When The Magicians first came to me, it was a world post-Harry Potter. The last two movies had yet to come out, and I was clinging on to them like they were the last vestiges of my childhood. Because they were, along with Bandit, my stubbornly mortal border collie.

Harry Potter was and is one of the most precious and wonderful things in my life. I grew up with them, and found the world a scary place without them. Yes, I could reread them, or could join its growing online community, but it’s not the same. It was time to move on, to actually grow up.

I had pretty much given up on finding a book series that would delight and inspire and spark my imagination in the same ways. Then Lev Grossman’s The Magicians was published in 2009, I devoured it, and realized it was the natural extension in my own Quest to identify my life with fantasy literature rather than actual life. It’s better.

The Magicians is Harry Potter filled with a bunch of assholes who have sex, do drugs and have tremendous power, damn the consequences. But that’s not all it is: Lev Grossman’s world stretched beyond any simple comparison. It had elements of all the great fantasy (Lewis, Tolkien, T.H. White, Martin), a meta and self-aware modern fantasy world that dipped its mythology into different worlds like ice cream in fudge, or a fledgling crack addict in crime. It’s certainly not as new or vivacious as, say, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth was/is, but how many fantasy series’ throw out nerdy pop-culture references, or quotes Scarface during its climax? Grossman uses and manipulates what we know of the fantasy genre to fill out his world, making fun of the tried and true elements of a Quest and Story, while also revering them just the same.

(Plus there’s world maps, the quickest way to a fantasy nerd’s heart.)

I love the world-building. You think you don’t care about another magical school (meet Brakebills!), but when the depressed and brilliant Quentin Coldwater, who grew up loving the Fillory novels, a stand-in for C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia (or whatever book series you grew up loving), discovers magic is real, it feels like what would actually happen. But Brakebills is a college and so Quentin’s put through a grueling exam, like the LSAT (or O.W.L.’s, I suppose) of magical entrance exams, where he was tasked with creating a language, a history of the fictional people who spoke it, and the dynamics of the world they lived in. I was fucking riveted. And besides, Quentin and the Physical Kids that he befriends once he gets in, skip through school in half of the first novel. You’re just watching the schooling go by, Grossman churning through brilliant classes, spells, education like a drunk guy rifling through a Rolodex (in a world where people would still have a Rolodex). I was almost mad, but that was kind of the point, these kids were absorbing knowledge much too fast for their own good.

I remember after I finished The Magicians, I was shocked to discover there was a sequel planned. It was like falling out of your chair and into the age before release dates are planned decades in advance, ruining the fun. That’s how great a surprise The Magicians was.

On a reread The Magicians drags, and the hollow, self-absorbed, arrogant characters hurt your heart more and more, but thankfully, Grossman doesn’t let them off scot-free, and in spite of hating these characters, they’re three-dimensional, and authentic. If a misanthropic 18 year old was given the keys to a magical kingdom and with it, untold power, what do you think will happen? Nothing good.

The Magicians is about a group of unhappy, self-loathing geniuses who don’t have a place in the world, even AFTER they become magicians. It’s a treatise on unhappy people and what that means. Magic doesn’t solve your problems. It exacerbates them.

As the series progresses, Grossman blows out the world to even greater heights. We see the underground realm of magic, as we’re introduced to what Janet, Quentin’s high school crush he leaves behind, had to do to reach his level (and surpass it). It’s startling, dark, and freaking cool, but even she has a reckoning for her magical trespasses. These characters aren’t easily forgiven, in fact, they oftentimes lose everything. It’s depressing; imagine knowing magic exists, but being kicked out of the world? Quentin, Eliot, Janet and Josh grow up, change, and slowly, painfully so, become the kinds of heroes you can root for. It’s as if Grossman purposefully made his characters unforgivable…until they somehow aren’t, subverting the very notion of what a protagonist really is. He made me like Janet, something that felt more impossible than escaping the Underworld, getting a talking sloth to shut up, hopping through the multiverse, or talking to a dragon. Which, I’ve learned, is hard to do.

In The Magician’s Land, the last book of the series that came out this August, things start out slowly. Grossman so thoroughly broke it all down at the end of The Magician King (my favorite of the three), that it took him a few hundred pages to build everything back up. But even so, the last half of the book packed a tremendous wallop, one where I wanted to pause and take note, to relish every word, but I was too busy flying through it, faster than a Hippogriff in flight during the apocalypse.

The Magician’s Land and its two predecessors are a critique and loving tribute of all the fantasy that have come before it. A series that has ram Gods, Cozy Horses and drunks. Like Unwritten, it wallows in the power of Story, and takes the notion of what can be done in fantasy to lengths you’ve never imagined. It’s too smart for its own good, and knows it, and bulls forward anyways. The Magicians series isn’t perfect, but like Harry Potter, it proved to be the perfect, sarcastic companion for a certain period of my life, one that’s right now. It’s a transcendent piece of adult fantasy I look forward to giving my miserable kids when they inevitably hate my guts.

