Ptolemy's Gate

The third book in Bartimaeus Trilogy.


Coming Soon .....
Published here

The Golem's Eye

"The Golem’s Eye", is the second book in the "Bartimaeus Trilogy" series by Jonathan Stroud.

It is an excellent sequel to the first book in the series, “The Amulet of Samarkand”. If you have not read “The Amulet of Samarkand”, I strongly recommend you get a hold of that one before reading “The Golem’s Eye”, or you will miss a lot of background. You can read my blog about “The Amulet of Samarkand” here.

The story begins two years after the events of “The Amulet of Samarkand”. Nathaniel is apprenticed to the Minister of Security – Jessica Whitwell, he is also working as an understudy to the Minister of Internal Affairs – Julius Tallow. Nathaniel is fourteen years old, a complete magician and now a government official. Now he is known as “John Mandrake”.(do you remember Mandrake, the magician ;-)

London is rocked by small attacks by a group of rebels called “The Resistance”. Nathaniel is investigating the case. He knows three names – Kitty, Fred, and Stanley from a previous encounter in “The Amulet of Samarkand”, when they stole his scurying glass. He tries find them but to no avail.

“The Resistance” consists of magic resistant commoners. They are immune to most of the magical attacks and can see through illusions created by Djinns. Bartimaeus thinks this might be because too much of magic is flowing in and around London for centuries, and some of the newborns are born with natural resistance to magic. These people who hated magicians have grouped together for a common cause ie. downfall of magicians. Currently, the main activity of “The Resistance” is to rob the houses and establishment of magicians and collect the magical items as much as possible. Their leader is studying the use of these magical items, and their ultimate aim is to use them against the magicians.

Soon there were different type of attacks in large scale, properties destroyed. Anyone including spirits, who are near the incident is being killed. The attacker is always concealed in a mist. The government suspects “The Resistance” for these activities and is getting restless. The Prime Minister orders Nathaniel to put a stop to “The Resistance”. Nathaniel suspects “The Resistance” capability to launch such destruction. After several failed attempts to summon other spirits, he summons Bartimaeus again and charges him find the unknown attacker.

[Since Bartimaeus knows Nathaniel’s birthname, he could have easily destroyed Nathaniel …. Don’t know why he doesn’t do so. Maybe that’s why it worked in a smooth partnership, with both having equal power over other.]

Bartimaues joins with his old friend Queezle, and hunts for the mysterious attacker. Queezle meets the attacker and gets killed by it. Bartimaues arrives too late, gets nearly killed by it, but was able to remove the concealing mist surrounding the attacker. Bartimaues informs the government that it was a golem who attacked. Soon Nathaniel is sent to Prague to find out the secret of Golem.

Meanwhile “The Resistance” plans to raid Gladstone’s tomb and take valuable magical artifacts. They were secretly assisted by a mysterious informant on how to evade the magical security put in place, provided they give him the Gladstone’s staff. Gladstone was the first magician Prime Minster of England and was a very powerful magician. He had single handedly won many wars for England. As they loot the tomb, a ninth-level afrit named Honorious appears who is trapped inside the Gladstone’s bones. Honorious kills most of the members using a sword, but kitty escapes with Gladstone’s staff. The Gladstone’s staff is the most powerful artifact in the tomb, but unknown to Kitty. Kitty goes into hiding, not knowing how many members are left alive.

Nathaniel travels to Prague and finds out magician Kavka, who knows the secret of Golem. The Golem is actually a clay beast, with a magical animation manuscript inserted in its mouth, and it can be controlled using a golem’s eye. Kavka destroys the manuscript he was creating for the unknown person and dies in the resulting explosion. Nathaniel returns back to England, failing to get the info on who’s controlling the golem.

Meanwhile Honorious inside the Gladstone’s skeleton started terrorizing London. Nathaniel asks Bartimaeus to take care of Honorious. Bartimaeus manages to drown Honorious in Thames. Nathaniel decides to acquire the Gladstone’s staff from Kitty to destroy the golem, forces Kitty to come to a secret location, by kidnapping her friend Jacob. Kitty Jones arrives, but gets attacked by the night police, Nathaniel angry at the night police intervention, orders Bartimaeus to rescue Kitty.

Bartimaeus rescues Kitty and hid in an old abandoned building, the one in which Bartimaeus and Nathaniel takes refuge in the “The Amulet of Samarkand”. Bartimaeus and Kitty have an interesting conversation, they discuss about magicians and spirits and their endless struggles. This changes Kitty’s views on spirits and she decides to know more about spirits and their realm.

