The Magician King

I'm going to be including a bit of discussion about The Magicians, the predecessor to this book, during this review. I am assuming that anyone reading the sequel has read the first volume, such that that discussion will not constitute spoilers for anyone.
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Not sure I know what I think of this one. It's the followup to the widely acclaimed (but polarizing) The Magicians, which to me was an exercise in genre subversion. I thought the first book did a lot of interesting things, but I also found it depressing.

Before I go on, I should add that I probably don't have the appropriate literary grounding and my opinions should likely be disregarded. I am reliably informed that The Magician King is designed to directly parallel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis' third Narnia book, which I haven't read as I didn't like the first one as a kid. So it's quite possible that I'm missing important allusions that would make it more akin to the first book.

The Magician King takes place some time after the end of The Magicians, with Quentin and his friends ruling over Fillory. It's split into two different perspectives: Quentin's, in the present, and Julia's, in a retelling of how she learned to do magic without attending Brakebills. Both have their high points; Julia's was the more interesting to me for much of the book.

Magicians seemed determined to hammer home the idea that life isn't a fairy tale and things aren't always fair and don't always work out well. Some of that tone is left in King, but a number of the sharp edges have been sanded off.

Immediately after reading it, I felt I “enjoyed” The Magician King more than its predecessor – I found The Magicians quite depressing – but that The Magicians was the book that did more interesting things. After sleeping on it, I'm not sure that's fair, as King still does plenty of heavy lifting; it's probably impossible for it to make as strong an impression as the first book, since its assault on the genre is already known.