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The Amulet Of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus
Trilogy book 1) by Jonathan Stroud check out website: www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk
This stuff is wasted on little people! The star of the show is Bartimaeus, a 5000 year-old djinn unwillingly summoned by an apprentice magician. Think Robin Williams' Genie in the Disney 'Aladdin', only far, far classier, funnier and with a first-hand perspective on classical history. Summoned by the scarily precocious apprentice magician Nathaniel, his task is to steal the priceless Amulet of Samarkand from the (even scarier) master magician Simon Lovelace. As it turns out, Lovelace had his own reasons for acquiring the Amulet in the first place and isn't about to let anyone just walk away with his prize... There's a lovely post-modern edge to all of this with a rather fabulous use of footnotes from Bartimaeus to cover just about everything: the real fate of Atlantis, how best to outwit magicians and exactly why cursing in Ancient Babylonian is almost always better, just for starters. It's the kind of book that has you smiling most of the way through and then desperately looking for someone to read a really funny bit out to (not recommended on public transport, by the way). Up and against all that though is some genuinely imaginative world building: a retro yet modern-day London run by magicians (yes, even the rather ineffectual Prime Minister) and ever so slightly skewed and twisted. The landmarks are all the same, but the sights are somehow different, with dark hints of an anti-magician rebellion breaking through into even Nathaniel's sheltered world. There's enough material here to keep several trilogies happy and it's rewarding to see Stroud wield his ideas so sparingly and to such good effect. Character-wise, it's possibly even better. While I defy anyone not to love Bartimaeus, he is always absolutely clear that his loyalty is only held by his binding. As far as he is concerned, the world would be better off without the entire human race - especially magicians. Against the backstory of the traumatised, morally-ambiguous Nathaniel, there's a huge range of emotion that it's hard not to sympathise with. Even if some of the supporting characters are slightly stereotypical, it works to the benefit of the story, which has a nice dark, slightly bitter, streak reminiscent of what keeps the latter Harry Potters so sharp. The main advantage this has over Harry Potter, though, is always going to be the use of Bartimaeus as narrator. The sections which switch to Nathaniel certainly prove that this boy is the anti-Harry, if anything. There are no prophecies, no innate goodness here, just a young boy with a huge amount of power who could go either way and will quite likely cause as much harm as good. It's called ratcheting up the tension plot-wise and it works like a charm. To be honest, there's not much about this book that doesn't work and that includes a grand finale that kept reminding me of China Mieville's 'The Scar'. Not a great many other Harry Potter successors you could say that of, last time I looked. Brave the kid's section: go read this one. Jennifer Howell
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OTHER REVIEWS - June 2004
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After
the whole Harry Potter craze, you'd think people would learn: the
kids really are getting all the good stuff these days. So, despite
various attempts at marketing it otherwise, 'The Amulet Of Samarkand'
is really only making an appearance in the children's section as
far as I can tell. Big mistake. Huge! 
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