Michael Dylan Scott, The Alchemist: the secrets of the immortal Nicholas Flamel (Delacorte Press, 2007)
The completion of the Harry Potter series has left many readers of fantasy asking: "What should I read after Harry Potter?"
Of course, many publishers have anticipated this question and there seem to be more new fantasy books out than ever. The Alchemist, with its references to Nicholas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone, seems a natural choice. Despite the superficial similarities to the world of magic portrayed in J. K. Rowling's series, however, The Alchemist lacks that ingredient which is even more vital than world building in any good book, fantasy or otherwise: it lacks characters the reader cares about.
On the surface, the basic story sounds incredibly appealing: fifteen-year-old twins Sophie and Josh Newman are the children of archeologists, but have opted to spend the summer away from their parents so that they can work and save up money to buy a car when they turn sixteen. The twins soon become caught up in a struggle between two alchemists Nicholas Flamel and John Dee, as they battle for possession of an ancient book that holds the secret to eternal life.
The problem is that, although the reader learns all this in Chapter One, by Chapter Eighteen the reader doesn't know much more about the history of the struggle between the two alchemists. What's worse, the reader doesn't know much more about the twins, who are not only bland as hospital tapioca, but rather mind bogglingly clueless, also. After all, as the children of archeologists who have traveled around the world and lived at some of the most ancient sites of myth and legend, shouldn't the twins be capable of recognizing what to do when they meet a mythical being? Long after it has been proven to the twins that such beings exist, they still seem incapable of doing anything interesting with this new knowledge.
The ability to take action is a problem for all the characters in this book, and a lot of story time is spent just milling about. No one does or says anything that lends any insight into their character; when we do learn something about the twins or any of the other characters, the information is given as exposition rather than being revealed through emotion, action or dialogue. Some of these lapses are quite bizarre. For instance, despite the fact that their is a big fight in the very first chapter of the book, it is only in a later chapter that we learn that Sophie and Josh have supposedly been martial arts students for years. Why didn't this come up during the fight in Chapter One? The reader gets the impression that the author was more interested in creating an intricate mythological system rather than creating characters who are intelligent and adventurous enough to discover and explore this world themselves.
As for the mythology and alchemy, there are a lot of details included but little development of the meaning or metaphor behind such images. One needs no more example of the missed opportunities in this story than the fact that even the dark goddesses of the Morrigan and Hecate seem mundane and two-dimensional, coming across more as bad-tempered old women rather than ancient goddesses who reflect the dark side of human nature. The treatment of the Morrigan, a war goddess, seems a particularly regretful missed opportunity, as one of the basic tenets of alchemy is "As above, so below," a theme which could have provided a powerful way into using alchemy itself as a metaphor to reflect and reveal the twins own inner conflicts, something into which the reader is never given any insight.
Finally, it should be mentioned that this book appears to be the first in a series, and that it does not offer a resolution, even a temporary one. On the final page of the book, the story ends abruptly in the middle of a chase scene. Since it is a hardcover book and the book jacket gives no indication that this is the first in a series, I found this particularly annoying.
If one is looking for a good fantasy book to give to a child or teenager this holiday season, one might wish to check out the Web site of the Center for Children's Books, which offers The 2007 Guide Book to Gift Books. This is a printable file listing hundreds of books recommended by the CCB, and you can find it here.
