The Magician

The Magician: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott is the second in The Alchemyst series. It is nearly 500 pages long and still only covers barely three days. That makes almost 1,000 pages covering not even a week's worth of time. I'm guessing that is what time is like when you are an immortal.

I am relatively sure that the Alchemyst is Nicholas Flamel, but I'm not so sure about the Magician. I suppose it could be Dr. John Dee, but we are introduced to two more magician-immortals in this book. They are Niccolo Machiavelli and the Comte de Saint-Germain, otherwise known as Francis, who also practices alchemy. The fourth book in the series is called The Necromancer and we know Dr. Dee is one. For the title to be The Magician, I wouldn't expect to still be uncertain.

Another fact to be put out there ... for a children's book, there are few children. There are still only two 15-year-olds, twins, Sophie and Josh. Everyone else old or new is not only an adult, but is also an immortal. The rest of the major characters are not even human and are older than the ancients. Every important character aside from the twins is extremely powerful if not all-powerful. Most of the action is driven by the adults. The kids are pulled along for the ride. For the right or the wrong purposes, the adults tend to manipulate the children. Their plans are quite simple - to save the world or destroy it.

In the first book, Sophie was awakened by the goddess Hekate and was taught to Master the Element of Air by the Witch of Endor. This book opens up where the last left off. The crew has traveled from Ojai to Paris via ancient ley line. Nicholas seeks to add another Elemental Mastery to Sophie's resume while seeking a reasonably safe Elder to awaken Josh. This tells me to expect a total of five books with the five elementals, possibly six if you include the Awakening. You would really think more could be accomplished within 500 pages. But that is because there is so much carnage and destruction wrought in between. Paris is basically terrorized by a primordial demon monster from the depths. Think Godzilla unleashed in the treasure-filled city.

While the majority of the crew are trying to hide out in Paris, Perenelle Flamel is still a prisoner of Dr. Dee on the Island of Alcatraz under the watchful eyes of a sphinx. So a third of the action and adventure is still on this side of the ocean. In fact my favorite part of the book, and my favorite new character are on Alcatraz. Dr. Dee has imprisoned another immortal, but no one on the island knows who or what it is. Perenelle seeks to find out and discovers one of the oldest and most powerful Elders still living - Areop-Enap. What a cool name! And what a cool creature! And what a strange and tentative relationship!

I enjoyed this book enough. I have The Sorceress waiting on my shelf. But I'm not rushing to it. You see, I really don't care enough about the hero and heroine. They're boring and whiney. They're wishy-washy. They are not nearly as cool as the immortal characters that frequent the pages like Joan de Arc, Mars, the Valkyries, Nidhogg and Areop-Enap. Even the ghosts of Alcatraz are more exciting. Think Luke from Star Wars begging to go to the Academy. When he finally gets the chance to leave the rock farthest from the center of the Universe, he again whines and complains. Furthermore, they just aren't sure who they should believe or follow. Flamel or Dee. It seems quite obvious to the reader. It's hard to believe their lack of trust in Flamel.

I would love to talk to a kid who has read these books to see what they think. Maybe it works.