With their first book in this new sequence, The Iron Trial, these talented, experienced and hugely popular writers worked a very clever trick. They started a story which seemed to be based on so many of the now standard features of Harry Potter type children's fantasy that it was feeling almost clichéd. Before the end however they had given this such an original twist, and confounded so dramatically all the expectations they had cannily set up, that it emerged as a most interesting and exciting new contribution to the genre. (See my post from Feb '15.)
Coming to a second in the series however, I did wonder whether they would be able to sustain the same level of originality, having shot the bolt of their devastating surprise at the end of the first novel. I need not have feared. The authors have managed to capitalise wonderfully on the tensions they set up, and even managed to spring a few more surprises, in what is another page turning thriller that builds towards a shocking climax. This is helped along by the very skilful writing and adept plotting you would expect from these two authors. The ending of this second book is, in some ways, rather more positive than the first, although there remain enough intriguing ambiguities and unresolved issues to promise more enjoyable follow-ons.
This is essentially comfort reading rather than great children's literature. It is at heart a story about a group of friends having an adventure, albeit with a sinister overlay; The Famous Five, reimagined for contemporary kids through the addition of dark magic. It has all the classic elements, strong friendships and equally strong enmities, jealousies and misunderstandings, sympathetic and hostile adults - and a very special animal. Its characters and relationships are of course far more interesting and complex that anything Blyton ever wrote, and unlike such precursors it includes a dark overlord, no few diabolical monsters, and the persistent threat of evil. In Magisterium all of this is most interestingly intensified by a core confusion about where the boundaries between light and dark lie, particularly within the persona of its principle protagonist.
I am sure there will be many children who will feel that here at last, after so many other books have been misleadingly hyped, is something which really is as good as Harry Potter. They will will not be far wrong. It has enough of the same features to make its world reassuringly familiar, and more than enough that is original and different to keep it always intensely engaging and exciting. It explores many of the situations and feelings children know and understand at the same time as giving them, through imagination and empathy, the magical powers they would so like to have. It will entertain, thrill, amuse and 'safely' scare them. J.K.Rowling succeeded because she provided all these things in spades; it looks like these two skilful writers are doing the same.
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