I didn’t know there were any graphic novels based on The Magicians, until I found this one at a library sale. I liked reading it well enough, but there were some disappointments. It’s basically the first novel, just told from Alice’s point of view. Except- it doesn’t really give you any more information on Alice, her background, what she was thinking, any new tidbits to the story, nope. I did like that Quentin wasn’t the centerpiece, I find Alice much more relatable, but still. Visually, it was okay- not all the characters were as I had pictured them from the novel (especially Penny- his personality seemed right, his appearance not really)- but the scenes of the magic school, the place-between-worlds, the landscapes in Fillory, those were pretty close to how I had imagined. The ending felt a muddle. Huge chunks of the novel are left out entirely, or condensed down to just a few panels here- which makes sense, as it’s a much shorter page count- this didn’t bother me too much but I think if you haven’t read the original, you’ll be missing a lot of what’s going on and why things happen. At the end where they go down and find the trapped goat god Ember- well, that was confusing to say the least because I didn’t recall much from that part of the original book. It also wasn’t how I pictured. And then Alice makes her desperate move to save her friends and becomes the niffin, and it’s over. For this volume. Looks like there’s another one, but it doesn’t continue to tell the same story as the novels, instead it spins off with new characters. So I’m not sure if I’ll be interested in that one.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s parts I liked. I especially liked more explanations of the original Chatwin, of the sister who hid the last button, of the novel series that led these kids to want to go to Fillory in the first place (wishing deeply all over again that it was a real set of books!) If anything, refreshing my memory by reading this graphic novel adaptation, made me want to read the Magicians series all over again, and maybe Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell too, because that one has a similar vibe- albeit different timeframe and setting entirely.