His adventures are set in the strength and warmth of his community and family. The tales of the novel take place in a fantastic and elaborate world and detail the many challenges that Heap and his friends face over the course of the novels. The novels have been critically acclaimed and have made several national bestseller lists including the USA Today and the New York Times bestseller lists. The first novel was optioned by Warner Bros and is set to be made into a film.
Compared to the likes of the Harry Potter novels, the series is noteworthy for its humor, compelling adventure, richness of its characters, and realism. All the novels come with a map describing the lands surrounding the area in which the story of the novel is set.
The series is set in the future as hinted by the dialogues between the characters who assert that they have heard that in the past people used to go to the moon. This could perhaps mean that they are referring to the NASA Apollo missions meaning the characters live in a time ahead of the current twentieth or twenty first.
Most of the narratives of the series take place in the Castle. The Castle is a circular building that strides a river and is on a raised ground separated from the nearby forest by an all-encompassing moat.
The Castle is much like many self-sufficient cities of old that were walled in and could survive for considerable periods without outside supplies or contact with the outside world.
The lands around the Castle include the marshlands known as the Marram marshes that are home to paranormal creatures. The forest is a dangerous and dark area inhabited by the witch community, wolverines and Physik mentor Galen. Inside the forest is the magical house known as The House of Foryx that serves as the portal through which creatures can move from one dimension to another.
Other locations include The Badlands and the Port near the sea that seems to be the favorite meeting place for strangers. Septimus Heap who is aptly named for being the seventh son of the seventh son goes on wild journeys full of spells and potions, clever charms, and accompanied by quirky characters. As a child, the boy Septimus Heap has been stolen by the midwife immediately after birth and then reported as dead.
Grieving for the loss of his son, Silas Heap had gone on a walk out in the wintry snow and stumbled upon a bundle lying on the newly fallen snow. Opening it, he finds an infant girl with twinkling eyes that he takes into his home. The Heaps adopt the child and name her Jenna, raising her as their child. But try as they may they never find out who the girl is even as they still grieve for their supposedly dead son.
Angie Sage writes the Magyk novel in a distinctly British flavor of storytelling that makes for some Victorian flavor to the novels. In asking the important question about just who is Septimus Heap, she writes a story full of heart and humor that will leave the reader in hearty laughter and asking for more. Shelve Physik. Book 4. Queste by Angie Sage. The fourth book in the internationally bestselling… More. Shelve Queste. Book 5. Syren by Angie Sage. In this fifth book in the Magykal series, Septimus… More.
Shelve Syren. Book 6. Darke by Angie Sage. In the sixth book of the Magykal series, Alther Me… More. Shelve Darke. Book 7. Fyre by Angie Sage. The seventh book in the internationally bestsellin… More. Shelve Fyre. The Magykal Papers by Angie Sage. Zelda, known as Aunt Zelda, is aunt to the Heap family and greatly loved by all for her happy-go-lucky nature, although she and Marcia Overstrand are known to have disputes.
She is of medium-build, wears a patchwork tent-like dress, has a shock of flyaway grey hair, a wrinkled smiling face, and the bright blue eyes of a White Witch. Apparently, she has absolutely no sense of taste and cooks dishes mainly consisting of cabbages and eel.
The only person besides herself who can appreciate her cooking is Septimus. She has a pet cat called Bert who she transformed into a duck and is friends with the Boggart. Snorri is an independent and somewhat mysterious young Northern Trader , who comes to The Castle to trade her goods. She helps the Heap family, and is especially friends with Nicko, with whom she shares a love of sailing.
As a Spirit Seer, she can see all spirits, even if they have not chosen to reveal themselves to others. She has a close companion in her cat, Ullr , who is a ginger cat with a black tip during the day but transforms into a dangerous black panther with an orange-tipped tail at night. Maps are provided in all the books. Magyk contains a map of the Castle and the surroundings till the Port in the south. An enlarged map of the Castle is also included. Flyte has the map showing the Badlands and the Borderlands in the north.
Physik again has an enlarged map of the Castle with more details and showing the Alchemie chambers. Queste has the map for the House of Foryx, drawn by Snorri for Marcellus. The series received extremely positive reviews from fans as well as critics galore. Angela McQuay of Curledupkids said that the books are "fast-moving and touching book with plenty of adventure, creatures, charms, spells and bad guys to keep both children and adults interested.
Charms and spells are capitalized and written in a different font, making it easier for youngsters to recognize them and also lending a magical quality to the book itself. The plot and world are more logical than other wizard books that come to mind. There are no parallel universes, for instance. Just how does a wizard and human world co-exist, anyway? How can you possibly get from one to another? And if those wizards are so smart, why are they using parchment and quills when the lame humans have word processors?
There are no dramatic swings between cartoon portrayals of humans and deep important themes. There are no long stretches filled with clever details that don't necessarily move the story along. You have a boy who is a powerful wizard but didn't know it for the first ten or eleven years of his life; a large, poor wizard family with one son who goes bad; a powerful evil wizard; a powerful good wizard; ghosts.
Kimberley Pauley of Yabookscentral. The audiobooks were also praised - "The chapters are short enough to keep children of seven-plus interested but, as ghosts, rats, soldiers and dragon boats help Silas and the young Princess fight the evil necromancer Dom Daniel, there is enough to keep the whole family amused " [5]. If there was at all any negative reception, that was that some critics pointed out similarities of names with the Harry Potter series especially Jenna's pet rock which is named Petroc Trelawney similar to Sybill Trelawney from the Potter series and the presence of a Boggart.
He is a Radio 3 presenter who may well be known to Angie Sage personally, but otherwise will be known over the air. Think: why would Jenna call a pet rock 'Trelawney'? To a Radio 3 listener like me, it's perfectly logical And as to Boggarts, they've been around here in the North of England for a long time.
Manchester has Boggart Hole Clough, for example. They're not really like either Sage's or Rowling's creatures, but pre-exist either of them.
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