The Golem's Eye, by Jonathan Stroud

Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud

Abandoned by his parents as a young boy, the young magician Nathaniel has risen in the ranks of London's magicians. At age 17, Nathaniel has progressed beyond the nervous, inexperienced magician he once was - and his ego has expanded with him. When he is assigned to stop the Resistance movement, a group of young commoners with natural defenses against magic, Nathaniel once again calls on the djinni Bartimaeus to help him. It's not only the Resistance threatening London, however: a gigantic mysterious creature cloaked in darkness and impervious to magic that has been destroying everything in its path. Meanwhile, Kitty, the leader of the Resistance, is planning a theft that, if successful, will finally transform her and her friends from a group of petty arsonists to a force to be reckoned with by the magician upper class.

Although this isn't my favorite book in the trilogy, it's still a worthwhile read. Bartimaeus' sections are even better than before, and I think it's in this book that Stroud was starting to get into his stride with the books. The central relationship between Nathaniel and Bartimaeus seems much more defined, and the world of the other djinni is explored more thoroughly in this book. The state of perpetual servitude of the djinni to their masters is still in effect, but the opulence of the high-class magicians is slowly drawing to a close. The war in America still rages on (this is in 1700s England) and propaganda about the war's cause is still being churned out and fed to an unwilling public. The government spies on people without their consent with vigilance spheres and search orbs, and dissenters are carted off to the Tower of London for indefinite detainment in a way reminiscent of recent times.

Reviewed by Anonymous, Grade 11
Central Library