(gara2 hari ini disuruh dateng ke sekolah tapi ga ada kerjaan resmi, jadi selesailah buku ini:p)

Stroud finished his Bartimaeus Trilogy beautifully. As much for kids as adults I couldn't put book three down. I miss all the main characters already!

This is a fitting end to a great series!

The last book in a series always manages to woo me a bit. I may just be a sucker for profound endings, but I don't know. Ptolemy's Gate sure had this same effect on me. I found myself reading wantonly, like I used to do when I was little. The words flew by my eyes so quick, and I barely gave myself time to take notes for the review. Funnily enough, the notes I did take disappeared mysteriously a couple days ago. I'm winging it now that my precious scribbles are lost.

Anyway, back to the book. Ptolemy's Gate is the third and final installment of the Bartimaeus trilogy. It concludes the series nicely, and leaves readers with some interesting surprises. I found the entire series, but this novel especially, very ambitious. It attempts to mingle otherworldly and esoteric concepts such as space-time-continuums with a slew of true historical facts. All of this is laced with the usual sarcasm and satire of Bartimaeus, the quick-witted protagonist, The comical aspects of the dialogue are hilarious, as fans of the series already know.

Back to the esoteric topics—Jonathan Stroud obviously has an inspired interest in theoretical physics, and possibly the occult. He provides a very interesting description of the Other Place, the non-physical realm of demons and djinn. Here is a description from The Bartimaeus Trilogy Wiki:

The Other Place is a realm of chaos, in which there is no matter but infinite 'essence', which is described as a mass of swirling colours with no borders or boundaries, somewhere between gas and liquid. Time runs at a different rate in the Other Place compared to the human world, although it is not made completely clear in the Bartimaeus Trilogy exactly what relationship between the two timescales is.
What really intrigues me is the so called 'essence.' Being a fan of the esoteric myself, I can only wonder as to what the author is alluding to. Another description offers some more insight:

In the Other Place, all demons are one, and so their collective essence is a single conscious entity. This allows demons to heal from damage sustained in the human world, while also putting the exact mechanics of the Other Place beyond reach of genuine human understanding. Human consciousnesses that visit the Other Place require something to focus their consciousness on and are able to impose their will to a certain degree on the essence of the Other Place, moulding it to specific shapes. Although demons are much better at this than humans, and it does not apparently cause them any harm. However, they prefer not to do it, and appear to actively resent outsiders attempting to impose order upon their realm.
Make of this what you will. I found it highly interesting, and if a chance to interview the author pops up, I will question him about this. In a way, it kind of reminds me of Shamanism and how shamans work with consciousness to connect to the spirit world. While in this world, they consult with 'spirits' for aid in healing and medicinal purposes. Anyway, it's food for thought.

In Ptolemy's Gate, readers began to notice connections between the fact the Bartimaeus frequently takes on the figure of Ptolemy and Kitty's desire to see demons and humans coexisting. Readers become enlightened by the possibility of these two types of entities working together, for the greater good. Bartimaeus talks in awe about a human actually traveling to the Other Place. He explains how the Other Place is where spirits are free and permeable and basically twirl in kaleidoscopic beauty intermingling with forgotten fragments of a dream or bits of some long-lost memory.

Spoiler alert!

The series ended on a slightly surprising note (or not) with the death of Nathaniel. Nathaniel finally opened up and showed his true integrity towards the end of this final book. He saved Bartimaeus and sacrificed himself in the process to save those he loved most. To tell you the truth, it was a bit of a cliffhanger. There were a few loose ends that could have been tied up. I believe the author intended this.

This final installment of the trilogy more than completely made up for whatever was lacking in the previous two installments. I adored all the characters, their growth through the book, and the perfect ending. I almost wanted more--a wrap up of events so to speak--but felt it ended perfectly where Mr. Stroud left it.

There a lot of build up in this book, build up that plain lacked action. For a while I could only think, "how uncharacteristic for the series." Later I found out that even though I was nearly 1000 pages into the series at the outset of book three, Stroud had so much story telling to get through before he could begin the action. What with Ptolemy's story, Kitty's past three years (quite busy she had been), Mandrake's rise to (near) the top, a war abroad, the "other place," and the declination of Nathaniel/Bartimaeus' already scarred relationship, there was plenty to set up. In the end, I enjoyed it quite greatly. This book was just the way I was hoping the series would end; and the last chapter, I am convinced that it is the only way it could have gone out. My kudos to a wonderful book and a marvelous series!

I love a series that keeps the same energy all the way through.

This is what this series will do to you.

