The Amulet of Samarkand
Jonathan Stroud
Doubleday, 2003 / Hyperion Paperback, 2004
The Amulet of Samarkand is a popular children's/young adult fantasy novel, intended for ages 10 and up. It is the first of the Bartimaeus Trilogy. My review is just as positive as Zephronias', and really you should just go and read the book.
Spoiler Free!
The story is set in a world much like our own, but with the addition of magic. This is traditional wizard magic, accessed by large, duty tomes written in dead languages, and heavily dependent on magic words and pentagrams. While there are cars and telephones and all the usual technologies, the geopolitical map is much as it was 300+ years ago, with much of the American continent unexplored, and England still the major world power with colonies across the globe. In England, the government is run by those who wield the power, namely, magicians. In order to propagate this system, apprentices are carefully chosen at a young age and taken away from their birth families, to be trained by established practitioners.
To be fair, this does serve an important function; names have power, and a wise magician will erase every trace of his or her birth name before they ever attempt to summon a daemon. The apprentice system does indeed strip young magicians of their names, making it almost impossible to find an apprentice's birth name. Nathaniel, however, does not follow this rule. His master's wife, certain that five years old is too young to be both taken from one's parents and stripped of one's name, starts calling him by his birth name... and as no one else calls him anything other than 'boy', he becomes quite attached to it.
Nathaniel is a good student, better than his master knows, and is soon experimenting on his own with the magical arts. Against all common sense, he calls up a rather strong djinni by the name of Bartimaeus. He does it well, binding him properly and seeing through his tricks, and they enter into an uneasy deal. Bartimaeus is perhaps the primary character of this book (and the entire series), being an engaging, cynical, and comedic personality who tells his tale in the first person, while the other characters are held at the remove of third-person narrative. Together Nathaniel and Bartimaeus uncover magical plottings and, of course, get into all kinds of trouble.
This is an excellent story, somewhat akin to Diana Wynne Jones' books in setting and tone, but with the addition of the traditional 'grumpy demon' as a strong leading role. While the malevolent magical servant trope is common in fantasy (especially comic fantasy), I do not recall ever seeing it done so well and so thoroughly. All of the characters are interesting, but Bartimaeus is cynical, snarky, bombastic, and bragging, giving us a running commentary on everything, filling us in on magical history and lore.
Despite the obvious overuse of the orphan-sent-to-learn-magic-and-fight-evil storyline, The Amulet of Samarkand is well worth reading if you are into light fantasy. It is a light and fun story, but not light reading in the sense that we think of children's literature. It has well-developed characters and a well-developed world, leading to a well-developed adventure. Given the slightly stand-offish personality of Nathaniel and the shamelessly self-centered personality of Bartimaeus it is somewhat difficult to identify with the characters, making reading the story more of a spectator sport than an immersive tale; some reviewers have found this to be a major failing. Others have found fault with the admittedly overabundant footnotes -- which I don't really approve of myself. But overall, this book and the series as a whole are well-loved, and for good reason.
The Amulet of Samarkand has been named a 2004 ALA Notable Book, a 2004 Best Books for Young Adults Top Ten Pick, a Bank Street 2004 Best Book of the Year, a Booklist Top 10 Fantasy Book for Youth 2004, and it appeared on the New York Times bestseller list: Children's Books list intermittently in 2004/2005, among many other recommendations.
The second book in the series is The Golem's Eye.
ISBN 0-7868-1859-X