Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman

In The Magician’s Land, the stunning conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy—on-sale from Viking on August 5—Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story be­gan, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him.

Along with Plum, a brilliant young under­graduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demi­monde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost for­ever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory—but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrific­ing everything.

The Magician’s Land is an intricate thriller, a fantastical epic, and an epic of love and redemp­tion that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnifi­cent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It’s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.

This is a whirlwind of magic, adventure and self-discovery. Oh yes, and witty acerbic humor. That’s something I may not have stressed enough in my previous reviews of this series. I love the sarcastic humor that is so prevalent through out these books. And where I felt Magician King was lacking, Magician’s Land made up for it (in spades). I honestly think this is probably the strongest of the three books.

In this we find Quentin, as usual, trying to find his place in this world (or that world, any world, really). But he has grown up and matured a tremendous amount. He’s still Quentin, but he is no longer defined by his angsty wallowing. He’s finally stood up and realized he has the power to change his freakin attitude, and in turn maybe positively impact how things turn out instead of just assuming its all shit and then waiting for it to happen and saying, yeah, see, everything is shit.

I don’t want to dwell on the past, and Quentin’s previous shortcomings in the personality department. I just want to say that his character has grown tremendously. This whole series is a clash of the magically wondrous and imaginative land of children’s dreams with the jaded, skeptical, disillusioned and sarcastic world we know, the one we grew up in and certainly the world that Quentin knew prior to Brakesbill. It’s what we consider reality. But to see this reality trying to mesh with that of Fillory, is a challenge for the characters.

This concluding book did the best job of creating harmony between the two (and if not harmony, an understanding, a smooth transition). I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot, but I will say the book contains a heist, more magic in this world and Fillory, lives are on the line, there’s a magic carpet ride, a crow in a cage, snarky Harry Potter references, some bacon, a mysterious spell page, and of course, time is running short.

There were a couple of secondary characters I would have loved to have seen more of, there was a little bit where I felt things slowed down, but ultimately, by the end, I really couldn’t care about any of that.

This book provides a magically wonderful conclusion to the trilogy. Every ounce of this series drips in the mystical, magical world of possibility. There were many things from the previous books and this one that were wrapped up in the brilliant conclusion. The end can be seen as a new beginning, whether we will get any books about it, I honestly don’t know. But I love where Grossman has taken the worlds and the characters. If you enjoyed either of the other books, I really encourage you to read on because this one tied everything together so well and gave the series the ending it deserved.