Before Quentin charmed viewers on Syfy’s The Magicians, readers got to know him and his fellow Brakebills classmates in the book series. Like so much select content on television and in film, the wizards began as books, which later inspired the series that recently began its fourth season. but how many wizard novels are there? The book series, written by Lev Grossman, began in 2009 with The Wizards: A Novel, continued in 2011 with The Wizard King, and concluded in 2014 with Wizard Land. It’s unknown whether or not Grossman plans to revive the book series now that the trilogy is complete, but those three books definitely gave the series a lot of material to work with in the early seasons. however, there are small details and stories that surprise even the author himself.
in the first book, julia is not a main character like she is in the second. on the show, however, she is shown as a pivotal character from the start, even though she doesn’t get into braces. Grossman told Inverse that the change surprised him, but overall, he’s happy with how the series has progressed, as he’s veered off course from the wizard novels.
“I wanted to see Wizards as a TV show instead of a movie because there was so much I wanted to get into the books but couldn’t,” Grossman said. “When I sent them to Hollywood, I didn’t want to see the books reduced to two hours. I wanted to see them expanded by dozens of hours.”
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added that it’s only natural for the series to add more depth to the characters and stories, since the books can only do so much on their allotted pages. although some fans of the books may prefer them to the series and vice versa, both versions have been successful in their own right.
the wizard novel sets things up for the trilogy in general. Features Quentin, the school, and all the major players. however, unlike the syfy series, the books start with high school characters instead of 20-somethings trying to figure out this whole magical thing.
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The Wise King focuses more on Julia than in the first book. He explains how he learned magic outside of the school environment and finds Quentin and Julia together in Fillory. The book ends with Quentin returning to Earth alone. In the show, Quentin is in the plot much earlier, so it’s not much of a reveal in the show when the wizarding land is presented as it might have been to readers.
The last book in the trilogy, The Land of the Wizard picks up where the second book left off and follows Quentin as a professor of brakes. Quentin ends up creating a new magical kingdom which he discovers is actually connected to Fillory, where Julia has become queen of the dryads. the TV show draws from the real world as much as the books, but it’s already burned through a lot of material from the books. now, the goal seems to be to continue the same beloved characters with new stories, since the source material is all but exhausted.
Since the wizard novels and the TV show are so different from each other, it might be worth giving the books a try if you’ve only been a watcher of the show so far. Like The Walking Dead, Wizards as a book series and as a TV show have their differences, but offer the same core story. Just because the wizards explained the events of the books, both versions of the story are just as exciting.
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