At first glance, Lev Grossman's new novel looks very much like a Harry Potter story — with older characters and an American setting. But a heap of moral ambiguity surrounds the use of magic and there is no villain, giving the tale many shades of gray. More at NPR.org

"[A] serious, heartfelt novel [that] turns the machinery of fantasy inside out."
--The New York Times (Editor's Choice)

"A spellbinding stereograph, a literary adventure novel that is also about a privilege, power and the limits of being human. The Magician King is a triumphant sequel."
--NPR.org

"[The Magician King] is 'The Catcher in the Rye' for devotees of alternative universes. It's dazzling and devil-may-care...Grossman has created a rare, strange and scintillating novel."
--The Chicago Tribune

"The Magician King is a rare achievement, a book that simultaneously criticizes and celebrates our deep desire for fantasy."
--The Boston Globe

"Grossman has devised an enchanted milieu brimming with possibility, and his sly authorial voice gives it a literary lift that positions The Magician King well above the standard fantasy fare."
--The San Francisco Chronicle

"Grossman has devised an enchanted milieu brimming with possibility, and his sly authorial voice gives it a literary lift that positions The Magician King well above the standard fantasy fare."
--The New Yorker

"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."
--The Portland Oregonian

"The Magician King, the immensely entertaining new novel by Lev Grossman, manages to be both deep and deeply enjoyable."
--The Chicago Sun-Times

"Readers who have already enjoyed The Magicians should lose no time in picking up The Magician King. For those who haven't, read both books: Grossman's work is solid, smart and engaging adult fantasy."
--Miami Herald

"Now that Harry Potter is through in books and films, grown-up fans of the boy wizard might want to give this nimble fantasy series a try."
--New York Post

"The Magician Kingis Grossman's sequel to The Magicians, and while it is every bit as delightful and smart as the first one, it's a very different kind of book... The Magician Kingis at once an existential exercise that angrily shakes escapism by its shoulders and demands that life have a purpose, and a story about extraordinary deeds, heroism, magic and love-all the stuff that makes escapism go. It's a fantastic trick that makes this into a book that entertains and disturbs at the same time."
--Boing Boing

"Lev Grossman's The Magician King is a fresh take on the fantasy- quest novel-dark, austere, featuring characters with considerable psychological complexity, a collection of idiosyncratic talking animals (a sloth who knows the path to the underworld, a dragon in the Grand Canal), and splendid set pieces in Venice, Provence, Cornwall and Brooklyn."
--The Daily Beast

"In this page-turning follow-up to his best-selling 2009 novel The Magicians, Grossman takes another dark, sarcastically sinister stab at fantasy, set in the Narnia-esque realm of Fillory."
--Entertainment Weekly

"In this page-turning follow-up to his best-selling 2009 novel The Magicians, Grossman takes another dark, sarcastically sinister stab at fantasy, set in the Narnia-esque realm of Fillory."
--A.V. Club

"Fabulous fantasy spiked with bitter adult wisdom-not to be missed."
--Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"Fans of The Magicians will find this sequel a feast and will be delighted that a jaw-dropping denouement surely promises a third volume to come."
--Booklist