Kitty and her friend Jacob, take Nathaniel to cellar where the staff is hidden. Suddenly, Honorious appears there and attacks (as he is trying to recover all the stolen artifacts of Gladstone). During the mayhem, the Golem also appears there. Honorious attacks the Golem headlong and but gets destroyed by the Golem. Nathaniel tries to use the staff against Golem, but Nathaniel is not strong enough to wield the staff and fails, and gets knocked unconscious. Kitty and Jacob were about to flee, but Kitty then decides to help Nathaniel, when she sees the Golem turning to attack Nathaniel. Kitty boldly climbs over Golem and snatches the magical parchment from its mouth, which destroys the Golem. Then Kitty and Jacob flees the scene.

The Golem when destroyed goes back to the master who’s controlling him. Nathaniel gets up and follows Golem. Golem returns to Henry Duvall, the Chief of Night Police. Henry is arrested, but tries to escape prison and gets killed a few days later. The person behind Henry Duval remains a mystery to Nathaniel.

Kitty Jones has been given more importance in this novel. Her background is explained, and how she starts to hate magicians and spirits. But her conversation with Bartimaeus, brings her closer to understand the spirit world, changes her perception towards spirits. Kitty, herself did leave a small bit of influence on Bartimaues. Bartimaues also explains her, how he once liked Ptolemy and how Ptolemy trusted him and even traveled with him to spirit world and returned.

The novel retains all the strength’s of the “Bartimaues trilogy – Book 1”, and a must read if you liked "The Amulet of Samarkand". The sequel to this book is “Ptolemy’s Gate”, the final book in The Bartimaues trilogy.

Dragonfly Falling

Shadows of the Apt
Book Two




"Dragonfly Falling” is the second volume in the Shadows of the Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. You can read about his debut novel “Empire in Black & Gold” here.

Yet to get hold of this book ..... :(

Coming Soon ....

The Amulet of Samarkand

Bartimaeus Trilogy - Book 1

The Amulet of Samarkand published in 2003, is the first book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. One of the several writers who have stepped into Harry Potter bandwagon, with stories of magic and magical creatures, but Jonathan Stroud stands out of the crowd and brings us to a totally different world on its own with his Bartimaeus Trilogy.

The story is set in an alternate London, where its entire government is made up of magicians. Non-magicians known as "commoners", live in fear and awe of magicians. The magicians possess little magic on their own, but they know how to control entities or demons which perform magic for them. The stronger they are, the more powerful demon they are able to summon. The demons are classified according to their power - Marids, Afrits, Djinn, Foliots and Imps. It is explained that there are huge classifications below Imps, but they are largely unused, and several classifications that are more powerful than Marids but are hardly ever used due to the extreme danger in doing so. The Demons are usually evil entities, and are forced to obey their masters as slaves. So it is pretty common that they harm their master if they get a slight chance.

Magicians are never allowed to have children, they adopt young children of commoners who shows promise in magical capabilities, take them into apprenticeship and teach them the ways of magic. As the children were removed from their parents, knowing no love, they grew into cold-hearted selfish magicians, who lusts for great power and position.

The story is narrated through two different points of view, one from Nathaniel and one from perspective of an ancient, sarcastic, and extremely humorous Djinni, Bartimaeus.

At the age of six, Nathaniel's parents sold him to the government, and he was assigned as apprentice to Arthur Underwood and his kindhearted wife Martha Underwood. Nathaniel, a brilliant student, under a middling and heartless magician grows impatient with his master’s way of teaching.

At the age of ten, in a gathering hosted by his master, Simon Lovelace (the antagonist) humiliates him. Vowing revenge, Nathaniel studies harder and educates himself more than this master knows, by studying the books from his master's study. At the age of twelve, Nathaniel secretly summons an ancient (5000 year old) and powerful Djinni Bartimaeus and charges him to steal an artifact (The amulet of Samarkand) from Simon Lovelace, which he has seen through his magical rudimentary scrying glass (used to spy on someone).

What Nathaniel doesn’t know, is that Lovelace has himself acquired this artifact through treachery and has some grand plans to use it for his own political growth, and would go to any lengths to retrieve it.

