The BBC series is very good! The actors, setting and overall feel of the time is perfectly portrayed. I love the fairy magic that is very disconcerting and unhuman. It's also sometimes very funny. I also recomend The Magicians on Amazon Prime.

There's only one book, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It's as long as a series of books, I guess. We've been enjoying the game, but I do think you have to bring ALL of the theme to the game yourself, or rather, you have to know exactly what you're looking for to see it. As it is, this game attempts to capture important aspects of the book: the search for societal connections in Georgian England, collection of books of magic, increase in magical skills, and performing very public feats of magic in order to increase your personal renown. I can see where you're coming from, but we do like it. It's got the tone of the book down rather pat. As to reading the book, it's very good, but it's quite possible you will also find it 'much ado about nothing', because it is as meandering, convoluted and in ways ambiguous as this board game. We know we are in the minority opinion on this game, but we like it and it will stay in our collection. :)

I highly recommend the book, despite the game!

There have been a lot of awkward edits lately, either right before the review or right at the end of video, where Tom just wanders out of frame. Not mad or anything obviously just mentioning it.

I’m not surprised that Tom found the game frustrating. Without the context of the book the theme is meaningless, the rule book fails to clarify certain actions, and it is extremely random... The randomness can be mitigated with clever interplay between the spell books, spells and your choice of actions but it will probably take a good few plays before this starts to reveal itself & unfortunately most players won’t have the desire or patience to discover this. The components & art are beautiful however. The designers said that they were trying to replicate the feel of the parlour games that were played in that era & I think this comes across... they should’ve stuck to this and ditched the board, keeping it as a pure card game.

I was so hyped for this game when I first heard about it. I loooved the miniseries. But after reading comments on BGG, I knew this was one I needed to hold off on until I could see a review. Disappointing to hear.

I fall somewhere in the middle when it comes to the book. I liked the setting and theme, I enjoyed the first half or so, but there were parts that reeaaaalllyyyy dragged. Overall I was disappointed as I really wanted to like it, although I can understand why some people love / hate the book. The TV series was much better imo.

Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare!

Book is great, pity about the game.

I agree. The book and the tv show is good, I had high hopes for this game, but it flopped for me.

I think you may have it backwards. In our case, the people that enjoyed the game the most were the ones that didnt knew anything about the book because then it is just a Euro game of racing for points. Not a great game of that, but not a completly bad game of that. Me, on the other hand, knowing the books, the only thing I "get" is that .. .yea, the feats are things that happened in the book. Only in the book they were important stuff, and here they are just... points. Hurray. If in the book one character is cursed with something or manages to win a huge position shift from "pupil" to "rival" by doing something, well, here ... is just points.

Bummer...this is one of my 4-5 favorite books of all time, and I feel like there’s a great game to be made from the theme. Alas, this is apparently not it.

The book is amazing. Sad to see and hear that this game is so meh. If you are looking for a game that has a similar theme, check out Fantastiqa.

Ugh. Symbol collection. As soon as I see that it means its just a tacked on theme like ancient terrible things or legends of the American Frontier.

I read half that book... and I finally gave up on it. Boring characters, long convoluted plot, and the book is REALLY long and slow paced.

The book is definitely interesting, but 'long, convoluted and confusing' could describe the book as well as the game.

Just looking at this game has convinced me to never buy it or the book....not for me

Kinda disappointing review, Tom. You need to do your homework on the story, the book and the mini-series. It's one book, really fun reading, and the series is fantastic, really good fun. Still, I appreciate the game walkthru and your assessment!