Every once in a while I'll stumble upon a show on Netflix that immediately hooks me. It's been awhile, so I was thrilled when I discovered SyFy's The Magicians based off the book trilogy of the same title by Lev Grossman. I would describe it as Grad School Harry Potter in Narnia. It's literally the perfect adult series for people who loved Harry Potter and Narnia as children and are looking for that same feeling again.
I started out by watching the first season on Netflix and then I got caught up on the second season which airs on Wednesday nights on ScyFy. My love of the television series made me want to read the books. Currently, I'm about halfway through the first book and while it's not at all like the tv series, it's just as good.
Probably the most appealing aspect of it is that it's the perfect series for me to be reading/watching at the current moment. It has just the right mix of dark humor, magic, and of course, a love aspect. It follows the journey of Quentin Coldwater, a graduate student (college student in the books) as he discovers he the magic tricks he'd been doing for fun were actually inklings of real magic. He is admitted to Brakebills, an American Hogwarts-type school where he learns magic and gets into lots of trouble with a magical land called Fillery. Fillery was supposed to imaginary, much like Narnia, but it turns out that it's real and Quentin cannot wait to discover more.
The one issue is that I watched the tv show first and now when I read, I picture the tv characters instead of Grossman's creations. The biggest difference is the character of Eliot. He's billed in the show as an attractive, gay philanderer, but he's not like that in the books. Eliot is more reserved sexually, but still very confident. I think it means more to have him not look so attractive, but Hale Appleman plays Eliot so flawlessly that it's okay that he's so attractive.
Another change between the tv show and books is the fact that the writers seemed to have merged all the books together. In the second book of The Magicians Trilogy readers are privy to Quentin's friend from before magic, Julia's story. She dabbles in some illegal magic and always return to mess up Quentin's life. I'm very interested to see how Julia develops in the books.
So, if you're looking for the next series to blow your mind, I suggest picking up or viewing The Magicians!
