Angels fall from the sky.

A yo-yo turns into an owl.

Merlin from King Arthur's Camelot gives advice about the mystic arts to a kid from the 20th Century.

That boy travels to the world of the fairies with a guide who is sometimes a man and sometimes a woman.

He travels to the end of the Universe, where he meets the hot young woman who is the physical manifestation of Death.

There is magic in this book, which collects a story that was originally told in four comic books published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.

There is lots of magic.

It's there in the story itself, in all the things mentioned above and many many more.

It's there in Neil Gaiman's sorcerous storytelling.

And it's there in the art by Charles Vess, Paul Johnson, John Bolton, and Scott Hampton.

Each one of them illustrates one of the book's four chapters and each conjures up his own magical images.

Their art reflects their own styles and those different styles help tell a story that is full of different elements but never too complex.

It is the story of Tim Hunter, a teenager in England who might become the world's most powerful magician.

There are people who want to help him and people who want to stop him, even if they have to kill him to do that.

Helping Tim with his first lessons are four men who are familiar to readers of DC Comics spiritual titles: John Constantine from Hellblazer and the Phantom Stranger and Dr. Occult and Mister E.

Along the way they encounter Zantanna and Deadman and many other DC Comics spiritual characters.

It helps if you're familiar with these characters already, but that's not really necessary.

The story has a structure that is based very loosely on Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol.

Some ghostly figures guide the main character through some otherwordly situations to let him know how his life can change.

But this isn't like the thousands of books and movies and tv shows that have made it a cliche to base your story on A Christmas Carol.

This is one of those very rare books that takes from Dickens and makes inspired use of what he did, so inspired that it reveals some of the genius in both stories.

And Neil Gaiman is a genius.

His Sandman series is rich and wonderful and magical on its own.

The Books of Magic has much more of Neil Gaiman's magical genius. Let it cast its spell on you and you'll be happy you did.

This story set the stage for a series of monthly comic books that followed Tim Hunter's adventures for more than 75 issues.

It was called The Books of Magic too and most of the stories are good even though Neil Gaiman didn't write them.

If you like The Books of Magic you'll want to read more and that's easy to do because the comic books have been collected in trade paperbacks like this one.

The first one is called The Books of Magic: Bindings and the second one is called The Books of Magic: Summonings.


Recommended: Yes