Magic Kingdom For Sale/Sold (1992) - Plot & Excerpts
I've read a lot of books but rarely write reviews. I only take time out of my day to write a review when I have strong feelings about a book. I have to love it or hate it, and after reading this book I definitely have strong feelings and opinions about it. A family member of mine kept telling me how great this book is, and every time I spoke to her she'd ask if I'd read it yet. I didn't want to tell her that I just couldn't bring myself to read a book with such a terrible title: "Magic Kingdom For Sale--SOLD!" Really? It sounds like a children's book (I later realized the language used in the text is NOT suitable for children). If that's the best title the writer could come up with, how much worse would the book itself be?Several months went by, then I received an email from my family member stating she'd purchased the book for me and it was on its way. "Crap!" I thought. "Now I'll HAVE to read it." Several more months went by--several more months of my family member asking if I'd read the book, several more months of me making excuses not to. Finally I sucked it up and decided to get it over with.I gave this book the old college try. I really did. I don't like wasting my time, so when I open a book I commit to liking it until proven otherwise. I read approximately 200 pages, and this is hands-down the worst book I have ever read. I think it's only the second book I've ever started and didn't finish. I was 200 pages in and the story STILL hadn't started. It's unbearably tedious and boring. I actually found myself groaning things like, "Ugh, for God's sake, can you PLEASE get on with it already!" aloud as I read. It was chapter after chapter of routine minutiae described ad infinitum--stuff like "He brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth, then dried the water off the counter. He dressed in his favorite suit and snugged the tie tight against his throat. He poured himself a cup of coffee, two sugars and one cream, and stirred it slowly as he looked out the window. He walked back into the bedroom and put on his shoes, the black ones, lacing them up one at a time. He grabbed his briefcase, his wallet, and his cell phone as he opened the door, locking it behind him." UGH! Obviously this isn't actual text from the book, but the real text is just as bad if not worse.I am truly baffled by the four and five-star reviews this book has received. I recommend holding on to your money; don't waste it or your time. New York Times Bestseller? That's stunning. STUNNING. And now Warner Brothers is making a movie? Hopefully the movie will have decent special effects to distract viewers from the terrible plot.
I ran across this book title while scanning through here and realized that though I've read it several times, I've never rated it. So, here it is. Not that it's truly 5 stars (more like 4.5), but I do grade up on this 5-star system.The plot is a good one. Ben Holiday, a successful attorney, is losing his lust for life. His wife died in a car accident a year ago and life has just not been the same for him since. One fateful day finds him thumbing through one of those catalogues for the ultra-rich and he finds a magic kingdom for sale. With nothing but time and money to lose, and a chance to recover something that he's just not finding in his modern world, Ben plops down the money and finds himself in Landover. Only Landover is not quite what it seems. Sure, there's a real dragon, witches, fairy creatures, and a genuine castle complete with a (mostly incompetent) wizard, but the land is troubled. It's been without a king for a long time, the land barons are fighting and there's a powerful demon who wants the kingdom for himself. And the Paladin, the king's champion, is nowhere to be found.This is really a good old-fashioned fairy tale story of a man who's lost himself in one world and is trying to find himself in another. The characters are a bit on the caricature side, but rather than detracting from the story it makes the story more enjoyable. People (used loosely here to refer to fairy creatures as well) act reasonably well and as expected. What's more, you really feel for the characters here and find yourself rooting for them.For the most part, I am not a fan of Terry Brooks. I find that too many of his books (including most of the others in this series) have some deus ex machina ending that ruins the tension that has been built up over the course of the story. But this book really works for me. Like I said, I've read it several times and enjoy it each time. The rest of the books in the series are not as good, but I do not hesitate at all to recommend this book to anyone. It's funny, poignant, and satisfying.
What do You think about Magic Kingdom For Sale/Sold (1992)?
Have you ever you ever wanted to buy a magical kingdom that you could own for youself, that you could instantly become a king/queen of this kingdom? Well, this book show an example what that could be like. Ben Holiday, big time bussniess man, is tired of the same old work routine that he follows everyday and is often depressed. It would be one day that in reading in the paper their would be an ad "Magic Kingdom for Sale". He thought this was a complete joke, who could sale an entire magical kingdom, or was it possibly a vacation package of some sort down to the carrabiean? Just for the heck of it he contacted the person selling the kingdom and scheduled a meeting. At the meeting he meet a man called "Meeks" who was dead serious that this was an actuall magical kingdom for sale. So he went along with meeks, and bought this magical kingdom. Thats when he recived his medalion, (sign of rightfull owner of the kingdom) and was sent through what seemed like a magical mist. On the other side he arrives to his kingdom he bought, only to relize that his castle was run-down, his advisor was a talking dog, and the court magician didn't exactly know how to use magic. It is up to Ben Holiday to fix this mess, experince the dangers of the land, so that way he could finaly relax in his magical kingdom that he bought.
—Preston Moore
It took me a little while to get into this book to be honest with you, not so much because of the book but due to my mood and personal things that happened at the time I started it. However, for the most part I enjoyed it and think I would have enjoyed it a lot more had it not been for the exact time I started reading it. I wavered between giving it 3.5 or 4 stars but decided, because the ending was pretty good that I’d round it up. It’s the first book in a while I’ve felt I have really enjoyed.It reminded me slightly of one of those old pixelated point and click games like Simon the Sorcerer where you click on ‘pick up’ or ‘use’ from the command menu – or maybe even more like the really old King’s Quest type games where you had to write ‘look’ or ‘pick up’ which I used to love playing. In fact, it’s made me really want to play Simon the Sorcerer again as I never completed it as a kid but I did used to love it. Hmm wonder if it’d work on Vista? (Damn you Microsoft!) Anyway that isn’t really anything to do with this review at all.Brooks’ writing could occasionally be a little repetitive – he liked the word admonished quite a bit and Ben was forever wanting to throttle people and the characters were slightly flat and predictable. However, the story was the strongest point and there were quite a few times when I laughed out loud. The world was quite imaginative in a clichéd way – it’s your typical ‘fantasy’ land complete with dragons, witches, wizards and other fairy people as it said in the sales pitch. It felt a little undeveloped as a whole but it is the first book in a series so I think the set up will lead on to something stronger. I loved the castle Sterling Silver being a ‘living’ thing and I also really thought the idea of the ‘fairy’ world was incredibly interesting – I hope in the following books we get to go back there.The following book ‘The Black Unicorn’ sounds good already – but seeing as I’m on this book ban for the foreseeable future and have a huge stack of library books I haven’t read yet (bugger that’s just reminded me I have an overdue loan!!) I am not sure when I’ll get to it. I have a feeling these are light easy book that can be easily dipped in and out of. I’m not gasping to read the second one but I know that I want to. It’s on the post-ban wish-list.
—Fiona
What a totally fun read!The author sets up a dissatisfied lawyerto spend a million bucks on magic kingdomand then run into hair raising problem after hair raising problemI started the book latethen dreamt one of my standard frustration dreamsabout work I did long agoand to my amazementtook control and stayed asleepwaking and rememberingwhat I had done to overcomeNext day I started this book overand read it throughand came away convinced--many problems are manifestationsof our own fearsThe Kindle of coursesimply disappearedbut o do I thank the faeriesthat found me the magical thing
—tomlinton