Bartimaeus completes the task under great difficulty, fighting Farquarl and Jabor, two powerful djinns under Lovelace's command. Fighting a gang of "magically resistant" boys called the "Resistance" in an alley, when they attempted to steal the amulet from Bartimaeus. Nathaniel summons back Bartimaeus and orders to hide the amulet in Underwood's study for safekeeping. Bartimaeus learns boy's birth name "Nathaniel" when Mrs. Underwood calls him. The birth names of magicians are kept secret, if known can be used against the person. Knowing Nathaniel's birth name, Bartimaeus repels all his spells. Nathaniel counteracts this with a “Perpetual Confinement” spell on a sealed tin of rosemary, which guarantees Bartimaeus’ servitude for one month, and the safety of Nathaniel. If Nathaniel is killed by any means, Bartimaeus will be confined in the tin of rosemary (torture to Djinns) for eternity and drowned in Thames.

Nathaniel later charges Bartimaeus to spy on Lovelace and find out more about the "amulet of Samarkand". Bartimaeus finds that the amulet was under government protection, before it was stolen. Bartimaeus was soon captured and confined in "Tower of London" where he was interrogated unsuccessfully. Nathaniel without knowing this tried to summon him several times, but in vain. Underwood accidentally discovers summoning pentagon in Nathaniel’s room, flews into rage (a 12 yr boy shouldn’t know how to summon) and confiscates the summoning equipments.

Meanwhile Jabor and Farquarl arrive at Tower of London, and helps Bartimaeus to escape, assuming Bartimaeus will reveal the location of amulet and his master. But Bartimaeus knows that any harm to his master is also his doom (Perpetual Confinement in a tin of rosemary), he escapes by igniting Farquarl. Bartimaeus returns back to Nathaniel, but unknowingly followed by Lovelace's imps.

Lovelace soon arrives at the Underwood's house and finds the amulet in the study. Nathaniel sensing danger to Mr. and Mrs. Underwood, reveals himself as the thief. Mr. Underwood then betrays Nathaniel by asking Lovelace to kill Nathaniel and spare his own life. But Lovelace summons Jabor to destroy all the three and the house. But Bartimaeus escapes with Nathaniel, but Mr and Mrs Underwood perish.

Nathaniel vows for revenge for his beloved Martha Underwood's death and promises Bartimaeus, his freedom after this final task. Together they travel to Heddlehem Hall, where Lovelace has invited all the members of the parliament and plotting to capture power. The pair arrives disguised as a delicatessen and son and they see Farquarl present in the kitchen at the hall.

Bartimaeus gets engaged in a fight with the Bearded Mercenary (who possess extraordinary resistance to magic), and although he fails to defeat the mercenary, he is able to escape and meet up with Nathaniel. Meanwhile Nathaniel is discovered by Lovelace and his master Schyler, and is offered to join them or die. Nathaniel manages to kill Schyler using petty magical cubes.

Bartimaeus and Nathaniel arrives in the Hall just in time. The great hall where all the members were seated was magically sealed shut and floor contained a huge pentacle (used for summoning). Lovelace then blows an ancient summoning horn and calls forth an immensely strong entity - Ramuthra. Ramuthra proceeds to warp reality on seven planes killing the nearby magicians and djinns. The amulet of Samarkand is the only artifact that can protect anyone from a spirit as strong as Ramuthra, and Lovelace is wearing it on his neck. Bartimaeus destroys Jabor by tricking him to fly towards Ramuthra, and then steals the Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace, and gives to Nathaniel. Without the amulet, Ramuthra (spirit above a Madrid) Lovelace is helpless, gets destroyed by Ramuthra. Nathaniel seizing his chance, speaks the words of dismissal and cracks the summoning horn, and dismisses Ramuthra. Nathaniel then presents the amulet to the Prime Minister Rupert Devereaux.

The government hushes up the whole incident, but Nathaniel becomes a silent hero of the government. Rupert Devereaux appoints the Minister of Security, (Jessica Whitwell) a powerful magician to take Nathaniel into apprenticeship. Bartimaeus is dismissed, before leaving, Bartimaeus warns the boy against becoming a typical wicked power-hungry magician.

The focus in this story is Bartimaeus, who is an amusing and sarcastic narrator, the hilarious way he narrates the way of magic and also his exploits in the past, is an absolute joy to read. The footnotes given by Bartimaeus, of what he thought of each situation, or criticizing others, a new method of writing, without actually affecting the storyline.

Bartimaeus is framed as a good Djinni, but there’s never an emotional attachment between Nathaniel and Bartimaeus. I felt attached to Bartimaeus, but not to Nathaniel, who remains cold throughout the novel.

The novel is little darker than the Harry potter series, entangled in politics of the ministers carving for greater power. The book is a great follow-up if you happen to finish the Harry Potter series. There’s a movie being made on this novel.