The Amulet of Samarkand

This was a re-read from childhood, but my memory of the book was very poor. The series had been a quick read that I had enjoyed and found hilarious due to the footnotes.

This time around I struggled with the footnotes in the ebook copy of the book as they would flip you to the end of the book without a button to out you back at your original page. I read majority without the footnotes and still enjoyed the book a lot. I found the style of humour to be right up my alley; quite sarcastic British humor.

The plot was involved, detailed and well paced. I found the first book in this series to be a really enjoyable read.

I am in love with this series! Nathaniel is a clever yet conscientious boy of 12, who is paired with our true hero Bartimaeus an infinitely clever djinn whose mouth is always getting him into trouble! The two together are practically unstoppable... I can't get enough, starting book 2 immediately!

I don't know how many years its been since I've read The Bartimaeus Trilogy but I loved those books from the very first time I read The Amulet of Samarkand and was most excited to find out that a graphic novel version had been created. Thank-you Andrea of Aine's Realm for buying me a copy of this book ^_^.

The Amulet of Samarkand starts off the same way the novel did with the summoning of Bartimaeus the djinn by a young twelve year old magician. This is surprising because someone so young does not normally contain the skill to summon a djinn of Bartimaeus' level. And Bartimaeus isn't very happy to be taking orders from a kid especially when the kid orders him to steal an item from another magician. You know which item I'm talking about right? ;)

With a lot of trouble and witty dialogue Bartimaeus steals the amulet and gives it to the boy but unfortunately for him he has more work to do. And what had started off as a simple plan to humiliate a rival immediately twists into something a twelve year old boy cannot handle.

The story is told from alternating POVs and we quickly learn that the boy, Nathaniel, was sold by his parents when he was six years old to become a magician, this is in fact very normal in the world of The Bartimaeus Trilogy which is set in an alternate England where the Government is controlled by Magicians who have the ability to summon djinn and think themselves better than Commoners (non magic folk). I find this a bit funny because Magicians are not born, you have to study for years and develop skills to become one, so all Magicians were Commoners at one point.

For a book that was a lot thinner than the novel the story was adapted very well, both Nathaniel and Bartimaeus' characters were exactly as I remembered them from the books as well as the many side characters and the world of the books were shown and described thoroughly enough that readers who have not read the novels will not feel as if anything was left out. And lets not forget the story, I wondered if the whole thing would be told in this first volume and surprisingly it was but the story did not feel incomplete are rushed which I appreciated greatly.

The only thing I can complain about what that there were moments when dialogue was not needed, there was a lot of narration on Bartimaeus part and I know it was doing this to show his amusing and sarcastic side (because I enjoyed his narration) but there were some parts that were just describing things that were being shown to me through the art so those parts were repetitive. Other than those few parts however I loved this book.

So pick it up if you're looking for a smart, entertaining read with mystery, action and charm :)