"Narnia was not up to code": The Magicians' Lev Grossman on building fantastical worlds

I Think You're Interesting

Few fantasy series of the past 10 years have had the reach of Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy, beginning with The Magicians in 2009, continuing with The Magician King in 2011, and concluding with The Magician's Land in 2014. The books, which attempted to blend the fantastical elements of books like Harry Potter and the Narnia series, garnered warm reviews (including from Todd), then were quickly scooped up to be turned into a TV series before the books had even completed the publication process. The process of adaptation took many years and several false starts, but the (excellent) TV show version of The Magicians finally debuted in December 2015 on Syfy, and it has gone on to forge its own identity — similar to the books but also separate from them. That made it a great time to talk to Grossman, whose books are probably more visible than ever but who also has to deal with readers who come to his books knowing the characters better for their TV versions, who have slightly different personalities and sometimes even different names. Grossman and Todd talk about learning to stop worrying and love your TV adaptation, his happiness that his books were all published before the TV show began, and his ideas for how to build a compelling fictional world, whether fantastical or realistic.

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