Magician's Land

When The Magicians (the first in the trilogy) was released a few years ago, it received wide critical acclaim from magazines, newspapers and high-brow critics, but was (somewhat) panned by actual readers. This had to do with the characters who were for the most part completely self-absorbed for the entire novel. But it was an interesting subversion of the Harry Potter and Narnia books with all the cute animals made into monsters and the cast of heroes all suffering from serious depression.But oh what a clever piece of writing. Besides the obvious subversions of Narnia and Harry Potter, there are references works ranging from Hawkings A Brief History of Time to famous poets (Yeats for one). The entire trilogy is self-aware, from the characters, the world, and even the plot -- there's design behind the drudgery of Grossman's characters as they fight, fail, learn, and ultimately find a sort of redemption and peace with the world.With the final book, Magician's Land, finally released this year, the trilogy came to an end and all old wrongs righted. The characters finally grow up, the plot threads are tied up, and one can look at the entire story as a whole and marvel and the brilliance of it. And besides all this clever literary stuff, it's a pretty damn entertaining tale. There's adventure, friendship, betrayal, romance, tragedy, coming of age, and redemption at the end of the lane.At its core, The Magicians is a coming of age story about a boy who goes to magic school and learns, ultimately how to master his power AND himself. If you are a fan of the talented boy goes to magic school conceit (Harry Potter, Rithmatist, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Name of the Wind), you'll love The Magicians which takes this theme and completely subverts it, but does so oh so cleverly.Superbly written, this is one of the sharpest takes on the fantasy genre and gets my vote for one of the best fantasy series in the out there. It's a trilogy where each book is actually better than the last.  One of my top three reads this year.