"The Magicians" and "The Magician King"

While on vacation, I read "The Magicians" and "The Magician King" by Lev Grossman. The easiest way to describe these books would be if Stephen King wrote a Chronicles of Narnia / Harry Potter mash-up. The basic premise is that there is a teenage guy graduating from high school who is obsessed with a fantastic world called Fillory (basically, Narnia). He goes to a college interview, and on the way home gets pulled into a magical college where seemingly, everything he ever dreamed about becomes true. But only kind of. In reality, all the magic is true, but it's not what he expects. It's much darker, and grittier, and much, much more dangerous than he expected.

This is basically an anti-Potter novel. It looks at what would happen if you gave a bunch of college age weirdos and outcasts phenomenal cosmic powers. I don't want to give too much away, but I'll give you a hint - it involves a lot more hedonism and ennui than Rowling could even conceive of.

There's a lot of depth to this book, and it deals with some really interesting questions about purpose, power, and responsibility. The magical universe has no "big bad guy" - so what do magicians do when they graduate from these magical universities? If you're immortal, how long can you handle it? Given phenomenal magical abilities, do you solve world hunger, or redecorate your house once a week to look like a different historical place? There's no simple answers in these books, and I think that's an interesting statement in itself.

The first book is better than the second, but they're both well worth reading. I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who reads these, so speak up if you do!