The Books of Magic

So, a 12 year old boy, dark haired, bespectacled, finds himself inducted into the world of Magic, picking up a pet owl on the way.....sound familiar? But Neil Gaiman's tale of the boy wizard, Timothy Hunter, was published seven years before JK Rowling's Harry Potter tales. While similarities exist it is more a case that both authors were playing with archetypes rather than out and out plagiarism.

Gaiman was asked by DC Comics to come up with a story that featured some of their mystical, magical characters. What he eventually produced was a four issue mini-series that explored the very nature of magic itself, through the eyes of Timothy, who has the potential to be the greatest wizard of his age. Four men serve as his guides : John Constantine, Mister E, The Phantom Stranger and Doctor Occult. Magic, past, present and future is explored as Timothy is faced with a choice between the magic world, and cold, rational science.

Gaiman's imagination is as powerful as ever, and there are the inevitable cameos from The Endless from the pages of The Sandman, his ongoing series at the time. The imagery is sometimes brutal, disturbing, the subtext that Magic is a very dangerous thing. Timothy's guides are enigmatic, ambivalent presences, and there is the added problem that someone wants Timothy dead.

Though well written and cunningly constructed, this is still a minor work in the Gaiman canon. Indeed the character was taken up by other writers after the initial four issues. But don't let that put you off. Minor Gaiman is still well worth reading.

Amazing, amazing... Reading this book after having read almost all other books by Neil Gaiman was quite invigorating. I definitely prefer Gaiman's graphic novels (Sandman, Death and The Books of Magic, etc) than his books, especially because of the difference in format, besides, of course, the narrative combined with great artists. John Bolton, Scott Hampton, Charles Vess and Paul Johnson elevate this graphic novel to a new level, transforming it into a must-read fpor everyone who loves Comics.

I can easily remember Rowling's Harry Potter and Le Guin's Sparrowhawk when learning magic, but it's Timothy Hunter who comes close to our mundane reality. It is precisely our proximity to Hunter which gives the book one of the best qualities of the Fantasy genre, which is to establish a dialectical and quite interesting relationship between the reader and the main character when dealing with the fantastic. The Books of Magic is a masterpiece after all, easily getting alongside Sandman (unfortunately I can not say the same about the author's books).

I don't get Neil Gaiman and this is probably the worst of his stories I've read. it wasn't helped by the poor artwork