I really do like these books. Sure, the idea of someone from our world entering one with magic is hardly new, and this was similar to Harry Potter, but it's good nonetheless. My only complaint is one that's hardly specific to this series. Rather, it's simply ubiquitous among fantasy generally, but this one has made me notice. That's the lack of innovation and use of magic for many practical things. Before Emily, no one had ever thought of just using magic to copy books, say, even though they do use it for much more complicated things (shape-shifting, for instance). Magic would surely revolutionize warfare, commerce and many other things you would think, but there's no sign of it. Fantasy seems to be so rooted into medievalism, no matter how much magic should disrupt that. When you still have medieval soldiers with wizards around who would really be essentially armies unto themselves in comparison, something is amiss. Yet as I said, that's a cliche of fantasy in general. It doesn't reflect on this series, which I thoroughly enjoy and will thus recommend highly for lovers of fantasy.
Literature An old idea done well.
I really do like these books. Sure, the idea of someone from our world entering one with magic is hardly new, and this was similar to Harry Potter, but it's good nonetheless. My only complaint is one that's hardly specific to this series. Rather, it's simply ubiquitous among fantasy generally, but this one has made me notice. That's the lack of innovation and use of magic for many practical things. Before Emily, no one had ever thought of just using magic to copy books, say, even though they do use it for much more complicated things (shape-shifting, for instance). Magic would surely revolutionize warfare, commerce and many other things you would think, but there's no sign of it. Fantasy seems to be so rooted into medievalism, no matter how much magic should disrupt that. When you still have medieval soldiers with wizards around who would really be essentially armies unto themselves in comparison, something is amiss. Yet as I said, that's a cliche of fantasy in general. It doesn't reflect on this series, which I thoroughly enjoy and will thus recommend highly for lovers of fantasy.