The Magician's Land: A Novel

With The Magician's Land, Grossman tries a new tactic - instead of quests and magical destinies, he starts the the third and final book with a magical heist. Quentin is recruited into a crew of Magicians, one including a Brakebills Final year student, Plum, into stealing back a briefcase that they don't know the contents of. While Quentin is seemingly done with magical quests (he got burned on the last one, as you may remember) and ready to settle into adult life as a Brakebills professor, two things happen to change the course of his life: Alice makes an appearance and he gets fired/hired. Meanwhile, while Eliot and Janet are finally settling into their kingdom, the course of their lives also change, thanks to Ember delivering the unfortunate news that Fillory is about to have its very own apocalypse! Part grim, part humorous, this book really gave meaning to magic being a manifestation of your desires. The first half of the book was break-neck speed, exciting and exhilarating and contained wondrous magic that reminded you why this series is awesome in its uniqueness. There is a whale transformation (also, whales are spellcasters OMG), the heist (as I mentioned earlier), a quest that turns out to be not a quest, and Quentin coming to terms with his fantasy of having a father figure to guide him through his marvelous adventures. But the second half - oof, that was like spraying water over hot coals; it was still going great but the effect was sort of dampened you know? Because the second half takes a turn onto uncharted waters - telling us the story of the young Chatwins, having a magical hide-and-seek between Quentin and Alice, building up to creation magic, and having a drawn out end-of-times with Janet as the witness. That was also another thing different - we get more POV in this book, including Eliot, Janet, and Plum. Janet gets more backstory too, and I loved her badassery in this one, and Plum's naivete called back to the first book wonder. There was a lot going on in this book, and while the first half would have gotten a full five stars from me, the second half I am on the fence about. The ending is adequate and satisfactory in that it resolves plot threads and pushes the characters into a place where they feel content, but it felt like that spark was missing a bit. It felt like it should have been building up to something, maybe a sense of bittersweet loss on part of the reader, but it never did. As a series finale, though, I feel content and complete, so it is an amazing ending nevertheless.

This was a solid wrap-up to the trilogy - in the same vein as the Magicians and the Magician King, and nicely ties up the various story lines while introducing some new characters and interesting plotlines.

After watching the show on syfy, this little treasure turned out even better than I thought it would. I wish there were more than 3 books!