Septimus Heap: Neither Magykal or Majical

Magyk: Septimus Heap, by ??? The Harry Potter is arguably one of those once-in-a-lifetime phenomenons, so I'd be crazy to expect that anything would or could match Harry Potter for plot, character, or overall imagination. But I'd hoped that this might be good enough. The best that I can say is that it was okay enough. The son of the seventh son, hence Septimus, is at the heart of this book. It doesn't take too long to figure out who among the characters is the real Septimus, given that Septimus allegedly died at birth--so much for suspense. And there's too little character development to cause me to care about really any of the characters. Jenna or the Queenling? Seems nice enough, but other than that she is the adopted daughter of the Heaps who looks nothing like them, there's not much more to say. Nicko? He's one of the Heaps, and he knows his way around a boat, but so? Marcia, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard? Other than that there's only one, who gets the penthouse suite of the Wizard's Tower, it's not clear how the ExtraOrdinary Wizard is different from the Ordinary Ones.

Maybe it's not fair to compare Septimus Heap to the Harry Potter series, but when I think of what I knew after the first book, I understood that Hermione was a know-it-all with the brains to back it up, and even in the first book, her character developed as she learned to moderate her annoying know-it-allness. I understood the charcters of Fred and George Weasley. It was clear that Ron felt the insecurity of being the youngest son in an old wizarding family. Heck, even Neville Longbottom was drawn well enough that I felt like I knew him because I had known kids like him growing up. Not to mention that the creatures JKR created were not only creative, they existed to push the story further. Plus, Harry Potter appealed to both kids and adults.

Maybe the other books in the Magyk series will accomplish more of the things I was looking for, but ultimately, this first one was a book that I could put down quite easily, and it did not spark my interest enough to want to read the others in the series.