The Magicians

Author: James Gunn

An old lady who isn't what she seems to be. (Are they ever?) A detective accepting a case he knows he maybe shouldn't. A bunch of magiciansâ€”stage and 'real'â€”trying to gain control of the one tool that'll make their craft and themselves more powerful. Plenty of unexpected twists and turns. All of that put together in a little novel that you can gobble up in an easy evening's read; written by a master of the craft, who breezily ignores genre boundaries to tell his tale. And, of course, there's the crucial battle between good and evil (sorry, that's Good and Evilâ€”capitalized!). And did I mention the old lady? Why it's on the list: A high concept: the notion that 'magic' (not just the 'stage' variety) can be methodized, become subject to scientific investigation and ultimately made controllable by anyone with access to the mathematics that describes it. Masterfully told, and you can't wait for the end. But when it's over you wish it weren't. Read if you like: Noir, deception and intrigue, murder mysteries, romance, mathematics, little old ladies, monomaniacal sociopaths getting their deserved come-uppance, Good and Evil battling it out in small, insignificant towns in the USâ€”with the rest of us boring mundanes not having the slightest idea of what's going on right under our noses.