The silver magician

Cover of the German first edition

The silver magician (original title: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel - The Enchantress ) is a fantasy novel by the Irish author Michael Scott from 2012 and forms the sixth and final part of the series The Secrets of Nicholas Flamel . The German edition was translated by Ursula Höfker and was published by cbj- Verlag on February 25, 2013 .

construction

Atlantis, the model for Danu Talis

The book is 544 pages long and consists of a preface by Nicholas Flamel (“from the diary of Nicholas Flamel, Alchemyst”), 79 chapters (dated Thursday June 7th and Friday June 8th), an epilogue (letter from Marethyu to Sophie Newman from the 10th Imbolc from the shadowy island of Tir na nOg ), a "Note from the author" in which Michael Scott talks about Atlantis and the Tuatha De Danann (both have a central role in the book series), and a thanks . The dedication of the book reads:

“This is in memoriam to my father, Michael Scott.
Consummatum est. "

“ It's finished. "

- Michael Scott

title

The title of the book refers to Sophie Newman, with the adjective silver in the German title reflecting the color of her aura.

The German working title was Die Fee .

prehistory

In contrast to the other books in the series, the plot does not directly follow on from the previous volume; the second chapter of the book contains (with a few variations) part of chapter 56 from The Black Warlock .

action

The story takes place in the present and the past simultaneously (the time before the fall of Danu Talis).

present

Niten and Prometheus fight the Spartoi on the Golden Gate Bridge

The Elder Quetzalcoatl allies with Bastet . He wants the monsters of Alcatraz to finally be unleashed on San Francisco . To do this, he puts the entire area under thick fog and sends his twin brother Xolotl to Alcatraz to take the monsters to the mainland by boat. On the island, Mars , Odin and Hel have allied themselves with Niccolò Machiavelli , Billy the Kid and Black Hawk and defend themselves against the monsters. Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel join them while Niten and Prometheus defend the city against Bastet's Spartoi warriors .

The ancient spider Areop-Enap also sleeps on Alcatraz . The Flamels want to wake them up to have some support against Xolotl and the monsters. The Morrigan also returns, but her body is controlled by her sisters Badb and Macha . Billy the Kid can now kill the Sphinx , while Black Hawk kills Nereus . The individual groups meet; Billy accidentally throws his spear at Perenelle, but Badb / Macha jump in between and die.

The group must now fight against Xolotl, a squad of Anpu and the big monsters. With the powers of their auras, the allies also try to awaken Areop-Enap. Odin, supported by Hel, bundles his aura and shoots it through his eye socket, with which he can destroy the anpu and the momnokerata (unicorns with poisonous horns); he and Hel die in the process. When a giant crab ( Karkinos ) shows up, Billy and Black Hawk try to stop them; Billy manages to get Xolotl to be eaten by the crab, but is half impaled himself. Black Hawk falls into the sea and Mars burns while attempting a diversion.

At the last moment Areop-Enap wakes up and defeats the Karkinos. Then the primordial spider destroys the remaining monsters of Alcatraz. Niten and Prometheus fought the Spartoi in the fog, but are defeated. When Tsagaglalal finds her on the Golden Gate Bridge , it is too late. So the guardian gives Prometheus back the aura with which he once animated her. But the older one convinces her to transfer the aura to Niten, since he himself has finished with his life.

past

The Teotihuacán Sun Pyramid , an example of the common sun pyramid

Joyeuse is one of the four elements swords

When Josh, Sophie, John Dee and Virginia Dare arrive on Danu Talis , they are received by Isis and Osiris , who identify themselves as Master Dees and the parents of the twins. As punishment for Dee's failure and disobedience, they deprive the magician of his immortality and restore it to him once he has grown old. They then fly to their palace with Josh, Sophie and Virginia.

Prometheus, Scathach , Palamedes , William Shakespeare , Johanna von Orléans and the Count of Saint-Germain are on their way to the pyramid of the sun with a vimana . After the engine fails, they collapse in the crown of Yggdrasil , where they are received by Huitzilopochtli (the future Mars) and Hecate . They continue on their way with an army of tree-dwelling humani.

