The Magician King: A Novel

Front Cover
Viking, 2011 - Fiction - 400 pages

Nothing is ever as it seems

Quentin Coldwater is king of the bizarre and wonderful land of Fillory, but the days and nights of royal luxury are losing their appeal and Quentin is getting restless. Even in heaven a man needs a little adventure. So when a steward is murdered on a morning's hunt that is exactly what Quentin gets. But this quest is like no other. What starts as a flight of fancy, a glorified cruise to faraway lands, soon becomes the stuff of nightmares when Quentin is unceremoniously dumped at his parent's house in a decidedly un-magical suburb in Massachusetts.

Back in this grey reality, Quentin has never wanted his magical kingdom more. Fortunately he is accompanied by his old friend Julia, who learned her own brand of black and twisted magic outside Brakebills College at an illegal, underground school in the real world. As they struggle through the paranormal alleyways, past Venetian dragons and fairytale houses, it becomes clear that only Julia's black arts can save them. But there is a greater power at work, one that is threatening to destroy Fillory forever, and to defeat it they must unravel the secrets of Julia's tragic past, and the terrible pact she made to gain her power.

The Magician King is a grand voyage into the dark, glittering heart of magic, an extraordinary journey that allows the imagination to run riot and proves Grossman is the modern heir to C.S. Lewis.

Other editions - View all

About the author (2011)

Lev Grossman was born on June 26, 1969. He received a degree in literature from Harvard University in 1991. He spent three years in the Ph.D. program in comparative literature at Yale University, but left before completing his dissertation. In 2002, he became a book reviewer and one of the lead technology writers for Time magazine. He has written for Salon, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, The Believer, Lingua Franca, and the New York Times. His first novel, Warp, was published in 1997. His other novels include Codex, The Magicians, which won a 2010 Alex Award, The Magician King and The Magician's Land.

Bibliographic information