Book: Come on, pick me up, read me, you'll love me. You'll fall in love with my characters, and sometimes you'll hate them, but you will still hold out a hope that they will do the right thing. My characters my disappoint you, but you will still love them, hold on to them, because they will become your friends. And then, once you're absolutely in love with my plot and my characters and my world..... I will tear it apart and kill everything you love in the most awful way imaginable.

I loved this series. I didn't even love the main character much of the time, but I held out hope for him because of the incredible way he was written. I could sense the battle within him, even if it wasn't written out exactly. The ending to the series tore my heart out, but it just about mended it too.

Masterful end to an amazing series. Still sits as one of my favorite trilogies ever read. Captivating.

My first exposure to the works of Jonathan Stroud was with the excellent The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co. #1). I so thoroughly enjoyed that book, it made me curious to seek out his earlier works. I remember a number of years ago, a book-selling friend told me that the Bartimaeus books were quite good. She would often recommend them to people who were looking for a good read after finishing the latest Harry Potter book. Since that time, this trilogy has been on my ‘to-read’ list, but it wasn’t until after reading The Screaming Staircase that I actually sought them out. A few days after finishing The Screaming Staircase, I found a copy of The Amulet of Samarkand (Bartimaeus #1) at a library book sale. Despite its length, it didn’t take me long to read it. Although I didn’t think it was quite as good as Screaming Staircase, I enjoyed it enough to want to read the rest of the trilogy. The next book in the trilogy, The Golem’s Eye (Bartimaeus #2) was even better. It contains one of the single most suspenseful, goose-bump inducing scenes I’ve read in years. It’s a scene describing the robbing of a famous magician’s grave, and if you’ve read it, you’ll know which scene I’m talking about. Ptolemy’s Gate (Bartimaeus #3) finishes the trilogy and expertly weaves together all of the plot elements of the first two books while at the same time giving us more background information on the djinni Bartimaeus and the “Other Place,” the mysterious plane which is the source world of the demons (we even get a chapter set inside the “Other Place!”).

One of Stroud’s great strengths as an author is his ability to create complex characters who grow and change over the course of the book(s). Nathaniel (aka John Mandrake), is a good example. When we first meet him in volume one, he’s a young and scared boy and because of his circumstances, it’s easy to feel sorry for him. Separated from his parents and sold as an assistant to the cold and deplorable magician Arthur Underwood, he suffers one cruel humiliation after another. Over the course of the book he ages a few years and we see his desire for revenge lead him into wrong choices and to harden his once sensitive nature. In volume two (The Golem’s Eye) we find Nathaniel has become a somewhat power-hungry member of the government (even though he’s only around 14) whose job is to root out members of the resistance who are plotting to take down the magician-led government. Through out this volume, Nathaniel is downright unlikable. We see him struggling to maintain his status with his back-stabbing colleagues, all the while trying to control his sarcastic djinni, Bartimaeus. In volume three, without giving away too much, Nathaniel slowly begins to regain our sympathy. I’d have to say that one of the themes of this final book is Nathaniel’s redemption.

I’ve seen a few criticisms by other readers saying that they don’t like the characters. All I can say is that with complexly written characters, there are bound to be times when a reader won’t like them. Complexity means warts-and-all, the good with the bad. Yes, Nathaniel and Bartimaeus are at times unlikable, but I think one has to look at the overall arc of the story to see that these are expertly portrayed characters who grow and change based on what happens to them. To offset the sometimes unlikeability of Nathaniel and Bartimaeus, Stroud also gives us a character that maintains our sympathies pretty much throughout the story - the character of Kitty Jones. Though she only makes a brief appearance in volume one, she becomes almost the heart and soul of volumes two and three. As Kitty’s fate becomes intertwined with those of Nathaniel and Bartimaeus, we watch her change from a somewhat hesitant rebel into a brave young woman willing to sacrifice herself to save others (and no, that isn’t a spoiler). She’s a great character and one whose presence balances out the sometimes negative aspects of Nathaniel’s character.

If there’s one criticism I have about these books, it’s the over-use of footnotes in the chapters devoted to Bartimaeus. In my opinion, many of these notes could have been included in the main body of the story as parentheticals. I especially could have done without the footnotes that were nothing more than sarcastic remarks made by Bartimaeus, most of which I felt were completely unnecessary. For the most part, I felt the footnotes pulled me out of the narrative and slowed down the story.

In conclusion, I’ll just say that I loved these books. Stroud is a writer who knows how to build worlds, create complex characters, and most importantly to tell a complicated story with suspense and a sense of wonder. If you’re looking for a good fantasy series, give the Bartimaeus trilogy a chance.