and roll in this equation. But the kids are just that, kids. They're emo, they have their little spats, there are cliques and couples and all the other baggage of life as an adolescent. Throw in some magic and it makes for a very interesting literary cocktail. I mean, the novel could be seen to have no real plot up until about page 250, but the combination of characters and circumstances is interesting enough to keep most readers engaged until the grand quest finally gets rolling.

So if you're feeling some void after 'losing' Harry Potter, especially with the end of the film series coming up now as well, perhaps you should try filling it with some other books. I would recommend The Magicians to be a good start.