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Fantasy. Fiction. Thriller. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:A year had passed since Ben Holiday bought the Magic Kingdom from the wizard Meeks, who had set a series of pitfalls against him. Ben survived, by the aid of three loyal friends: Questor Thews, and ill-trained wizard; Abernathy, a talking dog, the Court Scribe; and the lovely Willow, who sometimes had to be a tree. Bu ben had been troubled by dreams of disaster to his former partner, Miles Bennett. Yet when he returned to Earth, Ben found Miles doing splendidly. Unknown to Ben, the dreams had been a trap by Meeks, who had returned to the Magic Kingdom as a tiny insect hidden in Ben's clothing. That first night back in Landover, Ben awoke to see Meeks gloating over him. claiming to have the medallion that could summon the mysterious knight-protector, the Paladin, and that he had cast a spell to witch appearances with Ben. Ben found himself outcast, no longer recognized by any friend, though all his powerful enemies seemed to know him. Without the medallion, he couldn't seek the help of the Paladin against Meeks. There was only the prism catâ??whatever that might be! And where was Willowâ??and the mysterious black unicorn she'd set out to… (more)
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In this book, we get into the semi-standard "quest" formula often found in fantasy and commonly used in Brooks's books. A series of dreams have suggested individual quests for three of our main characters. Ben needs to return to his non-magical hometown of Chicago to help his old friend who is in danger. Questor (the eccentric and comical wizard) has been shown the location of the secret lost books of magic which he must set out to recover. And Willow (the beautiful sylph who has fallen in love with Ben) has been prompted to seek out the mystical Black Unicorn, find a magical golden bridal that can capture it, and return to Ben.
As each member of the party sets off on their individual quests, it quickly becomes apparent that the dreams were not as straightforward as they appeared. Most of the action follows Ben but we are given occasional chapters that keep us up to date with the other characters. Ben's return to Earth and his subsequent return to Landover unlocks a series of events that lead to his downfall from power and recognition as King of Landover. The result is his exile from his own castle and a new quest to find Willow (who still hasn't returned from her quest) and seek to protect her and to somehow solve his own problems along the way.
The adventure aspect of this book is engaging enough. There are a couple of rather exciting and intense scenes (such as when Ben is with the River Master who is trying to summon the Black Unicorn…or the later confrontation between the witch Nightshade and the powerful dragon Strabo) but a lot of the novel involved inner monologue or strings of dialog in which Ben tries to unravel the mystery of his downfall.
Ben's narrative explores the psychological question of "Who am I?" and "What's my motivation/passion/purpose?" Ben has "lost himself" in more ways than one. The questions and thoughts explored in the book are intriguing and thought provoking, but they dragged on a little too long, in my opinion. Page after page we wander along with Ben as he tries to find answers to these questions. He gains a magical companion in Dirk, the mystical prism cat who poses thought provoking questions and enigmatic explanations.
After a short time, I was so frustrated with Ben that I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him to just "snap out of it"…tell him that the answer was so very obvious and he was an idiot for not seeing it and for asking the same stupid questions over and over without making any progress. This to me was a major disconnect. Ben is supposed to be a very bright lawyer with a quick mind for problem solving and evaluating the situations. I will gladly admit that it's generally harder to see something clearly that's right in front of you…easier to solve someone else's problems than your own. But truly, Ben should have been able to figure things out by halfway through his journey rather than at the last possible moment for salvation. Even if he wasn't fully able to unlock the magic spell that held him bound, he should have at least been able to see the nature of the problem.
Apart from that character disconnect, I liked the general message of the psychological exploration. That we need to admit our own passions if we ever hope to achieve them…that the truth we see and understand may not be the real truth and that we should be willing to pull back the layers of illusion to better understand ourselves, others and the world.
I felt like the story was fun and the characters developed a bit more than they had in the first novel. It still isn't an overly deep series with spanning epic proportions, but then it doesn't set out to be. This is another entertaining read.
***
3 out of 5 stars
This is a rather lackluster novel of magic and journeying across a fantasy world, which this author seems to be known for (except the lackluster part. I hear a lot of people really like this guy's books). I wasn't impressed with the first book of his that I read. The second one I quite enjoyed, with it's rather unique premise of having a regular guy from our world become king of a fairy world, but now that he's kind of settled in to the whole fairy kingdom thing, it becomes more reminiscent of every other swords/fairy creatures/good vs. evil magic book I've ever read. Also, I figured out the mysterious secret of the magical plot way, way before the characters did. I probably won't continue this series right away.
Oh! I almost forgot. The one redeeming quality this book has is that of the prism cat, Edgewood Dirk, who follows Ben on his quest and imparts important information in a cryptic cat-like way. He was so funny, and so very, very like what I would imagine a magical talking cat would be, so aloof and arrogant. I loved him. That's what frustrates me about this author. The premise of Magic Kingdom for Sale -- Sold! was wrought with so much potential for amusement, but he mostly played it straight. This book, with more from Dirk and the scribe/talking dog Abernathy, could have been better. It's like he's hovering around the edge of awesome, but can't quite get there.
The Take-Away: A nice follow-up, but I'm going to spoil a couple of things if you haven't read the first one.
While it was great to see the lengths to which the wizard Meeks would go to get the kingdom back from Ben Holiday (the lawyer from
After Meeks deceives Holiday and gets back to Landover, Holiday's adventure highlights how well he is ruling the kingdom, and getting the disjointed factions back to working together. Part of me wonders how well this is going. Part of me realizes that this wouldn't be the best storyline for Brooks to follow, even though I'm more curious than what was answered in the book. The havoc with the reluctantly-previous owner is quite rightly the focus.
Recommendation: While I liked the first one better, the second in the series isn't the failsafe for continuing -- Book Three is (regardless of the series.) Since I haven't read that one yet, I can't give this one an accurate shakedown.
I’m not a fan of the main character, Ben. He’s not proactive, and shows no ability to see things from others perspective and empathize (a
Interesting world, interesting characters, but my inability to respect the main character leaves me with no interest in the rest of the series.