Tag: the books of magic

Bindings (The Books of Magic, #2) by Carla Jablonski

Bindings (The Books of Magic, #2) by Carla Jablonski

Faerie is slowly dying from a mysterious wasting disease. Tim Hunter, the new and as-yet-untrained magician, may be the only one who can save it.

But could Timothy Hunter, who briefly visited the realm of the Fair Folk, be the child of the prophecy?” pg 2

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You don’t have to read the previous entry in the series about Timothy to understand this stand-alone story. Carla Jablonski does a good job recapping what has gone on before.

“Throughout all the journeys, it seemed like there were always people trying to kill him or take his magic.” pg 12

My beef with this book is, even though she uses Neil Gaiman’s characters, she doesn’t write with the magic of Gaiman.

The plot is incredibly straight-forward, the bad guys are sadly predictable and it just doesn’t sparkle.

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Even Tamlin, the man who went to Faerie long ago and fell in love with its Queen, isn’t as complex as I wish he would be.

Tamlin knew that to the Fair Folk, as something was, it always would be. Nothing ever changed. The ability to see reality and to change was man’s magic. My magic, Tamlin thought.” pg 42

It’s not her fault. Jablonski has written a thoughtful young adult novel about reality not always being what it appears to be and explaining some of Tim’s origins.

She’s just not Neil Gaiman. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you’re going to write someone’s characters, you need to embody who they are.

Now that he was in a real-life fairy tale, complete with its own monster, he realized how unlikely those stories really were.” pg 111

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Read this entry in the series if you’re a completionist. Otherwise, may I recommend The Sleeper and the Spindle.

See my reviews of the first entry of The Books of Magic on my blog or the third entry in the series, Free Country: A Tale of The Children’s Crusade.

Thanks for reading!

The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman

The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman

Tim Hunter is destined to become a great magician… isn’t he? Four magical beings take him on realms other than his own, to educate and warn Tim about the path he is about to embark upon.

It is up to Tim to choose his destiny. Great power comes at great cost and it may be more than he is willing to pay.

“Child, magic exists. There are powers, and forces, and realms beyond the fields you know.”

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The worlds Neil Gaiman has created in The Books of Magic are haunting and layered and will stick with you after you’ve finished the story and closed the book.

So… typical Gaiman then.

“The true Atlantis is inside you, just as it’s inside all of us. The sunken land is lost beneath the dark sea, lost beneath the waves of wet, black stories and myths that break upon the shores of our minds.”

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Beyond the story, the artwork is beautiful in each volume, but different from artist to artist. Not in a jarring way, just noticeably different.

“It’s like there’s a whole other world, that I never knew existed, side by side with the old one.”

Recommended for adults or mature teenagers. There are some scares and thrills on this fantasy journey through other worlds.

Thanks for reading!