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On the whole, quite satisfying Oct 22, 2006 (28 of 32 found this helpful)
With so many Potter knock-offs being rushed to market these days, it takes patience to separate the wheat from the chaffe. The Bartimaeus Trilogy definitely makes the cut, and is in many ways more imaginative and compelling than HP and his wand-wielding ilk. It is also more concise, a matter of no small concern when one considers the increasingly bloated installments in other more prominent fantasy series. Although there are minor lulls in all three books, they make for a fast and satisfying read. The use of multiple points of view has the potential to be quite annoying, but in this case provides a pleasing change of pace. The humor, like the overall tone, is refreshingly darker than many of the products aimed at young readers.
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Couldn't put it down Feb 23, 2007 (12 of 13 found this helpful)
I couldn't put these books down! They keep you guessing the whole time, even making it nearly impossible to decide whose side you are on! Stroud does the "magic thing" differently than other authors out there and brings us a whole new set of moral and ethical circumstances to consider. The stories of the three main characters are woven into each other, told from different points of view and time periods, and are all seamlessly tied together by the brilliant writing. The main characters are so endearing that I hated to see the books end. But they did indeed end, and the ending itself was a fantastic piece of writing that brings out so many different emotions.
This set is now has a place on my "favorite books" shelf.
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The Bartimaeus Trilogy Jan 20, 2008 (11 of 11 found this helpful)
Note: Potential spoiler warning in my descriptions of the books.
You know, it really is hard to find well-written, well-characterized, well-plotted, witty books nowadays. Surprisingly hard. But I finished the Bartimaeus Trilogy a few months ago, and not only has it got all of the above characteristics, it's also one of the all-around best series I've read in a long time.
I'm puzzled by those who call it a knockoff of Harry Potter. Having a boy magician as the main character doesn't make something a Harry Potter knockoff. Especially when that magician is Nathaniel, as different a character from Harry as you can imagine.
Nathaniel is bitter, ambitious, naïve, and hugely precocious. At the beginning of the first book, he is under the tutelage of inferior magician Arthur Underwood, who treats him terribly. Nathaniel puts up with it, though - until he is humiliated by a man named Simon Lovelace in public, and Underwood is too afraid to help him.
Nathaniel, furious, throws himself into a task that no one expected he could accomplish - summoning a powerful middle-ranking djinni to exact revenge on Lovelace by stealing the Amulet of Samarkand.
But Bartimaeus, the djinni, is not a docile creature. Sarcastic and hilarious, it is his part-narration - and the footnotes that go along with it - that really make the books.
In the second book, THE GOLEM'S EYE, Nathaniel must summon Bartimaeus again when he is put in charge of hunting down the source of a devastating attack. The Prime Minister is certain that the Resistance, a group of commoners rebelling against the magicians' unfair regime, is behind the attack, but Nathaniel is not so sure. Meanwhile, Kitty Jones, a commoner at the head of the Resistance, is searching with the others for magical weapons they can use to overthrow the magicians and regain London.
The third book, PTOLEMY'S GATE, is arguably the best of the trilogy, where we learn the most about Bartimaeus's past. Nathaniel has been abusing the djinni to the point where he is almost dead, until, in an act of compassion that surprises even him, Nathaniel sends him back temporarily to the Other Place to regain his strength.
But Kitty hasn't been idle, either, and she finally decides to try something that has never been tried by anyone like her before. And as the fates of Nathaniel and Kitty and Bartimaeus intertwine again and again, and the government begins to crumble - but *not* in the way you were hoping it would - it's impossible to tell what will happen. You will be racing to reach the finish - but, beware: You might find yourself crying in the end.
I can't recommend this trilogy highly enough, and I can't wait to read some of Jonathan Stroud's other work.
Rating: Masterpiece
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Bought it for my son, devoured it myself... Feb 6, 2007 (10 of 11 found this helpful)
I bought this trilogy for my 9 year old. He was already engaged with another series, so I picked it up. I am having an absolute blast! Very well written, real page turners. I've enjoyed it as much as (gasp!) Harry Potter.
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I love these books with all my heart. Mar 26, 2007 (6 of 6 found this helpful)
It's true that fantasy, London and government don't go together, but I think that Stroud makes a great parallel universe in which a stubborn, glory-seeking boy makes a huge mistake and lets out his true name to a even more stubborn, glory seeking djinn, Bartimaeus. The book is filled with great dialouge, and an interesting writing style, as when you're with the djinn the subscripts give Stroud's idea of how upper beings minds work. I found at the beginning that the subscripts and the footer noting was a bit much, but I actually grew to enjoy reading the djinn's part of the story more than any of the other characters because of his magnetic attitude.
By the second novel, you get introduced to another character. Through the rest of the second book, and into the third, you switch between the boy, the djinn, and her until your head's spinning.
I personally found that the books get darker in sequencial order. They are definately growing up books, like J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter series. I do like Stroud's style, in the matter that he doesn't make a child's book. It's more of a story of a boy that grows up too quickly in a world of almost corrupted politics and magic wars between the countries of Europe.
If you are interested in this particular book, you have to like magic, and you have to like sarcasm, and with those combined you get the humor that I absolutely adore in Stroud's work. They're fast reads, and worth time to read.