SINGAPORE, Aug 2 — It looks like the Harry Potter magic is a strong one.

Less than a day after news reports emerged that fans were going nuts at the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — which has been marketed as the eighth story in the hit Harry Potter book series — and spending hours queuing so they can snap a copy of it, reviews of the book have started streaming in.

Although most reviews came with caveats, many praised the book — essentially a script of the stage play showing in London’s West End now, which was written by playwright Jack Thorne and based on a story devised in collaboration with JK Rowling and director John Tiffany.

The Cursed Child is set 19 years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and follows Harry Potter, now a Ministry of Magic employee, and his younger son Albus Severus Potter.

"Whether encountered on stage or on the page, this trip back into the magical world of Hogwarts is thrilling,” said Charlotte Runcie from The Daily Telegraph.

The "emotional climax” of the story is devastating even on paper, she continued. "Once again, the fantasy world that Rowling created nearly 20 years ago is at its most powerful when it sets aside magic and reveals the basic, brutal and human mechanics of love and grief. The characters are, mostly, exactly as you remember them, and it’s difficult to overstate how exciting it is to read a new story set in this widely loved fantasy universe,” she noted.

However, she did have one negative thing to say: While the stage show’s success "rests on a combination of plot, performance, direction and sheer spectacle — on the page, the script feels like a skeleton of that overall intended experience”.

News website Vox said Cursed Child "is such a treat, even in script form”.

"Warm, witty, and wildly inventive, it might not quite live up to everything its readers are asking of it, but it comes closer than any of us have any right to expect,” it said.

"Cursed Child is not a perfect play, at least not on the page. It’s shaggy and doesn’t need to be as long as it is, and the grand reveal of the villain doesn’t have anywhere near the style and shock as those set pieces did in the books,” it continued. "But who cares if it’s not perfect? It’s so much fun.”

Marc Snetiker from Entertainment Weekly said the script "manages to throw a wild new wrench into the Potter series, unlocking a rarely tapped portal of the reader’s imagination in a way no Potter book has before”.

"If Deathly Hallows offered the series’ most exciting and discombobulating array of back-to-back chapter action, Cursed Child does the same feat with twists and deductions between scenes,” he said. "Some stick, and others exist perhaps more for shock, but once the (occasionally maddening) time-turning plotline sets in, the story kicks itself free of any assumed direction. By act three, all hell has broken loose, and it’s manic Potter madness.”

Hey, even a 10-year-old had something to say. According to The Independent, speed-reader Toby L’Estrange, from Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire who finished the book in 59 minutes, awarded it just six out of 10. Writing his review on Amazon, he said his main issue is that most of the scenes were quite short so he didn’t have enough material to develop a favourite character.

However, while pointing out that the storyline is complicated at times and requires knowledge of the previous Harry Potter instalments, he ultimately concludes that it gets exciting once things get going. It "was a really good story”, he said.

As Runcie would put it: "The thrill of a new Harry Potter book, even in script form, is its own kind of magic spell.” — TODAY