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The Magicians is a novel by Lev Grossman published in 2009 by Viking Press.

Plot Summary
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.[]

About the Book
Grossman first formulated the ideas for The Magicians in 1996, but many years would pass before it emerged in its current form. [] By 2004, Grossman had been working on a "sensitive, conventional, The Corrections-esque novel about the way we live now" for a year and a half when he had an epiphany upon reading his brother Austin's manuscript, Soon I Will Be Invincible and decided he "should be writing about magic or robots or some shit." []

In an interview with the blog largehearted boy, Grossman said "some of the nerd music that aided and abetted, and sometimes hindered, the writing of The Magicians" included: Parry Gripp, "The Girl at the Video Game Store," MC Frontalot, "Dude and Catastrophe,” The Decemberists, "Bridges and Balloons," Jonathan Coulton, "Still Alive." Swish and Flick, "Swish and Flick," The Remus Lupins, "Loosen Your Tie," Schaffer the Darklord, "Nerd Lust," mc chris, "Fett's Vette" (Baddd Spellah remix), The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, "The Innsmouth Look," and Nerf Herder, "Mr. Spock." []

Fillory & Further
Fillory is the magical land featured in The Magicians. Quentin Coldwater, one of the magicians of the book's title, grows up a huge fan of the Fillory and Further series, which he assumes are fiction, much like The Chronicles of Narnia. Upon graduating from Brakebills, his Hogwarts-like magical college, however, Quentin discovers that Fillory is real. The kingdom features mobile trees with clock faces, a talking bear with a predilection for alcohol and giant animals wielding medieval weapons.

"Fillory & Further" is the name of a fictional series of fantasy books by Christopher Plover that are featured in The Magicians. There are five books in the "Fillory & Further" series:
 * The World in the Walls (Book One) - The first book in the series. Martin and Fiona have to stop the Watcherwoman from stopping time at 5:00 on a rainy September afternoon. (Excerpt)
 * The Girl Who Told Time (Book Two) - Helen and Rupert are magicked out of their boarding schools and into Fillory - but also back in time. Rupert secretly helps Martin and Fiona battle the Watcherwoman (without them knowing it), while Helen hunts the mysterious Questing Beast.
 * The Flying Forest (Book Three) - Rupert and Fiona search for the source of a mysterious ticking sound that is troubling their friend Sir Hotspots, a noble leopard.
 * The Secret Sea (Book Four) - Set adrift on the Outer Ocean by the Watcherwoman, Rupert and Jane seek out the remnants of the Great Shark Army to help them take back Fillory.
 * The Wandering Dune (Book Five) - The last in the series. Helen and Jane find a mysterious sand dune blowing through Fillory. It carries them out into the desert, where they discuss morality. Then, the bunnies show up.

Fillory has been described as an "Edward Gorey-realized Narnia," [] and "a place stuffed with wonder, from the enormous velveteen 'Cozy Horse' that can convey all the children at once to a group of talking bunnies who like to take tea." []

About the Author
Lev Grossman is a senior writer at TIME. As TIME's book critic he has written profiles of Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Jonathan Franzen, John Updike, John le Carré, Stephenie Meyer, Khaled Hosseini and J.K. Rowling, among many others. Grossman is also TIME's video game critic and one of its technology writers. Grossman earned an undergraduate degree in literature from Harvard and an M.Phil. in comparative literature from Yale.

Reviews of The Magicians

 * Entertainment Weekly
 * USA TODAY
 * Chicago Tribune
 * Seattle Times
 * Time Out New York
 * Washington Post

Interviews with the Author About The Magicians

 * NPR / All Things Considered
 * Los Angeles Times
 * Village Voice
 * Bookreporter.com
 * The Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review