The Alchemist

I recently picked up the series of books entitled The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.  I saw the last book (or most recent book, not sure if it's the last in the series) in Target, in the Young Adult section, a couple weeks ago upon returning from Canada.  I picked it up to remind myself to get the rest of the series later.

The next day, after a very long day at show camp, I went to Barnes and Noble and picked up the first three in the series.  The first is entitled The Alchemist.  I just finished it on Monday and it ended somewhat abruptly.  I think it felt that way because of two reasons: 1.) I was reading it on my tablet and wasn't aware there were so few pages left and 2.) I'm used to reading 900 pages books whereas this book was just over a third of that size, with larger text, and wide margins.  Though the ending felt abrupt, that does not mean it was a poor book, or that I didn't like it.  It was excellent.

The Alchemist begins the series quite well, submersing you into the action right away.  The story is about two young teens, Sophie and Josh, who are twins.  Sophie is older by 28 seconds.  They are staying with their Aunt in California while their archaeologist parents are on a dig in Utah.  Both have summer jobs, Sophie at a coffee shop and Josh at a book store.  The coffee shop and book store are across the street from one another.

One day something goes wrong.  A man shows up with 3 large body guards, all dressed in dark suits, covered head to foot, and goes in to the book store.  Sophie is watching this happen, and Perry, the book store owner's wife, is watching this happen with her.  Perry begins to act strangely and races out of the coffee shop for her husband.

Magic ensues.  The owner of the store, Nick Fleming, is accosted by a man Josh doesn't recognize, but who Nick calls Doctor, or sometimes Dee.  We later learn his names is Dr. John Dee, and through this battle, the book store is destroyed as Dee and his Golems attempt to steal the Book of Abraham the Mage, or the Codex, from Nick.

Long story short, Dee steals the book, but not before John can rip the last two pages out of the back.  Sophie and Perry show up too late, and Dee is able to knock Sophie out of the way and capture Perry as they leave.

The rest of the story is about Nick Fleming, who turns out to be the infamous Alchemist Nicholas Flamel, and his wife Perenelle Flamel, both attempting to save the world from destruction under Dr. John Dee's agenda.  That is a brief summary of the book, but there's much more to it.  So here's the super-spoiler-filled-nitty-gritty on this book.

First, a rundown of the pseudo-lore here: picture a world where every god or deity ever worshiped were real beings of ultimate power.  The only "God" that doesn't seem to make it in to play is the monotheistic God of various religions.  However, other ancient gods that were worshiped centuries ago are part of a race called The Elders.  They were here first and when the humans, or humani, came about, some Elders helped and others didn't.  Some Elders believed that the humans were simply there to be the Elder's slaves.

During the time of the Elders, Earth existed in a Utopian state.  Everything was perfect, the Elders provided the most advanced sciences and magics possible.  And magic was definitely abundant, but to them, it was simply their version of science.

Eventually the Elders age ended, as human population grew and took over.  However, some humans had learned much from the Elders and some even became immortal due to the magical knowledge they gained.  Nicholas Flamel obtained the Codex and eventually created the Elixir of Life, allowing him and Perenelle to become immortal.  Others, like Dr. John Dee, became immortal through other means.

Dr. John Dee's agenda is aligned with Elders known as the Dark Elders.  There is a spell in the Codex he stole from Nicholas that can bring about the return of the Dark Elders.  Those are the Elders that believe humans existed to be slaves to them.  Dee does have slightly different plans in that, when he brings these Elders back, he'll rule the planet.  I doubt things would really go that way if he were to succeed in bringing the Elders back.

Some Elders, many in fact, still exist, but they stay in their Shadowrealms, places most humans do not know of that exist between the world of life and death.  Elders create their own Shadowrealms and live there.  We meet an Elder in The Alchemist: Hekate.  And the reason we meet her is because Sophie and Josh turn out to be two very important people.

In the Codex there is a prophecy about twins with auras of pure silver and gold, like the moon and the sun.  Sophie and Josh have those auras respectively.  Every human has auras, some not very apparent others very much so.  Sophie and Josh are exceptions in that their auras are very strong and pure.  Nicholas' aura is an emerald green.  Perenelle's is white.  These auras are how people conjure magic.  They concentrate energy into their aura and through their aura they can "cast" spells.