Josh and Sophie are brought before the Council of Elders in the Pyramid of the Sun by Isis and Osiris, as they are to become the new rulers of Danu Talis. Bastet wants to bring her favorite son Anubis to the top; therefore, under Anubis' orders, berserkers try to kill the twins. But you will be saved in time by Tsagaglalal and taken to the top of the pyramid of the sun.

Marethyu found John Dee and brought him to Abraham, who got the codex back from the doctor. Virginia Dare escapes from the palace of Isis and Osiris and wanders the streets of Danu Talis alone. She takes the lead in the rebellious Humani who demand that Aten be released from prison, with the help of John Dee. The two meet with Scathach. Scathach's (future) father Ard-Greimne wants to drive the Humani apart by force, which Virginia prevents, whereby Dee lends her his aura and dies. Scathach can save Aten.

Prometheus, Palamedes, Shakespeare, Johanna and Saint-Germain occupy the top of the pyramid of the sun, while Huitzilopochtli attacks the elders with the Humani. Josh, Sophie and Tsagaglalal reach the top of the pyramid of the sun; the five warriors fend off the oncoming Anpu hordes. Isis and Osiris land on the pyramid of the sun with their vimana, revealing that they are earth lords and, with the help of Josh, whom they brought from the Stone Age and Sophie, who is from Russia ( ninth or tenth century ), planned to plan the elders to destroy and to bring the earth princes back from the past.

Since the twins turn against them, Isis and Osiris want to destroy them, but are killed by Josh with Clarent and Excalibur. Sophie, Scathach, Palamedes, Shakespeare, Johanna, Saint-Germain, Tsagaglalal and Prometheus then leave the scene while Josh fulfills his fate: He combines the four element swords to form the fifth element, ether . In addition, he speaks the last words of the Codex that Tsagaglalal has given him. The swords fuse to form a metal hook and Josh becomes Marethyu, the death of Danu Talis - he destroys the island.

epilogue

The book ends with a letter from Josh or Marethyu to Sophie, in which he reports on the wedding of Aoife and Nitens - alluding to his promise to Scathach to bring Aoife back - and also suggests that the Flamels survived.

characters

New in the sixth volume are:

Xolotl : He's the twin brother of Quetzalcoatl . The change made him skeletal . He is supposed to bring the monsters from Alcatraz to San Francisco, but iseatenby the Karkinos on the island.

Spartoi : They are deadly, reptilian warriors. Bastet sows dragon teeth in San Francisco, from which the Spartoi grow. They fightagainst Niten and Prometheus on the Golden Gate Bridge and kill them after a long fight; in return, Tsagaglalal wipes out all remaining Spartoi.

Karkinos : He's a giant crab that is one of the monsters of Alcatraz. After eating Xolotl , it grows to an even more gigantic size. Areop-Enap devours the Karkinos at the end.

Monokerata: They are unicorns whose horn tip is provided with a deadly poison. They are also on Alcatraz and are killed by Odin there .

The following characters appear in her past:

Inanna
Huitzilopochtli : He is the brother of Bastet ( Horus ), but has turned away from her to support the Humani. He leads the humani to freedom.
Ard-Greimne: He is the head of the Danu Talis prison and despises the Humani. He is the future father of Scathach and Aoife .
Dagon : The fishery works in prison, but supports Aten .

reception

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews judged on the one hand that the ensemble of characters never seemed bulky, despite its size, the narrative pace never slackened and the individual parts of the story were a fine mixture of sudden action, heroic jokes and suddenly dissolving cliffhangers. Overall, however, the narrative collapses under its own weight, since the plot in San Francisco turns out to be just an irrelevant side attraction and climatic conflicts take place on an island that is somehow both a historical, real place and a representative of a higher reality, the Earth and other shadow realms are outsourced. Very rousing in the style of Sturm und Drang , but after the dust has settled, a heap of sparkling, but unequally good parts remain, not a coherent whole.

The Bunte called the book “all-age fantasy of the top class” and recommended it as reading that “ensures (beautiful) sleepless nights”. The star spoke of “ Umberto Eco for children from twelve”; such “fantasy epics” would “do the work of about ten campaigns by the Reading Foundation ”.

