Lev Grossman’s “The Magician’s Land” was recently released. I really enjoyed the first two books in the trilogy, The Magicians, and The Magician King. I was looking forward to the conclusion of the trilogy quite a bit, and in preparation I re-read the entire series. It is rare for me to go back and re-read books, and this was my first re-read of the Magicians books. I feel like I understood what was happening a lot better and came away with a better holistic understanding of the story. The re-read helps a lot; the books are rife with references to previous characters and events. There are lots of references all over the place actually, to pop and nerd culture. I had to look up a lot of words as well – I really appreciate the dictionary feature of the kindle, which was one added bonus over the paper version that I read the first time.

Actually, last summer I read a short story in this universe from the “Unfettered” anthology. That was really a lot of fun to read at the time – it really brought back the impact of the series and was a nice short story to tide me over for the release. I was a bit disappointed because it turns out that the short story from Unfettered was in fact a good portion of one of the chapters from The Magician’s Land. I wonder if the short story (starring Plum, a character from The Magician’s Land) in the “Dangerous Women” anthology is also a part of the book. I’m interested in picking up that anthology, but the price is a bit high now; I’ll wait for the mass market paperback edition to force down the Kindle pricing a bit before picking that up.

So, a quick post on some books. If you haven’t read the Magicians, and are looking for a smart take on Hogwarts style stuff for adults, check it out. The characters are (intentionally I believe) fairly unlikeable and it takes some work to get through, but it is a really fun series. I really look forward to more in that universe, and might check out Lev Grossman’s other work as well.