The Magickers Overview

 The Magickers by Emily Drake

This post will contain spoilers for all 5 books contained in The Magickers series. You have been warned.

It has been a hot minute since I did a Series Overview, but I have THOUGHTS about The Magickers. First and foremost: "The Magickers is America's answer to the Harry Potter series" says the blurb from BookBrowser on the back of two of these novels. Harry Potter this is definitely not. The Magickers probably wishes it were Harry Potter... well... without Rowling, of course. Fuck her. The point is: The Magickers is nowhere near as well written or thought-out as the Harry Potter series is. I'm not going to be comparing them one-to-one, or at all really, but I feel this needed to be said. Is The Magickers a good substitute for Harry Potter, if you're looking to not introduce your kids to it? I would say no. Pick up something by Tamora Pierce or Diane Duane's Young Wizards instead. Or maybe just The Magickers and leave the rest of the series alone.

So, why do I say all this? Well... The Magickers starts out with a very good concept of bringing magical/potentially magical kids to a camp and teaching them the ways of the Magickers. Great concept, ultimately poor execution. In my reviews, I'm pretty sure I blamed this on Gavan, but Gavan is really a stand-in for Ms. Drake herself in that regard. Like, yes, magic schools are a good idea, but it really only works if you can actually get one up and running, which ultimately does not come to pass throughout this series. A grand total of 3 teachers and 7 students does not a functioning school make, even if there's a completed building in an alternate reality.

The antagonists also aren't very antagonistic, really. First, Brennard and his "Dark Hand" are just kind of around, sometimes sucking the magic out of other Magickers because apparently magic is a finite resource? Brennard's position is very clear, but his methods to try and lure Jason in particular over to his side make zero sense. His son, Jonnard, is more threatening, but also just kind of sitting off in the background. Once he manages to actually get enough "Power" to become a threat, he's not so much the threat as the stuff coming out of the proverbial "Gate of Bones" that he manages to open. Isabella isn't much of a threat at all, or at least, not an active one. Sure, she has the Leucators, but those are also just kind of meh. They sound threatening, but in action... they're locked-up zombies who are no real threat to anyone they're not either biting or draining magic from. And then there's Mr. Nothing-Burger Eyomani. Yawn. Honestly, the wolfjackals in the first two books are far more threatening than anything else and even they turn out to be less antagonistic than at first glance. Oh, speaking of wolfjackals, Statler Finch in The Curse of Arkady was more menacing than pretty much all the rest of the antagonists combined. Fuck that pseudo-psychology "the victim is really to blame for the bullying" shit all the way off.

There's also this big, over-arching threat of the government finding out that Magickers exist. Except... there's a lot of lip service paid to this and zero action. There's a blip of a moment when Henry is confronted by a school official from the school he attended pre-Gate Opening, but that's it. Just a lot of "we can't go back home because we'll be dissected by government scientists" followed by nothing.

Oh, and the whole "Auntie Freyah is hiding Gregory's sleeping body but he can't be awoken yet" thing that turns into nothing, too. I just... I was hoping The Prince of Nowhere would resolve this, but there is nary a mention of it. I'm kind of annoyed about that whole thing, if I'm honest. However, at this point, I also don't care enough to continue even if there were more of a continuation. 

I do give The Magickers a couple of points for diversity. There's Anita Patel and Tomaz Crowfeather representing Indian and Native Americans respectively. Ting and her grandmother represent Chinese American immigrants. Aaaand Bailey and Trent both come from single-parents homes while Gatekeeper Jason is the specialist of all with two dead parents and two step-parents. Everyone who's not white feels very stereotypical of their particular POC-ness, though. I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's there and I noticed so... yeah. That is all I'm going to say about it, though, because I am a white woman and I feel like I'm going to say the wrong thing (if I haven't already) so... yup. Shutting up about that now. 

All this really makes it sound like I didn't like The Magickers, huh? Well, I enjoyed it enough. I am, admittedly, well out of the age range this series is aimed at, but... well... other Young Adult series have held up much better than this one did. I am just really frustrated with the series as a whole. It started out great. The Magickers is really good. Everything after that... not as much. The series as a whole feels aimless, even though there's a clear goal presented. After all, Jason gets the Gates to Haven open and they get the school built, but then... nothing really happens. And again, a school isn't really a school if there are only 3 teachers (2, at the very end because Tomaz is going off again) and 7 students. There are also really nice concepts here. I like the crystals. I like the dragons. I like the "everyone has an individual talent on top of just being a Magicker" thing. I like Haven. But taking all the concepts and shaking them around doesn't make them mesh together super well. The magic system ultimately leaves a lot to be desired.

I will also say that I really like the characters. I kind of wish there had been a POV book for each of them, kind of like how The Magickers was for Jason. The meshing of the ensemble cast gave us a glimpse of each person's personality and home-life, but really left me wanting more. It also made some of the books feel choppier due to a lack of cohesion of person and place, if that makes sense.

I think I'm out of talking-points now. If you're interested in my thoughts on the other books, there are links to the reviews on the "Review List" page. There's even a list on one of them about why I'm annoyed at Gavan specifically. I definitely recommend giving The Magickers, specifically, a read. It's definitely my favorite of the five.