Placements

The book reached number 8 on the Spiegel bestseller list (books for young people) and number 7 on the star fiction bestseller list . The book reached number 14 on the USA Today bestseller list ; The Secrets of Nicholas Flamel rose to number two on the New York Times youth series bestseller list .

Literary and historical references

In the first chapter the elder Quetzalcoatl quotes the winged word Ha! My thumb is itching, I'm sure a son of sin is approaching (from William Shakespeare's Macbeth ).
In the fourteenth chapter the main characters quote various passages from Shakespeare's works, all in connection with death , namely from Hamlet , Richard II. And King John .
During the course of the final battle, William Shakespeare plans to write a play called A Midsummer Night's Dream (alluding to A Midsummer Night's Dream ), with the Count of Saint-Germain as the villain and Palamedes as the hero.
The battle inspired the Count of Saint-Germain to create a concept album that he Armageddon or Armageddon Rocks! ("Armageddon rocks!") Want to call.
In the 78th chapter Josh Newman quoted as saying "[Today] I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" (in the English translation: "I am [now] become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds") the physicist Robert Oppenheimer , the so that in 1965, in memory of the first atomic bomb test, he freely quoted the Bhagavad Gita .

Book editions

Michael Scott: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel - The Enchantress . Delacorte Press, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-385-73535-3 (American English).

Michael Scott: The Secrets of Nicholas Flamel - The Silver Magician . cbj, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-570-15434-2 (hardcover).
Michael Scott: The Secrets of Nicholas Flamel - The Silver Magician . cbj, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-570-40250-4 (paperback).

Audio book

No German audio book was published .

The English audio book is unabridged and will be read by Paul Boehmer. It was released on May 22, 2012 by Listening Library ( Random House ).

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ RoseMary Honnold: Wouldn't You Like to Know ... Michael Scott. In: VOYA Magazine. July 29, 2014, accessed on January 31, 2015 (English, interview with Michael Scott by Stacey Hayman): "and the Enchantress is (exclusive revelation here because I have never explicitly admitted it in print before) Sophie!"

^ German edition of Volume 6 . Random House GmbH publishing group. Archived from the original on April 20, 2010. Retrieved November 18, 2012.

↑ Review of The Enchantress . Kirkus Reviews. June 15, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2012.

↑ 12 books that make for (beautiful) sleepless nights . In: Bunte . No. 12 , March 14, 2013, ISSN 0172-2050 , p. 60 .

↑ ^a ^b culture magazine book . In: Stern . No. 10 , February 28, 2013, ISSN 0039-1239 , p. 132 .

↑ Volume 6 in the book report . Archived from the original on March 9, 2014. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 27, 2013. @1@ 2

↑ Placements of the book ( s ) USATODAY. Retrieved June 4, 2012.

↑ Best seller list ( s ) The New York Times. June 10, 2012. Retrieved June 4, 2012.

↑ American audio book ( s ) Listening Library. Retrieved June 7, 2012.

[1] RoseMary Honnold: Wouldn't You Like to Know ... Michael Scott. In: VOYA Magazine. July 29, 2014, accessed on January 31, 2015 (English, interview with Michael Scott by Stacey Hayman): "and the Enchantress is (exclusive revelation here because I have never explicitly admitted it in print before) Sophie!"

[2] German edition of Volume 6 . Random House GmbH publishing group. Archived from the original on April 20, 2010. Retrieved November 18, 2012.

[3] Review of The Enchantress . Kirkus Reviews. June 15, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2012.

[4] 12 books that make for (beautiful) sleepless nights . In: Bunte . No. 12 , March 14, 2013, ISSN 0172-2050 , p. 60 .

[:0-5] ulture magazine book . In: Stern . No. 10 , February 28, 2013, ISSN 0039-1239 , p. 132 .


Books	The Immortal Alchemyst (2007) • The Dark Magician (2008) • The Mighty Sorceress (2009) • The Eerie Spirit Caller (2010) • The Black Warlock (2011) • The Silver Magician (2012)
Spin-offs	Lost Stories (2015)