I didn’t think there would be another Harry Potter. And there won’t be, but there will be other books, other worlds, other Adventures, ones I can’t wait to discover, ones I won’t be ready to let go. The Magicians series was one of them. Thus is life.

Day 6, October 16th, 2011.

Slang of the Day: grog. Origin: Australia. Definition: anything with alcohol in it. Used in a sentence:I drank so much grog last night that it made me wanna snog anything with elbows.

Apparently I remembered more of the previous night than I do now after consulting my notes (and no, despite the embarrasingly great image, I didn’t sit scribbling each bar name as I entered them at the time). I ended up hitting The Cellar and the Purple Turtle, the Oxford Retreat, Turf Tavern and Kings Arms. I slept in till like noon.

It felt great.

Sacha and I returned to the Kings Arms and ordered the rabbit pie, a huge flaky mess, with mash or chips (fries, duh) as the side. I’ve always wanted to try rabbit but wasn’t allowed, as me mum owns a rabbit. Now that I’ve tried rabbit, I think I can go home happy (it’s actually very tasty and tender).

A good thing about Britain, and I presume the rest of Europe, if there are no tables available, you can just ask anyone with empty seats at their table to join them. I’ve done this several times and never been turned down; in fact, we usually end up in a delightful conversation with old people and heavy doses of secondhand smoke because of it.

From there, we went on the free Oxford walking tour, led by an old middle aged Brit who fit the bad teeth stereotype (which is overplayed; it’s really only with the older generations),  a poor bastard who grew up in Oxford but never went to any of its million colleges. In England, while you may go to Oxford, you’re associated with a particular college under the big Oxford umbrella, so they won’t say they go to Oxford, they’ll say they go to St. Catherine’s. Anyways, it was a nice little tour.

We saw the famous St. Mary’s church, a few of the main colleges of Oxford, the Bodleian library, the Bridge of Sighs, Oxford Castle, etc. We saw some places where Harry Potter was filmed, and saw the outside of the library that housed the room that inspired the Great Hall (score!). We also saw where Lewis Carroll lived, as a neighbor to a certain Alice (in Wonderland, if you’ve never read a book like Michael). Most importantly, I learned of Oxford’s humble beginnings (it was, quite literally, an ox ford, or where oxen would cross the river if you didn’t play Oregon trail).

Afterwards, as recommended by David (he explained that he had a mini orgasm after trying the delicacy), we visited the Fudge Kitchen and indulged in some fucking great fudge. I tried the toffee and mojito one’s and purchased the belgian chocolate. I thought it was a store unique to Oxford but then I saw one in (spoiler alert) Bath. Thanks a lot, David. We also got directions to the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien would drink and talk little boys (hobbits), and enjoyed a pint.

So basically, if you’re a nerdy scholar who likes beer (um, me and this David schmuck I keep mentioning), you’ll love Oxford. A fun sample of who attended any of its colleges: Adam Smith, John Locke (the guy from LOST), Imogen Stubbs (I don’t know who it is, but helluva name), Dr. Seuss, Kris Kristofferson, TS Eliot, Mr. Bean, Tony Blair and Stephen Hawking. Ithaca College has…David Boreanaz.

Back at the hostel, I met Jane, a saucy minx from the Czech Republic who lit up when I told her I planned on going to her country. And I would’ve tried a border crossing then and there, but she had a boyfriend who was staying in the very same hostel room. Lame.

I also met Paul and Kevin, two Frenchman. We promised we’d meet them for a beer at The Bear. But before that, I had pressing business. It was Sunday, and I was gonna find an NFL game on the telly. It was easy, but there wasn’t a lot of choice, so we watched the Falcons butcher the Panthers at a place ironically called Eurobar. We had two jugs (pitchers) of cocktails and met some British guy who went to Troy University (Alabama) who was, get this, a Mariner fan who bought us a pint and a shot of jager. He was wasted, buying two poor Indian guys drink after drink though they clearly wanted to leave.

We met Paul and Kevin at The Bear and all enjoyed a pint together, and had a swell chat. I couldn’t tell you a single thing that we talked about, actually, but I think the French guys liked us. We returned to Turf Tavern for a couple Old Rosy’s, then back to Kings Arms, where Sacha and I gave shit to 18 year old Oxford students. This was actually the start of a trend where I felt old at bars, especially with my beard. I still haven’t gotten carded anywhere but at clubs (and my driver’s license has been fine).

By the end of the night, I was tossed and fawning over the bartender, a blonde bombshell who found my 20 pence (like 36 cents) tip overwhelmingly kind. But she was busy cleaning and closing up after last call, so I had little to no chance to turn on the Andy charm, whatever that is. So, inspired by the aroma of academia, I wrote her a lovely note, and handed it to her as Sacha and I giggled on our way out. Needless to say, she’s my future wife.

Up next: BATH, and not Stonehenge.