MAGICIAN'S LAND, THE

Publishers Weekly,Grossman's final entry in the Magicians Trilogy (following The Magician King) brings Quentin Coldwater's story to a satisfying conclusion. After Quentin is banished from his beloved magical land of Fillory and fired from the Brakebills school of magic, he joins a wizardly heist masterminded by a talking bird. The target: a relic from one of the first children to visit Fillory, whose adventures were immortalized in a series of Narnia-like children's novels. During this mission, Quentin must confront his past mistakes and his role in the dying Fillory's future. Just as Quentin achieves a new maturity, so Grossman's trilogy becomes more than a sex-and-swearing satire of Harry Potter and Narnia. Grossman still can't resist winking at his novels' antecedents, as when a character uses the Harry Potter catchphrase "Mischief managed." Though the tone is occasionally too ironic, and Quentin's victories overly easy-such as a reconciliation with a key character from the first novel-this novel serves as an elegantly written third act to Quentin's bildungsroman, in which he at last learns responsibility and to not simply put childish things aside but understand them-and himself-anew. Fans of the trilogy will be pleased at how neatly it all resolves. Agent: Tina Bennett, WME. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.