The Magicians, Syfy’s adaptation of Lev Grossman’s vastly popular fantasy trilogy, debuts Jan. 25 at 9 p.m. Syfy offered a preview Dec. 16.

The fantasy drama comes from Universal Cable Productions and stars Jason Ralph as a brilliant student who enrolls in a secret New York university specializing in magic. Groundswell Productions' Michael London and Janice Williams are executive producers. John McNamara and Sera Gamble wrote the pilot and are executive producers as well.

Author Grossman is a book critic and technology writer at Time. He blogged about the adaptation process on levgrossman.com, explaining to his readers, “Some things from the books don’t happen, some things happen differently, and other things happen that are nowhere in the books. When you see this stuff you may find yourself asking, why, great triple-horned god, why?

“The answer to all of this is basically, because of TV. It’s a different medium, and you tell stories differently there. Not everything translates directly.”

Grossman said he “weighed in” on each script, and came out a “huge” fan of the show. “It’s dark, it’s smart, it’s weird, and it’s very funny. It’s cool to see the magic on screen,” he said.