Books by author: Lev Grossman

Codex is a lightweight literary thriller, quite a bit better than The Rule of Four, not as erudite or well-written as The Club Dumas, The Flanders Panel, The Grand Complication or A Case of Curiosities, and not quite the page-turner of The Da Vinci Code or Angels & Demons.

Grossman's novel centers on Edward, who is on a brief hiatus between jobs as he prepares to move to England. During what is supposed to be a vacation, he is drawn in to a search for an old document (the titular codex), and also into an addictive computer game. Grossman awkwardly sprinkles computer-jargon in his descriptive metaphors (e.g., "psychic RAM"), and those passages detract from what is otherwise decent workmanlike prose. The plot is fast-moving, and the conclusion is reasonably satisfying. This is decent escapist pulp for those of us who enjoy the kinds of books I listed above.

The Magicians is a grown-up mashup of Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia, with references to Tolkien, Oz, and other famous works of fantasy.

The protagonist, Quentin Coldwater, is never satisfied. Actually, one could stop there, but I'll keep going. He is smarter than most of his peers and bored with his high-school existence, until he is whisked away to a secret college of magic, where he is smarter than most of his peers and becomes bored with his existence. Quentin keeps shooting for the next great thing, and each time he reaches it, he realizes it wasn't what he hoped it would be.

I can imagine that Quentin's dissatisfaction would annoy many readers, but I actually sympathized a lot with him. Thankfully, I realized a long time ago that to be happy, one needs to focus on process rather than goals, that it is counterproductive to keep looking for the next best thing that's always just around the corner.

This was better than Grossman's previous novel, Codex, and I think he may end up being a novelist worth following.