The Magicians

The Magicians trilogy is a series that's been critically acclaimed and rates very high on our own Top 25 Best Fantasy Books list. It's a trilogy that's perhaps divisive -- you either 'get' what Lev Grossman is doing and love it or you absolutely hate the story and the characters. There is very little ambivalence regarding this series.However, it's a series that's made serious waves with the critics and it's now moved into the realm of cinema as a very strong TV series by the SyFy channel (which has also garnered critical praise as a hit).The Magicians is a subversion of the fantasy genre, an anti-Harry Potter, and anti-Narnia of sorts. It draws on a wide variety of literary influences and seeks to undermine a lot of the established fantasy tropes. I've heard it described as 'Harry Potter for grownups', which is a pretty good description.The Magicians is one of those rare fantasy novels that transcends the fantasy genre to be considered a literary novel on it's own.  But literary merits aside, it's a pretty damn compelling story of a couple of teenagers who set out to find their way in the world and in the process end up fucking things up for themselves and the rest of the world. It's a series though that must be read from book one to book three as each book details the journey and the changes that journey inflicts upon the characters. They grow, they mature, they become better and wiser. And in the case of Quinton Coldwater, he actually becomes likable and heroic as opposed to the selfish, whiny dick that he is in the first book.Mark Bramhall's narration of the tale is remarkable and accurate to how you imagine the characters should be. His performance is perhaps more 'dry' than you may be used to (the author does not voice act each character for the most part), but given the types of characters he's narrating (mostly, selfish, spoiled pricks who are full of themselves), it works. Most of the story is told from the perspective of Quinton, a fellow that seems to be hardly in touch with his own feelings, so the dry, rather impersonal narration does reflect this and is stronger for it.If you haven't read this trilogy yet (shame on you!) I highly recommend you start with these audiobooks. Listen to a sample of Mark Bramhall's Voice