It's a pretty friggin' sweet magic system.  Very basic, very straight-forward.  There are basic elements of magic too: Water, Earth, Fire, Air.  But then, there's also Time.  This is pretty cool, and the reason I find it cool is because I've been writing a story recently that has the exact same magical system, where there's the basic elements but then there's the ability to manipulate Time as well, and not a lot of people can do it.

Moving on, Sophie and Josh are the twins in the prophecy and the prophecy predicts the possible end of the world.  One twin to save it, one twin to destroy it.  Nicholas' reasoning to bring the twins to Hekate is for her to Awaken them.  The Awaken is dangerous and they could die.  Josh doesn't like this at all.

In fact, Josh is a very untrusting character, especially when it comes to Nicholas.  He very rarely believes anything Nicholas tells him, mainly because other people have told him Nicholas doesn't ever tell anybody everything.  In fact, Dee ends up telling Josh the same exact thing.

When Dee finds that Nicholas, Scathach the ancient Warrior Maiden, and the twins are in Hekate's Shadowrealm, he recruits the Morrigan (Crow Goddess Elder) and Bastet (Egyptian Cat Goddess Elder) and attacks Hekate's Shadowrealm.

Hekate only has time to Awaken Sophie.  And here's where I get a little annoyed about the books.  Josh and Sophie are only 15 years old.  They act a bit older, more mature, which fits their characters because their parents are rarely around.  They're very independent but care for each other very much.

But now Sophie is very different from Josh.  She's powerful, she can fight off magic.  Josh feels useless and can no longer protect his older (by 28 seconds) sister.  She knows Josh feels this way even though he hasn't said anything, and hates the fact that she was Awakened at all.

Since Dee attacked Hekate's home, Hekate had no time to train Sophie and the four of them fled.  Hekate dies and her Shadowrealm is completely destroyed because of this.  We also find that Dee has Excalibur, which encases everything the blade touches in ice.  And he did this to Hekate and her World Tree, Yggdrasil.

Nicholas takes the twins and Scathach to Ojai where another Elder exists.  She also happens to be Scathach's grandma.  Her name is Dora, but her title is The Witch of Endor.  Her magic is Air.  She is blind. And she has glass orbs for eyes.

She is able to fill Sophie with all of her knowledge, a couple millennia worth of information and skills, so Sophie can turn down her senses, which are threatening to drive her insane.  Her Awakening did exactly what it sounds like it would do: awaken all the senses to extreme potential.  She's been dealing with sensory overload since Awakened and in most humans, that would drive them mad.  Sophie is stronger than most humans.

As Dora is training Sophie, Dee shows up and talks to John and fills him with a ton of doubt on the things that Nicholas has told him.  He then lulls John in to just sitting there in the park after he weasels out of him where Sophie, Nicholas and Scathach are.

Dee attacks with a dense fog and then begins raising the dead.  Nicholas, Sophie and Scathach try to escape but cannot.  John hears Sophie scream and is brought to his senses.  He goes and gets the Hummer that they drove to Ojai, and damn near kills Dee by attempting to run him over.  This causes the raised dead to crumble, but only after Sophie had used so much energy casting Air magic that she's nearly passed out.

Dora comes to the rescue after John joins the group, and brings them back in to her shop.  She sends them through a leygate to Paris.  John hesitates as Dee shows up, who tries to convince John to go with him.  Sophie's head pops out through the swirling misty mirror telling Josh that she'd never leave him behind because he's her brother.  Josh takes her hand and follows her in.  Dora destroys the mirror and then the shop explodes.  Dee narrowly escapes.  Dora was unharmed.

That's where this book ends.  It felt abrupt as it was right in the middle of the action.  But the next book pretty much picks up where it left off, excluding an introductory chapter where Dee contacts another immortal known as Niccolo Machiavelli.

Overall it was a great book.  My only ... discomfort at this point is that I'm not used to reading short books.  So I need to get in to the mindset again that not a ton of stuff is going to happen in each of these books.  I think the longest is around 400 some-odd pages.

Good book, highly recommended.