Bookboxed

‘The Amulet of Samarkand’ is a rather long name and I never took interest in it (I know, you can’t tell a book by its name but it never caught my attention) until I just took a look at it out of boredom. When I read the synopsis at the back of the book, I was hooked. This book is a creation of Jonathan Stroud. Jonathan creatively mixed the world of magic and modern society in one book smoothly.

The story is placed in modern London, with magicians who control 'Djinnis' or powerful magical beings, ruling Britain, which is the world's strongest nation. Each magician is supposed to select an apprentice, from among young children forfeited by the 'commoners' or those without magical abilities.

Nathaniel, a young child is adopted by a not-so-powerful magician. He is slowly taught the various magical procedures by his master. Nathaniel happens to be very bright child, which his master fails to see, and proceed with his education extremely slowly. A frustrated Nathaniel, summons a djinn without his master's knowledge. He decides to take revenge on 'Simon Lovelace', a magician who had humiliated him and his arts tecaher. He decides to do that by stealing an 'Amulet" called the "Amulet of Samarkand" from him, without realizing the implications of it. He fails to realize the power and the gravity of what he was about to do and summons an extremely sarcastic but honest djinn called "Bartimaeus" to do his work.

Bartimaeus, with certain difficulties, and unwillingly obtains the Amulet. Bartmaeus, is told to place the amulet in his master's room. Nathaniel, unwittingly places his master in danger, and Simon Lovelace traces the amulet to his house and demands that he returns it. Nathaniel's master denies it and Simon Lovelace, decides to use force and torchjes the whoel house, killing his master and his wife, who Nathaneil was fond of.

Nathaniel, vows to take revenge (typical) and with the help of Bartimaeus ( who is forced to help him as Nathaniel places a spell that would imprison him in a can placed at the bottom of the Thames river until someone opens the can) he gets into a hall where Simon is holding a conference for the parliament ministers. As soon as Nsthaneil gets in, and is captured (unfortunately), he realizes that he is in a greater mess than he ever thought as Simon planned to kill all the ministers and to take control over Britain. (Again, typical power crazed bad guy) He planned to do this by summoning an incredibly poweful being, that would consume anything.

Bartimaeus and Nathaniel, outsmart Simon, when the being was wreaking havoc and manage to control the being, send it back home and save the day. Nathaniel, saves the day, is heralded the hero (After narrating his story with 'minor' tweaks, to the Prime Minister).

He is made the apperentice of a much better master and Bartmaeus is thanked and dismissed.
The book is written with intwo ways, with chapter alternating between Bartimaeus narrating the story and the author narrating Nathaniel's story.
As Bartimaeus narrates the stroy, it is filled with sarcasm and his hilarious. The book is filled with actioa and is fun to read. Jonathan has written a trilogy and it has been an instant success.

Do read it as I highly recommend it.