The Magician continues on the pseudo-historical adventures of the alchemist. Most of the characters are "real" ones from history. John Dee and Niccolo Machiavelli are the bad guys. Joan of Arc is a new good person here. There are also demons and supernatural events. The bad cause have caused many of the calamitous events (such as the San Francisco earthquake and volcanoes.) Monster sightings and supernatural events are actually "real". The conspiracy theorists have it right. People just use science to cover things up.
In this book, the adventures are primarily in Paris. The twins and their companions are chased. The twins get separated. The boy feels drawn to the "bad guy" through his talk. HE eventually chooses to get awoken by Mars, much to the chagrin of others. Luckily, they come to help out of the problems. There is real conflict over who is good and bad. Each side tells parts of story, but leaves the opening for the other side to communicate their part. Oh, and there is also plenty of action and mayhem which gets conveniently explained away.
The Enchantress wraps up the Nicholas Flamel series. This book is packed with action and doesn't get too bogged down with the theory. And that is probably good. I had trouble keeping track of why people were doing the things they were doing. The "sides" that people joined also became confused. People that seemed to be bad guys before were now good guys. However, there were plenty of new "bad guys" that came out to fight them. The author continues to pull more and more historical and mythological figures out of his hat to add to the story. They often seem to be living relatively peaceably in modern society despite being immortal. (Though their battles are often the story behind natural disasters.) The twins also learn about their true history and family, which was different from anything I was expecting. The primary narrative consists of a few different story arcs taking place thousand of years apart in different "shadow realms", but all related to the final goal. The ending wraps things up nicely. However, since things float freely between time and place, is there ever really an end? I found this book a satisfying conclusion and a positive step above the previous book.
In this books, the twins are separated. They are each on different sides of a battle royal for the future (and past) of the earth. More historical figures keep popping up and intersecting with mythological characters. They also discover that many of their family members are more than it seems. Things take place less in the "here and now" than in the other books as time and geography become fluid. How will the final book end?
In this book, Josh and Sophie finally make it home to San Francisco. However, they soon encounter even more adventures. They discover that their vampire Celtic warrior friend has a twin sister. (Twins seem to be common in this series.) There is additional mahem and battles. Historical figures team up with each other (though there are not many new ones that appear in this book.) The twins have more confusion about which side is the "right" side. Josh ends up siding with John Dee, who promises him the ability to wake the dead. However, the others are trying to prevent him from awakening the dark creature that will potentially cause great harm. This is a middle book that really depends on the other books in the series to make sense.
William Shakespeare and Billy the Kid show up as new Immortals in the third Nicholas Flamel book. The stakes have now gone greater. The dark elders want to unleash demons stored in Alcatraz and take over the world. The twins are still struggling to determine who the good guys and bad guys are. Josh is becoming ever more linked to his sword. They are also gradually being awakened, learning the power of water. John Dee and Machiavelli are chasing them down, but do not manage to catch them.
Nicholas Flamel was actually a real person and a an alchemist. His legend of the philosophers stone and immortality have grown over the years and were even mentioned in Harry Potter. The novel knits together real historical figures, mythology and pure fiction. It also takes place in a number of "real" places in California. It could almost be considered "historical fiction" except for the fact it takes place today. (Well a decade or so ago. It does date itself with people still using iPods and searching on AltaVista. Would people really search in Altavista at the same time they use Google Earth?)