The Amulet Of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Sequence)

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Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2010-03-04 21:06:32 Boxid IA114714 Boxid_2 CH120120908-BL1 Camera Canon 5D City New York Donor In May 1999, Stroud published his first children's novel, Buried Fire, which was the first of a line of fantasy/mythology children's books. The djinni, Bartimaeus, is cheeky and smug, but has no admirable qualities. Even helping Nathaniel is rooted in pure self-interest. I don't usually reread books I didn't care for initially, This would be the first. Before I had any prominence or visibility on Goodreads whatsoever, my first review for this book drew a lot of heated opposition.

The boy, Nathaniel, whines all the time about things not going his way, and only thinks to plot revenge on people who've wronged him. Nathaniel is a boy magician-in-training, sold to the government by his birth parents at the age of five and sent to live as an apprentice to a master. Powerful magicians rule Britain, and its empire, and Nathaniel is told his is the "ultimate sacrifice" for a "noble destiny." Best Books for Young Adults Top Ten List". Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). 30 July 2007 . Retrieved 18 July 2021. The other half of the story shows how the apprentice, Nathaniel, was torn from his parents as a five-year-old and dumped in the household of an uncaring master to be force-fed with magical learning. You are just beginning to think you understand how the magician politicians of this world grow up so nasty, when Nathaniel suddenly - albeit arrogantly - begins to display some decent qualities. The artwork in this book is very striking, and I think this graphic novel did a great job leaving the main essence of the story in place. Like any movie adaptation, a graphic adaptation of a novel will have to change a few details and leave things out, but this story was just as engaging as the original. I highly recommend it to anyone.

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The Amulet of Samarkand is a children's novel of alternate history, fantasy and magic. It is the first book in the Bartimaeus trilogy written by English author Jonathan Stroud. First edition was published in Sept. 2003 by Doubleday in the United Kingdom. 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. 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.

With the look of this tome the standout, this is the best preteen-read-to-graphic-novel book I've yet seen, making it better than the Alex Rider, Charlie Higson young Bond, and even our co-adaptor's Artemis Fowl tie-ins. It's a lengthy book, for it doesn't appear wordy yet contains a satisfying amount of bulk. It reads fine, and looks splendid, and I have no problem recommending it. The Bookbag

There is a bad wizard out there. Lovelace is power hungry, greedy, and just a nasty piece of work. He embarrasses this young, powerful wizard and this child is not playing games. He is now out for revenge against Lovelace. His journey of vengeance causes him to lose everything he ever loved...

This is a FANTASTIC book, one that suggests that Harry Potter books don't have to be just a phenomenon, but could be a genre as well, as long as there are people out there who have the capacity, as Jonathan Stroud does, to create new worlds. While Harry Potter may always be on the top of the heap (better protagonists), don't make me choose between Dobby and Bartimaeus; it will only end in house-elf tears. When he quietly masters one of the most difficult spells in a magician's repertoire, Nathaniel summons Bartimaeus, an ancient djinni (with a rather acerbic wit and a very dry sense of humour), and commands him to steal Lovelace's greatest treasure, The Amulet of Samarkand. Unaware that Lovelace was planning on putting the amulet to use in a treasonous coup to overthrow the government, Nathaniel finds himself trapped in a maelstrom of evil, espionage, murder and magical Royal Rumbles and is now pursued as the object of a merciless manhunt. Nathaniel’s parents were not tragically killed, but sold their little boy to the government (a magical hierarchy) to be an apprentice magician, knowing that they would never see him again. There is no comforting Dumbledore-type figure to provide a moral centre. The kindest character in Bartimaeus is Mrs Underwood, the wife of the magician to whom Nathaniel is apprenticed. Other than his drawing teacher, Ms Lutyens, from whom he is soon separated, she is perhaps the only person to show Nathaniel affection. In turn, Nathaniel expresses a love and loyalty to her that is otherwise all but absent from his life. Mrs Underwood’s failure to challenge her husband’s harshness and mistreatment of his apprentice, however, makes her seem somewhat weak and ineffectual. Within the first few sentences my heart sank. Oh no, I thought, fanciful purple prose attempting to set a magical aura about the opening scene. If leaving his parents and erasing his past life isn't tough enough, Nathaniel's master, Arthur Underwood, is a cold, condescending, and cruel middle-ranking magician in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The boy's only saving grace is the master's wife, Martha Underwood, who shows him genuine affection that he rewards with fierce devotion. Nathaniel gets along tolerably well over the years in the Underwood household until the summer before his eleventh birthday. Everything changes when he is publicly humiliated by the ruthless magician Simon Lovelace and betrayed by his cowardly master who does not defend him.And speaking of the characters, they were completely delightful, even if not always likable. And the demons – omgsh the demons. They start out as these wildly interesting (and dangerous) enigmas that give you even more reason to keep reading. I also loved learning about summoning demons and watching one of the main characters struggle to get it right. The combination of the magic, world-buildings, and mystery plot made for one of the most enjoyable things I’ve read in ages. And that’s across ALL genres, not just middle-grade books. The whole artwork is superlative, with characters - human, magical or otherwise - simply and well defined.