MixedThe Portland Oregonian...we have that sequel, The Magician King, which picks things up a year later, and it's not giving away too much from the first book to reveal that Quentin somehow became King of Fillory and that the pampered life of a monarch in a magical land has started to bore our hero ... The Magician King basically spends half its time charting Quentin's quest, and the other half filling in Julia's backstory, primarily how she acquired her magical mojo without formal training ...the overall plot isn't as compelling as the first book ... Grossman is brilliant at creating brainy, distinct, flawed, complex characters, and nearly as good at running them through narrative gauntlets that inventively tweak the stories that generations have grown up on.
