Book Review - The Amulet of Samarkand
Aug. 29th, 2004 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kikoteiThe Bartimaeus Trilogy Book 1: The Amulet of Samarkand
By Jonathan Stroud
Overview:
The modern world is run by Magicians, and London is the center of it all. Young Nathaniel is apprenticed to a middle class magician. During a party, Nathaniel inadvertantly angers the powerful magician Simon Lovelace, who punishes Nathaniel in front of every one. Furious that his master did nothing to help or protect him, Nathaniel studies harder than ever, and shortly before his 12th birthday manages to summon a 5,000 year old djinn by the name of Bartimaeus. Nathaniel orders Bartimaeus to help him find a way to humiliate Lovelace as much as he felt humiliated. But both find themselves in a far more dire situation than Nathaniel's petty revenge.
What I thought:
Bartimaeus was the best part of this book. He's sarcastic and witty, and very annoyed with Nathaniel's naive blundering in the real world. All of Bartimaeus' 1st person narrative also includes footnotes as he thinks on multiple planes at once and that is, according to him, the best way to describe what's going on to us rather sad humans. ^_^
Nathaniel was an okay character. He was unfortunately (a fault of his upbringing most likely) very whiny and conceited. He had a few altruistic moments where I had some hope for him, but those were few and far between and usually involved some extreme behavior.
All in all it was a fun book, worth the time to get through such a large novel and makes me wonder why they don't write enough stuff like this for adults. This particular book is aimed at young adults.
Slash??!!:
Suprisingly enough I found moments that set the little slasher in me into happy fits. Which of course now I have little Bartimaeus/Nathaniel bunnies staring at me.
One of my favorites is from very early in the book. Bartimaeus takes the form of a young Egyptian boy he "had known once, someone [he] had loved". While aparently djinn have no particular gender, Bartimaeus reads very male to me.
There are several others, but I'll let you find them. ^_^
Next up: possibly "Shadowmancer"
By Jonathan Stroud
Overview:
The modern world is run by Magicians, and London is the center of it all. Young Nathaniel is apprenticed to a middle class magician. During a party, Nathaniel inadvertantly angers the powerful magician Simon Lovelace, who punishes Nathaniel in front of every one. Furious that his master did nothing to help or protect him, Nathaniel studies harder than ever, and shortly before his 12th birthday manages to summon a 5,000 year old djinn by the name of Bartimaeus. Nathaniel orders Bartimaeus to help him find a way to humiliate Lovelace as much as he felt humiliated. But both find themselves in a far more dire situation than Nathaniel's petty revenge.
What I thought:
Bartimaeus was the best part of this book. He's sarcastic and witty, and very annoyed with Nathaniel's naive blundering in the real world. All of Bartimaeus' 1st person narrative also includes footnotes as he thinks on multiple planes at once and that is, according to him, the best way to describe what's going on to us rather sad humans. ^_^
Nathaniel was an okay character. He was unfortunately (a fault of his upbringing most likely) very whiny and conceited. He had a few altruistic moments where I had some hope for him, but those were few and far between and usually involved some extreme behavior.
All in all it was a fun book, worth the time to get through such a large novel and makes me wonder why they don't write enough stuff like this for adults. This particular book is aimed at young adults.
Slash??!!:
Suprisingly enough I found moments that set the little slasher in me into happy fits. Which of course now I have little Bartimaeus/Nathaniel bunnies staring at me.
One of my favorites is from very early in the book. Bartimaeus takes the form of a young Egyptian boy he "had known once, someone [he] had loved". While aparently djinn have no particular gender, Bartimaeus reads very male to me.
There are several others, but I'll let you find them. ^_^
Next up: possibly "Shadowmancer"
