Left this one with an overwhelming sense of meh. It was fine. Shouldn't have taken me this long to read a book this short. I think I would have to survey his other work or consider the things and people that inspired this work more deeply to have anything more intelligent to say. That being said, I have been reading Phantom of the Opera at the same time as this one, which was written within the same decade and is in a comparable genre, and I have been enjoying it much, much more. I would say The Magician's best value would be as the one that got away if you've already read Dracula and Dorian Grey to death. It is a lesser known kid brother to its contemporaries, although perhaps with good reason. Took way too long to get going for a book this short. Dialog, story construction and characters, a little stilted. Still has the feel of classic gothic horror, and the sense of evil and peril was pulled off effectively enough. The book moved best once the supernatural biznass (finally) got going, as I really enjoyed some of those passages and finally could feel the story get a little wind under its sails, but I'd already kind of given up by then.