Lev Grossman | |
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Born | |
Education | Harvard University (BA) |
Occupations |
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Spouse | Sophie Gee |
Children | 3 |
Parent(s) | Judith Grossman (mother) Allen Grossman (father) |
Relatives | Austin Grossman (brother) Bathsheba Grossman (sister) |
Website | levgrossman |
Lev Grossman (born June 26, 1969) is an American novelist and journalist who wrote The Magicians Trilogy: The Magicians (2009), The Magician King (2011), and The Magician's Land (2014). He was the book critic and lead technology writer at Time magazine from 2002 to 2016. [1] His recent work includes the children's book The Silver Arrow and the screenplay for the film The Map of Tiny Perfect Things , based on his short story.
Grossman was born on June 26, 1969, in Concord, Massachusetts. [2] He is the twin brother of video game designer and novelist Austin Grossman, a brother of sculptor Bathsheba Grossman, and son of the poet Allen Grossman and the novelist Judith Grossman. Grossman's father was born Jewish [3] and his mother was raised Anglican, [4] but Grossman has said, "I grew up in a very unreligious household. Very. I have no religion at all. So I come at religion as about as much of an outsider as you can be in Western civilization." [5] On the assumption that he was raised Jewish, he has said, "I have this extremely old-world name, and people can invite me to as many Jewish book festivals as they want to--but I wasn't raised Jewish." [4]
After graduating from Lexington High School, Grossman studied literature at Harvard University, graduating with a degree in literature in 1991. [6]
Grossman has written for The New York Times , Wired , Salon.com , Lingua Franca , Entertainment Weekly , Time Out New York , The Wall Street Journal , and The Village Voice . He has served as a member of the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle and as the chair of the Fiction Awards Panel. [7] In May 2015, Grossman gave the third annual Tolkien Lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford. [8]
In writing for Time, he has also covered the consumer electronics industry, reporting on video games, blogs, viral videos and Web comics like Penny Arcade and Achewood. In 2006, he traveled to Japan to cover the unveiling of the Wii console. [9] He has interviewed Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman, Joan Didion, Jonathan Franzen, J.K. Rowling, and Johnny Cash. He wrote one of the earliest pieces on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. [10] A piece written by Grossman on the game Halo 3 was criticized for casting gamers in an "unfavorable light." [11] Grossman was also the author of the Time Person of the Year 2010 feature article on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. [12]
Grossman did some freelancing and wrote for other magazines. Some of the works he wrote at this time include "The Death of a Civil Servant," "Good Novels Don't Have to be Hard," "Catalog This," "The Gay Nabokov," "When Words Fail," and "Get Smart." He freelanced at The Believer, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Salon, Lingua Franca, and Time Digital. It was soon after this that his first novel, Warp, was published. [1]
He quit his job at Time magazine in August 2016 to pursue writing full time. [1] [13]
Lev Grossman's first novel, Warp, was published in 1997, after he moved to New York City. [6] Warp was about "the lyrical misadventures of an aimless 20-something in Boston who has trouble distinguishing between reality and Star Trek." [1] It received largely negative customer reviews on Amazon.com, and in response, Grossman submitted fake reviews to Amazon using false names. He then recounted these actions in an essay titled "Terrors of the Amazon". [14] His second novel, Codex , was published in 2004 and became an international bestseller. [6]
In an article for The New York Times Grossman wrote: "I wrote fiction for 17 years before I found out I was a fantasy novelist. Up till then I always thought I was going to write literary fiction, like Jonathan Franzen or Zadie Smith or Jhumpa Lahiri. But I thought wrong. ... Fantasy is sometimes dismissed as childish, or escapist, but I take what I am doing very, very seriously. [15]
Grossman's The Magicians was published in hardcover in August 2009 and became a bestseller. The trade paperback edition was made available on May 25, 2010. The Washington Post called it "Exuberant and inventive...Fresh and compelling...a great fairy tale." [16] The book is a dark contemporary fantasy about Quentin Coldwater, an unusually gifted young man who obsesses over Fillory, the magical land of his favorite childhood books. Unexpectedly admitted to Brakebills, a secret, exclusive college of magic in upstate New York (an amalgam of Bannerman's Castle and Olana), Quentin receives an education in the craft of modern sorcery. After graduation, he and his friends discover that Fillory is real. [17] Michael Agger of The New York Times said the book "could crudely be labeled a Harry Potter for adults," injecting mature themes into fantasy literature. [18] The Magicians won the 2010 Alex Award, given to ten adult books that are appealing to young adults, and the 2011 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. [19]
In August 2011, The Magician King , the sequel to The Magicians, was published, which returns readers to the magical land of Fillory, where Quentin and his friends are now kings and queens. The Chicago Tribune said The Magician King was " The Catcher in the Rye for devotees of alternative universes" and that "Grossman has created a rare, strange and scintillating novel." [20] It was an Editor's Choice pick of The New York Times, who called it "[A] serious, heartfelt novel [that] turns the machinery of fantasy inside out." [21] The Boston Globe said "The Magician King is a rare achievement, a book that simultaneously criticizes and celebrates our deep desire for fantasy." [22]
The third book in the series is titled The Magician's Land [23] [24] and was published on August 5, 2014. [25]
In July 2019, Grossman, with co-writer Lilah Sturges and illustrator Pius Bak, released The Magicians: Alice's Story, a graphic novel told from the perspective of Alice, a secondary character from the book series.
Grossman's first children's book, The Silver Arrow, was published in September 2020. It debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list on September 27, 2020. [26] The Golden Swift, its sequel, was published on May 3, 2022.
