The Books of Magic

The Books of Magic tells the story  of Timothy Hunter, a standard-issue geeky twelve-year old, who has the potential to become the world’s greatest magician. He is whisked away from his estate by The Phantom Stranger, John Constantine, Mister E and Doctor Occult. They have decided to give Timothy a crash-course in magic, so he can make an informed choice about accepting his destiny.

This is a story in four parts. They hang together pretty well on theme – overall it reads like a real fairy-story, and I like that. We have wonders, dangers, strange creatures, musings on the nature of magic, all present and correct. As far as storyline goes, it’s a series of separate adventures, but the four magician’s lessons for Timothy provide a link between them all.

Book One offers some awesome, galaxy-spanning artwork from John Bolton, but it’s basically just setting the scene. The characters are introduced, Timothy is shown the magical history of the DC universe.

Book Two is kept going by the interaction between Timothy and Constantine. There’s some laughs, plenty of brilliant characters lurking around and some decent action. A major conflict between good and evil is hinted at by the characters, but we never get to see any of it. I felt kinda cheated about that, but I guess you can only fit so much into one story.

Book Three was a real treat – it was the most traditionally magical part of the book, full of elves, witches and fair-folk. Gaiman and Vess took your humble scribe on a misty-eyed trip back to his childhood.

In Books Two and Three, Scott Hampton and Charles Vess’ artwork works very well. They have very different styles but they both have a colourful, dreamy feel that helps show how unreal Timothy’s adventures are. This is magic, after all.

Book Four, on the other hand, presented my poor old brain with some problems. Both Paul Johnson’s artwork and the Book’s tone were relentlessly dark compared with Books Two and Three. Normally I like that kind of thing, but after being charmed by the previous stories all the carnage and creepiness of Book Four were a shock to the system. It wouldn’t be Neil Gaiman if there wasn’t an injection of darkness at some point, and you could say that this is exactly the point the magicians are trying to make to Timothy. All the same, I was a little sad that the sweet fantasy trip was so decisively blown away. However, Gaiman did finish the story on a suitably fantastical note.

Overall, I liked The Books of Magic. What appealed to me most was its escapism. One of the themes uniting the Books is Timothy’s home town, which could be anyone’s slab of boring suburbia. The Books of Magic is a taste of an exciting, dangerous but somehow familiar world living next to those dull streets. And that kiddies…that’s magic.

By Michael Toper