Scott pulled off another excellent book. I'm looking forward to reading book 3.

The only complaints I have about this book are first, that it's a six book series and I don't want to have to wait ~3 more years to finish it... but really I feel like Scott is just too much in love with mythology.

Throughout both of the first two books, and most likely the series, the reader is introduced to new characters, all from different mythologies, at a dizzying pace. Most of the characters and references to mythology are involved with the story so briefly that it could easily leave some readers confused and overwhelmed. Having enjoyed learning about a lot of mythologies myself, I still found myself constantly wondering who Scott was talking about and wishing that he would give more background to the characters. Quality over quantity.

But where Scott fails in quality of explanations, he succeeds marvelously in quality of story telling. ( )

The Magician: SINF, continues on what happened in the first book- the Alchemyst: SINF. The first book was very nice, in my mind, although forgettable if it did not include one of my favourite characters from history (Nicholas Flamel). However, the second book Michael Scott just dropped the ball.

Sophie and Josh became annoying in their dis-trustfulness of Flamel. Especially Josh, who takes up the entire book complaining about his lack of powers. He has the kind of complaining that would make anyone want to smack him. The only characters that seem to have progressed at all/did anything interesting were the two villains- Machiavelli and Dr. Dee. Everyone else on the good side was bland and uninteresting other than the Comte de Saint Germaine (because who can honestly go wrong with a fire rocking magician?).

Fight scenes were predictable and were easily skipped over. The only thing that saved this book from a 2-star rating was the last few chapters. Those reminded me why I liked this book's predecessor so much.

I hope the Sorceress is better than this, and I hope that Josh stops complaining. ( )

In Michael Scott's The Magician: The Immortal Secrets of Nicholas Flamel, the Dark Elders are immensely powerful Immortals who are seeking to regain their control over Earth. All they need are the last two pages of the Book of Abraham the Mage, which are in the possession of Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel. Mixed up in all this are Sophie and Josh Newman, two ordinary human twins who have magical abilities they never imagined. There is a prophecy about twins with powerful, pure silver and gold auras... Are Sophie and Josh those twins?

Scott's fantasy world isn't terribly original in itself — mythical characters are real, living among the "humani" secretly, and there are various "shadow realms" connected to our world. But there is a certain appeal to how Scott re-imagines the personalities of legend. It's fun meeting legendary characters like Scathach the Celtic warrior-woman (nicknamed "Scatty"), Niccoló Machiavelli (who serves Dark Elders in exchange for immortality), Joan of Arc, the Witch of Endor, Hecate, and more. Scott has an almost limitless supply of characters he can resurrect from the pages of legend and myth, and you never know who is going to pop up next.

I found the story easy to follow though I had not read the first book in the series (The Alchemyst). Scott refers to the events in that book frequently in The Magician, which is helpful to first-time readers like myself.

Despite the potential, this was not a stand-out fantasy novel either for adults or for its intended audience, teen readers. Firstly, I found the style a bit stilted. After nearly every line of the twins' dialogue, Scott tells us exactly how he or she is feeling, rather than trusting the reader to figure it out. Strong fiction writing does more showing than telling, and Scott's constant descriptions of the obvious get a bit annoying as the story goes on.

Secondly, the story itself feels as if Scott took a course on how to write a fantasy novel for teens and followed each point religiously. Deceptive cliffhangers to end every chapter? Check. Appropriate amount of angst and uncertainty from the characters we're meant to identify with? Check. Long, drawn-out action scenes in which the main character's years of Taekwondo training suddenly come in handy? Check. But good fiction doesn't work that way. It follows rules, certainly, but the story itself is always primary. The Magician feels much more like an exercise in how to write a formulaic fantasy novel than an actual fantasy novel in its own right.

There are other clichés here as well. The prophecy about the twins and their ultimate destiny is typically vague. I hope it doesn't turn out that one is light and the other dark, to bring balance to the Force — I mean, the universe! Really, the whole idea of ordinary people discovering they have magical abilities and/or an earth-shaking prophetic destiny is so overused in the fantasy genre. The whole notion that magic exists everywhere but humans just don't want to believe it so they ignore it is another worn-out cliché.

This Listening Library audiobook edition of The Magician is read by Erik Singer. Singer reads well and his performance certainly enhanced my experience of the story. He gives each character a distinct voice, and has a lot of fun with the various accents. I especially liked his French accents. Singer's voice for Sophie is somewhat whiney, but I suppose it's difficult for an adult male to believably voice a female teenager's character. On the technical side, the audio levels were nicely consistent whether I was listening in the car or in the house. There were, however, a few tracks that either skipped or stopped playing altogether in the two CD players that I tried. This was odd because the CDs were brand new.

Overall, The Magician is fairly mediocre teen fantasy. Many readers may enjoy it for what it is, but I don't think it will stand the test of time. This was published in 2008 and Scott's odd, frequent references to specific technologies (the Dell laptop, Gmail, etc.) practically ensure that the story will become dated in just a few years. And there is nothing outstanding to lift this book above the myriad of similar works. I don't exactly regret listening to this 11-hour performance, but I probably will not seek out the rest of the series.

This review is also posted on SFSite.com here.

Thank you to SFSite.com for the opportunity to review this audiobook. ( )

The further adventures of the twins, Sophie and Josh, after Flamel takes them to Paris. We meet new characters and Sophie learns more about her power. Of course the book ends with the need to visit still another Immortal...

Reviewed by Jennifer Rummel for TeensReadToo.com

Sophie, Josh, Nicholas, and Scatty retreat to Paris after the disaster on the West Coast. They arrive inside the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur. For Nicholas, he's returning home, but he hasn't been there for hundreds of years. Everything's changed.

Dr. Dee hasn't wasted any time; he immediately called for reinforcements - Machiavelli is already in Paris and waiting for them. With Sophie's newly awakened powers, they are able to escape. Nicholas leads them to the home of his old student. There, they regroup, rest, and recharge.

Once Dr. Dee arrives in Paris things begin to happen. He wants to capture the twins plus the last two pages of the codex, and he's willing to do anything to catch them.

The twins fight back, along with Nicholas, Scatty, Francis, and Joan of Arc. Together they make a stand, but is it enough to stop the powerful Magician?

Michael Scott blends mystery, fantasy, and history perfectly together into an adrenaline-filled, addicting novel. ( )