The Book of English Magic

Product Information

Books of Magic Movie". HolyCow.com. November 19, 1998. Archived from the original on May 11, 2008 . Retrieved June 3, 2008. Vertigo published a number of winter specials under the title Winter's Edge, featuring short stories based on their current properties and featuring stories to preview upcoming series and one-shots. The Books of Magic featured in all three issues of Winter's Edge, with issue #1 containing "Thanks for Nothing" by John Ney Rieber [44] and issues #2 and #3 featuring stories written Peter Gross. Issue #2 featured a story called "We Three Things", [45] and issue #3 featured the Dead Boy Detectives in a tale set during Tim's time at one of the Inns Between the Worlds. [46] A Day, a Night and a Dream [ edit ] My only real criticism of The Book of English Magic it is that it sometimes claims for England important figures and movements that weren’t entirely English. This includes author CS Lewis, as was earlier pointed out by a reader of my blog. CS Lewis certainly lived in England, and the book does state that he was born in Ireland, but I could understand the Irish feeling that he shouldn’t have been in a book dedicated to English magic at all. a b Gross, Peter( w)."The Closing, Part 3: Inner Child" The Books of Magic,no.75(August 2000).DC Comics.

Rieber, John Ney( w)."The Importance of Being Evil" The Books of Faerie: Molly's Story,no.4(December 1999).DC Comics.The image of the magician is exciting and tantalising, and familiar to us all. Think of Merlin or Gandalf and we think of excitement, mystery and adventure. But what do we feel or even know about real magicians – those figures who throughout history have practiced the kind of magic that for centuries was a forbidden art? No magic book on England would be complete without mentioning Merlin. Some call him Mardyn the wild one. No one knows who he really is. They know he existed; of course King Arthur is something else entirely. Merlin was an adviser to the king. In reality he may have been a chieftain who came from Ireland and Scotland. Geoffrey Monmouth spoke of him in his works. Many feel that Merlin's prophecies came to pass. Others still say they are yet to pass. The chapter continues with further talk on the legends of the Grail and their internal spiritual uses. This causes Currie to go onto a war footing: he kills Tim's father whilst he recovers in hospital [31] to give Tim the emotional trauma he needs to subconsciously create another alternate world, and then manipulates the outburst of magic so that instead of a new world, Currie's version of Tim is recreated. The teacher then drains Tim's magic and hides it in a prearranged place: the true Tim leaves the world to learn how to control his magic and defeat his Other, [32] whilst Currie and his alternate Tim remain to die in battle with the hope of convincing the Other that he has killed the true Tim. [33] When the Other was convinced that he was triumphant, he used his power to open all the gateways between the worlds [34] — allowing Tim to escape to the Inn Between the Worlds using his mother's glamor stone to disguise himself as a girl called Mary [35] but also freeing the Wild Hunt, the god-killing band trapped for two-thousand years by a compact of rulers from Heaven, Faerie, Hell and other realms. [36] Sir Timothy Hunter, Tim's destiny, from the cover of issue #74.

With Rieber leaving, the series editor Stuart Moore championed Gross to take over scripting duties because "I knew he could do it. He's got a great sense of story and character". [11] Gross initially wrote a short memo detailing where he thought the series should go, hoping that it might influence the editors' choice of writer. Gross was then asked if he could expand his ideas into an actual story, and he plotted a six issue story that he thought might be used as a "filler" until a new writer could be found. [8] DC encouraged him to think bigger until, by the time he started writing his first issue, he had plotted out a 23-issue-long story for the book. This soon expanded into plots for Gross' entire 25-issue run, [9] despite Gross initially being nervous that his writing efforts would be unfavorably compared to those of Gaiman and Rieber by the series' fans. [8] It would have been a wonderful book even were it merely an historical account, but at each step the book does more – it invites the reader into the reality of magic in several ways. First are the many interviews with real people, who speak of their magical experience and work. These “open up” the book by providing windows into other lives; it is as though a druid and a shaman, an alchemist and a dowser came by for a cup of tea and sat talking at the kitchen table until late. And each of them is someone we’d be happy to have stay overnight, so we could resume our conversation in the morning.High magic came to play with the importation of Alchemy. Alchemists in the west have always sought two things: how to turn metals into gold and how to perfect the soul. Alchemists in the East also wanted to perfect the soul but they were also searching for immortality. Eventually Alchemy would lead to chemistry but the idea of certain herbs being associated with planetary influence and perfecting the soul would find their way into High Magic. High Magic is all about Theurgist magic which is geared for perfecting the soul. The book has a few real interesting activities associated with alchemy that can be performed at home. English authors such as J.R.R.Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, and J.K.Rowling dominate the world of magic in fiction, but from the earliest times England has also acted as home to generations of eccentrics and scholars who have researched and explored every conceivable occult art, and now more people practice magic in England than at any time in her history. The faerie market in Gaiman's novel Stardust has many similarities to the one presented in the original miniseries. This may not be surprising as it's simply a case of Gaiman borrowing a portion of one work to use in the other.

There is some good writing here, and the book is an entertaining read. Some of the chapters are excellent for beginners to the subjects, particularly the ones on the history of Enochian and other Renaissance magic, and the chapters that chart the influence of these early-modern ceremonial forms of magic into more recent magical history.Now of course England has its own grand architecture, and the views from atop the Sussex downs are as sweeping as anything on America’s Great Plains. Still, America seems to be the place where the English park their dreams of limitless space, just as England is the place where Americans park their dreams of deep time. To put it another way, as a chance-met acquaintance said to me on that same trip as we walked among the stones of Avebury, the difference between the English and the Americans is that the English think a hundred miles is a long distance, and the Americans think a hundred years is a long time. Leblanc, David (January 29, 1999). "The Comic Book Net Electronic Magazine". Comic Book Shopper. Archived from the original on October 7, 2008. I have let my brain rest for most of January and half of february and traded books for movies for a while (add me on letterboxd @blissfulzwan) but none of that relates to this book I've just read so, HELLO AGAIN! Alright now let's jump into the actual review.