- The House of Nicholas Flamel - Thiebes
The Alchemyst (Random House, 2007, ISBN: 9780385733571) by Michael Scott is the extraordinary first novel in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series. This book starts the adventures of twins Josh and Sophie Newman as they discover their hidden powers with the help of the mysterious 700-year-old magician Nicholas Flamel who seeks to recover his key to continuing his immortality: the Book of Abraham the Mage.
The Mythology and Historical Personalities of The Alchemyst
Josh and Sophie Newman are twins minding their own business in modern day San Francisco when their new friend Nick Fleming and his wife Perry are attacked by golems sent by the magician Dr. John Dee. They soon learn that Nick and Perry Fleming are the famous Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel. Nicholas, Perenelle, and John Dee were in fact real people from various times in history.
John Dee is most known as the court magician and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. Nicholas Flamel and his wife were from 14th Century France where Nicholas was a noted thinker and alchemist of his time. His theories and activities bordered on early chemistry. His reknown in alchemy were of such note that J.K Rowling used him as a secondary character in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Beyond historical figures, author Michael Scott carefully weaves a story of existing mythology with that of his own. He uses figures from Roman mythology like Hecate the goddess of magic, and also the war goddess Bastet from Egyptian mythology. Scott uniquely weaves together his own mythology where all of these mythical gods from past civilizations were in fact creatures that actually existed, but part of another Earthly race called the Elder Race. It is one part of the story that truly grabs the reader and demands to be noticed.
The Alchemyst's Intricate and Fast Paced Plot
In contrary to many popular children and teen fantasy novels, The Alchemyst has an extremely fast paced plot with a tempo that borders on urgency. Books such as Harry Potter and the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series have the ability to hold onto its readers even while the plot takes a drastic pause as time ticks by. The Alchemyst does have times where the plot slows, as it naturally has to, but Michael Scott has developed such a complex plot that he can shift the storyline elsewhere until the main plotline has time to develop without time inside the book moving by too fast.
For example, as Josh and Sophie learn that they contain unprecedented powers within their auras, the plot shifts to the captive Perenelle Flamel who is being held prisoner by Dr. John Dee as a bargaining chip for the last pages of the Book of Abraham the Mage. The switching between plots is a spectacular feature of The Alchemyst, which helps build the entire novel given it is the first in a series.
The excellent characters, ingenious mythical world, and general originality of Michael Scott's The Alchemyst makes it a great triumph in young adult writing after the time of Harry Potter. It's difficult to draw in readers still addicted to the memory of Harry Potter, but The Alchemyst is an adequate heir to J.K. Rowling's literary legacy as this series continues.
David Tubbs - David is a graduate of the University of Waterloo with an Honours B.A. in History with a focus on medieval Europe. While his formal ...
