…off the Google News page, why don’t you, 9,420 stories up already. Sheesh. I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Prince, and no, baby, the earth didn’t move for me. The gears of the story whir and click creakily; Potter spends most of his time “feeling angry”, which is a one-size-fits-all emotion that covers his complex reactions to his parents, falling in love, school politics, the fight versus good n’ evil and all the rest of it. A key character dies in the obligatory last-chapter battle between the forces of G and E; Harry has a new quest that will no doubt take him through books seven and eight; and you would have to be seriously challenged in the wits department not to work out the identity of the Half-Blood Ponce by the end of, what, the first two hundred pages.
On the other hand, I re-read the first book in the series, just for old times’ sake, and yup, the magic’s still there. Expelliarmus tediousum sequellus, Rowling.