The Golem's Eye
September 21st 2006 03:17
The Golem's Eye is the second book in the much-acclaimed Bartimaeus trilogy, a trio of teen-aimed fantasy novels that exist as a kind of antidote to the wide-eyed idealism of the Harry Potter series. In Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy we see a class of magicians who rule over Britain as imperialistic tyrants... treating the non-magician underclass as little better than slaves. In Stroud's vision of an alternate magic-wielding human race we see that all power corrupts, without exception.
We rejoin Nathaniel, the 'hero' of 'The Amulet of Samarakand', some two years later. He is now firmly ensconsed in the British Government, working his way up through from the lower ranks and investigating the existence of a resistance force peopled by commoners. The British Empire is now also waging war on two fronts - with the declining rival Czech empire, and with the rebellious American colonies, so they can't afford to be fending off terrorist attacks within their own borders. Nathaniel finds he must call upon his one-time slave, Bartimaeus, in order to make some headway. Suffice to say, the facetious and sarcastic demon is not impressed with being summoned once again...
Stroud does a good job on expanding his world here... where as in 'Amulet of Samarkand' we only really got a few hints about what the world outside England is like, here we actually get to find out the nature of Britain's Empire and how the commoners live. A third central character, Kitty, is also introduced... she represents the non-magic practicing commoners and we get to find out some details about the resistance (the resistance was featured in 'Amulet of Samarkand' but we are told nearly nothing about them in that book). It doesn't take long for Kitty to become the most sympathetic character in 'The Golem's Eye'... Nathaniel, previously the main protagonist, becomes less-likeable as he gains more power. Bartimaeus's sequences are every bit as much a delight to behold as they were in the first book, but with the addition of Kitty he doesn't really get to feature as much as I would've liked. Rest assured, the final book in the trilogy more than makes up for this.
My favourite thing about 'The Golem's Eye' would have to be the action. It's not often that I'm impressed by action sequences in books... they usually fall completely flat for me because they live and die by what the reader can picture, and often I get a little lost when authors describe lengthy sequences about jumping from one place to another or things like that. Stroud is absolutely on the money with his action sequences here though... the bits that feature the demon Honorious would have be my most favourite parts in all three of the novels, he's such a memorable and well-written character and he really came right off the page and into my mind.
Anyway, this is a really fun book and does a great job of improving and expanding on the first novel. When I finished 'The Golem's Eye' I had to go straight into the final book, 'Ptolemy's Gate'... the Bartimaeus trilogy is a really entertaining and satisfying trio of books. Read them now!
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