In September 2016, Grossman announced that his next novel would be a take on King Arthur called The Bright Sword [27] and in November 2023, he revealed that the novel was done and would be out the following year. [28] In a post on his newsletter, Grossman explained that the book was a difficult project and outlined why it took nearly a decade to write, including historical research, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other projects. [29]
The Bright Sword was published July 16, 2024 to positive reviews. [30]
Grossman's Magicians trilogy was adapted for television by Sera Gamble and John McNamara for Syfy. The series received five seasons and aired from December 2015 to April 2020.
Grossman wrote the screenplay for the film The Map of Tiny Perfect Things , based on his short story of the same name. The film was released through Amazon Prime Video on February 12, 2021. [31]
Grossman lives in Sydney, Australia [32] with his wife and children. [33] [34] Grossman is a self-professed atheist. [35]
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2015–2020 | The Magicians | Series consultant | TV series based on his series The Magicians |
2021 | The Map of Tiny Perfect Things | Screenwriter | Film based on his short story Map |
TBD | The Heavens | Story by | In development with the Russo brothers |
George Raymond Richard Martin also known by the initials G.R.R.M. is an American author, television writer, and television producer. He is best known as the author of the series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, which were adapted into the Primetime Emmy Award–winning television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019) and its prequel series House of the Dragon (2022–present). He also helped create the Wild Cards anthology series and contributed worldbuilding for the video game Elden Ring (2022).
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of high fantasy novels by the American author George R. R. Martin. He began writing the first volume, A Game of Thrones, in 1991, and published it in 1996. Martin, who originally envisioned the series as a trilogy, has so far released five out of seven planned volumes. The fifth and most recent entry in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in 2011. Martin continues to write the sixth novel, titled The Winds of Winter. A seventh novel, A Dream of Spring, is planned to follow.
Labyrinth is a 1986 musical fantasy film directed by Jim Henson with George Lucas as executive producer. Based on conceptual designs by Brian Froud, the film was written by Terry Jones, and many of its characters are played by puppets produced by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The film stars Jennifer Connelly as 16-year-old Sarah and David Bowie as Jareth, the Goblin King. In Labyrinth, Sarah embarks on a quest to reach the center of an enormous, otherworldly maze to rescue her infant half-brother Toby, whom she wished away to Jareth.
A fictional book is a text created specifically for a work in an imaginary narrative that is referred to, depicted, or excerpted in a story, book, film, or other fictional work, and which exists only in one or more fictional works. A fictional book may be created to add realism or depth to a larger fictional work. For example, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has excerpts from a book by Emmanuel Goldstein entitled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism which provides background on concepts explored in the novel.
William Willingham is an American writer and artist of comics, known for his work on the series Elementals and Fables.
The Sword of Shannara is a 1977 epic fantasy novel by American writer Terry Brooks. It is the first book in a titular trilogy.
Magician or The Magician may refer to:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North–South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.
Jack of Fables is a spin-off comic book series of Fables written by Bill Willingham and Lilah Sturges and published by DC Comics' Vertigo imprint. The story focuses on the adventures of Jack Horner, a supporting character in the main series, that takes place after his exile from Fabletown in the story-arc Jack Be Nimble. The idea for the spin-off comic came after editor Shelly Bond suggested to put Jack in a separate comic when Willingham planned to write him out of the series.
Allen R. Grossman was a noted American poet, critic and professor.
Austin Seth Grossman is an American author and video game designer. He has contributed to The New York Times and has written for a number of video games, most notably Deus Ex and Dishonored.
Lilah Sturges is an American writer of comics and fantasy novels. She is best known for co-writing with Bill Willingham the Eisner-award-nominated Jack of Fables, and other comics published by Vertigo Comics / DC Comics.
Clockwork Storybook (CWSB) was a writer's collective and independent book publisher based in Austin, Texas. It specialized in the fantasy, horror and adventure genres.
Hale Isaac Appleman is an American actor. He is known for playing Tobey Cobb in the 2007 film Teeth and Eliot in the television fantasy series The Magicians.
The Magicians is a new adult fantasy novel by the American author Lev Grossman, published in 2009 by Viking Press. It tells the story of Quentin Coldwater, a young man who discovers and attends a secret college of magic in New York. The novel received critical acclaim and was followed by a sequel, The Magician King, in 2011 and a third novel, The Magician's Land, in 2014.
11/22/63 is a novel by American author Stephen King about a time traveler who attempts to prevent the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on November 22, 1963. It is the 60th book published by Stephen King, his 49th novel and the 42nd under his own name. The novel required considerable research to accurately portray the late 1950s and early 1960s. King commented on the amount of research it required, saying "I've never tried to write anything like this before. It was really strange at first, like breaking in a new pair of shoes."
The Magician King is a fantasy novel by Lev Grossman, published in 2011 by Viking Press, the sequel to The Magicians. It continues the story of Quentin Coldwater, interweaving it with the story of his high school crush, Julia, who learned magic outside of the standard school setting and joined him in Fillory.
The Magician's Land is a new adult fantasy novel by Lev Grossman, published in 2014 by Viking Adult, the sequel to The Magicians (2009) and The Magician King (2011). It continues the story of outcast magician Quentin Coldwater, interweaving it with the story of several of his friends who are questing to save the magical realm of Fillory.
The Magicians is an American fantasy television series that aired on Syfy, based on the homonymous trilogy of novels by Lev Grossman. Michael London, Janice Williams, John McNamara, and Sera Gamble serve as executive producers. A 13-episode order was placed for the first season in May 2015, and the series premiered on December 16, 2015, as a special preview. In January 2019, Syfy renewed the series for a fifth and final season, which ran from January 15 to April 1, 2020. In the show, students at a secretive school of magic find that the magical world is more dangerous than they realized.
The Magicians trilogy is the common name for a series of fantasy novels written by Lev Grossman, including The Magicians (2009), The Magician King (2011), and The Magician's Land (2014).