Chronicles of Kanjisheik

Book 1: The Amulet of Samarkand
Book 2: The Golem's Eye
Book 3: Ptolemy's Gate

The incredible success of J.K. Rowlings' Harry Potter series has resulted in a deluge of imitations, most of which range from the mundane to the abysmal. But Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy is defintely not one of those. The story is set in a parallel London ruled by magicians. Magicians in fact rule the whole world; a conniving and duplicitous lot, the world is in some strife thanks to them. The one dirty little secret that magicians don't want the hoi polloi to know is that, on their own, they have no power at all, obtaining what little they do have through the various demons they summon and bind to them.

Nathaniel is a boy sold by his parents into apprenticeship to a magician named Arthur Underwood, a petty bureaucrat. Underwood begins tutoring in the boy in magic, but Nathaniel, being lonely and inquisitive, takes the initiative to advance his education well beyond his years (and without his master's knowledge). When, at the age of ten, Nathaniel is humiliated by a charismatic political intriguer and magician named Simon Lovelace, in a fit of juvenile vengefulness he summons up a powerful 5,000-year-old djinn named Bartimaeus and charges him to steal an artifact called the Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace. It turns out that Lovelace himself stole the Amulet — having its original owner murdered! — and will stop at nothing to get it back. He has big plans for all of England that involve the Amulet. And if Lovelace learns that the thief was nothing but a mere boy using incantations to bind a djinn even a veteran conjurer would think twice about, its curtains for Nathaniel.

Stroud sets the rules for how magic works in his world and sticks to them, and he develops two strong protagonists to anchor the narrative. At first it's hard to sympathize with Nathaniel, although his behaviour is believable as a consequence of having been sold by his family and having to grow up without friends or playmates. But as the story progresses, what begins as a petulant rebellion evolves into a truly sympathetic bid for estee. All of the mistakes Nathaniel makes to get himself into worse trouble are, of course, the price he pays for being in over his head.

Bartimaeus is extremely likable, mainly because Stroud writes his chapters from his own first-person perspective. And having been around for five millennia, Bartimaeus is extremely jaded and glib about the world of magicians and their petty power squabbles. The footnotes on nearly every page of the book consist of really humourous comments by Bartimaeus.

In The Golem's Eye, Nathaniel, now a rising star in the government, is faced with two vexing problems - first, he has to track down the Resistance- a small and persistant group of underground rebels threatening the stability of the government and, more importantly, find out who or what is behind a mysterious and destructive series of magical attacks now rocking London. The question is- are the two things related? Nathaniel must once again summon the wily, shape-shifting djinni Bartimaeus to unravel the mystery. The unlikely team of the ambitious student magician and the cynical, wise-cracking djinni makes for a solid and involving page-turner. In this outing, a new character is thrown into the mix - Kitty, a young leader of the Resistance - whom Nathaniel must find. Add a dangerous, secretive mission to Prague, a deadly menance that the Resistence accidently unleashes, and the cold, devious ambitions of an unseen enemy within London itself, and even a djinni like Bartimaeus could find himself in a screwed up situation.

The third part Ptolemy's Gate is set three years after the events of The Golem's Eye. Now Nathaniel is the Information Minister- the youngest ever!- and an established member of the British Government. But he faces unprecedented problems: foreign wars are going badly and Britain's enemies are mounting attacks close to London. Increasingly distracted, he is treating Bartimaeus worse than ever: the long-suffering djinni is growing weak from too much time in this world, and his patience is at an end, so much so that he even stops his wise cracks. Meanwhile, undercover in London, Kitty has been stealthily completing her research into magic and Bartimaeus' past. She hopes to break the endless cycle of conflict between djinn and humans -- but will she be able to get anyone to listen?

Before any of these problems can be resolved, disaster strikes London from an unexpected source and the destinies of Bartimaeus, Nathanial, and Kitty are thrown together once more. They have to face treacherous magicians, a long-fermented conspiracy, and an enemy from 'The Other Place' that threatens London and the world. Worst of all, they must somehow cope with each other!

What I love about this series is that it deals with a completely different type of magic: gone is Rowling's Hogwarts, muggles and quidditch; instead Stroud's world draws on a different source of magic— afrits, djinnis and sprits summoned and controlled through elaborate rituals and protections that force them into unwilling servitude to those with enough magical knowledge to harness their deadly power. To tell you the truth, I felt that this series makes Harry Potter look like stale bread.

This series is worth a 9.5 on 10!!!