Warp: A Novel

by Lev Grossman, Lev Grossman (Introduction)

Overview

This re-publication of Lev Grossman's debut novel, Warp, shows the roots of his Magicians hero Quentin Coldwater in a book that is for anyone (and everyone) who has ever felt adrift in their own life.

Twenty-something Hollis Kessler languishes in a hopelessly magician-less world (with the exception of a fleet-footed nymph named Xanthe) not too far from where he graduated college. His friends do, too. They sleep late, read too much, drink too much, talk too much, and work and earn and do way too little. But Hollis does have an obsession: there's another world going on in his head, a world of excitement and danger and starships and romance, and it's telling him that it's time to stop dreaming and get serious.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250092373
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/20/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	689,462
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Lev Grossman is the award-winning author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy, which is now an hour-long drama series on Syfy. Born in 1969, he attended Harvard and Yale and has been Time magazine's book critic since 2002. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his family.

What People are Saying About This

Melanie Thernstrom

Fast paced and tightly structured, funny and incisive, Warp is destined to become a classic.

Pagan Kennedy

Reading Warp, I relived my own awful, ridiculous passage into the real world. This time around, I could laugh at it.

Editorial Reviews

"Honest and sad. A Generation X origin story from the nerd genius who gave us The Magicians." —Rainbow Rowell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park

"Fast-paced and tightly structured, funny and incisive, Warp is destined to become a classic." —Melanie Thernstrom, author of The Dead Girl and Halfway Heaven

"A fascinating adventure of the most unusual sort." —Gary Gygax, Creator of Dungeons and Dragons

"Reading Warp, I relived my own awful, ridiculous passage into the real world. This time around, I could laugh." —Pagan Kennedy, author of Pagan Kennedy's Living and 'Zine

Praise for the Magicians Trilogy:

“This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and classic fantasy novels in order to upend them . . . an unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story.” —The New Yorker on The Magicians

“The best urban fantasy in years.” —A.V. Club on The Magicians

“The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this.” —George R.R. Martin

“Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy.” —Joe Hill on The Magicians

'If the Narnia books were like catnip for a certain kind of kid, these books are like crack for a certain kind of adult...breathless, stay-up-all-night, thrumming excitement." —The New York Times on The Magician's Land

"Endlessly fascinating...This is an absolutely brilliant fantasy filled with memorable characters." —Booklist (Starred Review) on The Magician's Land

From the Publisher

First novel from a twentysomething about twentysomethings in Boston.

Star Trek aficionado Hollis went to Harvard, where he majored in Urban Studies. When asked what that is he says, "I forget exactly. I think there was a large filmic component." He's a collection of clever remarks, and Grossman does not so much tell his story as take a snapshot of him during a time of indecision as he wanders through an evening and a night and a day in search of meaning. Hollis is a likable fellow, a smart-ass, though not malicious, always visualizing himself in Star Trek episodes; or as a noble knight-errant who must leave beautiful maidens behind as he goes off to serve the king; or as a brave little boy in a children's story, sailing out to capture a sea monster that has been terrorizing the village. Hollis is endlessly self-conscious, trying on different identities to see if one could possibly fit. In scenes with his friends, similarly educated and aimless, he offers some comic commentary, just as his idol, James Joyce, does in Ulysses. He has a sort of epiphany deep in the night, too: a meeting and quick sex with a punker named Xanthe. Then, during the day, he meets an old girlfriend, Eileen, who is actually working, and suggests that Hollis soon will be, too. And so he will, but not before more clever talk in bars, more hours before the tube, and some more daydreaming.

Far gentler than Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. Despite the repeated references to Joyce, the style and subject here are far more reminiscent of the young Fitzgerald. Grossman can write, but sooner or later he'll have to find a subject.

Kirkus Reviews