Quorren’s #CBR4 Review #51 The Golem’s Eye by Jonathan Stroud (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 2)

For awhile there, I was convinced this book was cursed.  I ordered it online immediately after reading the first.  The first seller couldn’t send the book.  The next seller sent it, but my mail thief struck again for the third time.  The third seller took too long to send it, so I just went and bought it at the bookstore.  The next day, the third seller’s copy arrived.  So I either severely lack the book, or I have an overabundance.

The story picks up a few years after the events in the previous book.  John Mandrake (formerly Nathaniel) now is apprentices to one of the highest wizards in England and Mandrake is in charge of routing the Resistance, a group of commoners who are opposed to wizard rule.  While the first book switched perspective between Nathaniel and Bartimaeus, this one adds the perspective of Kitty, a teenager involved in the Resistance with a curious immunity to magic.  A new threat has broken out in London and Mandrake has to recall Bartimaeus from The Other Place to take care of it.  Meanwhile, the Resistance received help from a mysterious benefactor in the wizarding government.

Maybe it was the hassle to get my hands on this book that maxed out my expectations, but I was left unsatisfied with this installment.  I felt Stroud went overboard on cultivating Mandrake’s wizardry sleaze, which may make it a hard sell in Book Three, which I’m sure will have his inevitable turning point where he becomes a good person again.  Then again, two of the three characters are 15 or 16, which really is the height of teenage annoyance, for those that aren’t teenagers.

Quorren’s #CBR4 Review #38 The Amulet of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 1) by Jonathan Stroud

I think this is the first young adult series since Harry Potter that I’ve felt so sad that this book is fiction.  And that I’m not a wizard.  I’m already waiting on pins and needles for the next book to come in the mail.

The story beings with Nathaniel, an apprentice wizard, summoning Bartimaeus, a djinni of some renown.  Nathaniel is a bit of a child wizarding prodigy, but his mediocre and paranoid master has ever taken enough of an interest in him to notice.  His master, Underwood, plays politics more than he plays with magic and when one of the most influential wizards in London, Simon Lovelace, embarrasses and violently harms Nathaniel, he doesn’t lift a finger.  Nathaniel summons Bartimaeus to exact his revenge, but things don’t go as planned.

The book switches off from Nathaniel’s and Bartimaeus’ points of view.  Bartimaeus’ chapters are the best, though.  He’s pretty sarcastic and snide, and bit arrogant.  Maybe it’s a British thing, but Stroud almost rivals Pratchett in terms of humorous footnotes.  Nathaniel does dismiss Bartimaeus at the end of the book, but since the trilogy is named after him, it’s pretty safe to assume he’ll be returning.

Even though the book is a triology, it can stand alone.  The main plot involving Lovelace gets tidied up and finished off nicely.  There is a small subplot, which I imagine will play a bigger role in the next books, regarding the politics of England and the wizards vs. commoners.  Wizards run the show, having all the major seats in government and they are very disdainful of the commoners.  This will undoubtedly come to a head at one point and Nathaniel will have some part in it, I’m sure.  Even though a lot of the later story is telegraphed by Stroud, I’m still gleefully looking forward to the next book in the series.