The Amulet Of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Sequence)

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Stroud has turned the well-known tradition of the magician's apprentice, the boy who attempts to perform his master's magic on his own, upside down. Nathaniel succeeds in summoning his djinni and in controlling him. Things get out of hand mostly because Nathaniel is only a boy trying to fight adult magicians. But the truly original touch is the way Stroud alternates Nathaniel's story with the djinni's own knowing and irascible first-person narrative. And Bartimeus is not perfect, though he considers that he is. He makes mistakes, just as Nathaniel does. The series is set in London during the late 1900s or possibly the early 2000s in a parallel universe where trained people can summon demons to do their bidding. Throughout history, various individuals and empires have harnessed these magical forces to obtain great power in the world. The most recent nation to do this is the British Empire (of which London is the capital) that has dominated Europe since the mid-19th century and continues to do so at the time of the story. The UK is a magical oligarchy where a ruling elite of magicians hold almost all the political, economic and cultural power.

Best Books for Young Adults Top Ten List". Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). 30 July 2007 . Retrieved 18 July 2021.Over the course of these three books, our three heroes change and mature, taking us along on a thrilling ride full of witty humor, scathing sarcasm, melodrama, tragedy and pathos.

Not to compare this too much to Harry Potter, but it is one of the first series to ride the initial wave of Pottermania to greater notoriety. I also enjoyed the speed at which I could read the book – it took me a couple of days instead of the week or so the original book by Jonathan Stroud would have done – and yet I don’t feel like I missed out on any story. In any case, I tell you this so you can evaluate my reaction to this graphic version of "The Amulet of Samarkand". Recommendations: I loved this book so much, I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to capture the magic of reading as a kid again. It has enough adult elements to make it an ideal crossover series. Make sure to do a physical read, however - the footnotes are everything. The audio version includes the footnotes as part of the main narrative but they blend in too well, taking away half the fun of the series.Among his most prominent works are the bestselling Bartimaeus Trilogy. A special feature of these novels compared to others of their genre is that Stroud examines the stereotypes and ethics of the magician class and the enslaved demons. This is done by examining the perspective of the sarcastic and slightly egomaniacal djinni Bartimaeus. The books in this series are The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye, and Ptolemy's Gate, his first books to be published in the United States.

I’ve heard people complaining of footnotes in other series, so I was a bit intimidated to start this one, but I can’t imagine the story being as good without them. A lot of the subtle adult humor takes place in the footnotes and they really allow the author to have fun with his characters and give us more depth than we would’ve gotten otherwise.

So, Nathaniel is a young magician in training. The world he lives in, an alternate history Britain, is cruel and brutal. People with magical gifts are taken from their parents as children, fostered with strangers, and made to forget their own names. Once grown, these magicians are power-seekers. They rule the British Empire and subjugate practically anyone within reach. This includes “demons” like Bartimaeus. The real secret of magic is that humans only have magic by knowing how to capture and bind what they call “demons” (magical creatures like jinni, in reality) into magical slavery, and use those demons to perform magic. Learning that Bartimaeus: The Amulet of Samarkand is the story of a young apprentice magician, cruelly bereft of his parents and lonely and neglected in his foster home, we may feel that we are in over-familiar territory. Stroud’s novel, however, is very different in tone from the work of J K Rowling. The Amulet of Samarkand | Awards & Grants". American Library Association. 18 February 2010 . Retrieved 18 July 2021. This book is very cleverly written, with two alternating strands of narration. One in the third person, tells the story mainly from the point of view of Nathaniel. The other strand gives us a different perspective on the characters and events but it is in the first person, from the point of view of the devious, superior and sarcastic otherworldly being Bartimaeus. One thing The Amulet of Samarkand does not do is take itself too seriously. That was a relief. I had approached this with trepidation. I'd heard good things, but I wasn't in the mood for some heavy going in a kiddies' fantasy world with evil baddies, precocious sprites, etc. No, instead what you get with this book is a relaxed tone, a great sense of humor and a worthwhile adventure.