The Crystal City

October 27, 2003
If not the best in the series, Card's latest Alvin Maker novel (after 1998's Heartfire: Tales of Alvin Maker V
) still enchants. In the author's alternative American frontier world, Indians work the magics of nature, Africans transform themselves with trinkets and whites have knacks—magical talents that allow them to shape metal, find water, win the hearts of followers and more. Alvin, the powerful seventh son of a seventh son, can create things that cannot be destroyed. He also has more than his fair share of knacks as well as some Indian magic. Determined to stop suffering where he finds it, he dreams of building the Crystal City, which will help mankind live in peace. A large part of the appeal lies in the book's homegrown characters using their powers for ordinary purposes. A blacksmith's knack shapes axes that never dull, while a midwife can sense the health of her patients. Even as Alvin performs miracles to lead thousands of slaves out of bondage, he is filled with uncertainty about what to do with his life and self-doubt because he couldn't save his stillborn child. Alvin's fans will be relieved to know that the City is indeed begun in this volume, but those who were expecting the start of the civil war, previously billed as forthcoming, will have longer to wait.

Set in a fantasy version of nineteenth-century America, the sixth novel of the Alvin Maker series follows the magical leader as he leads a massive band of slaves, Cajuns, and displaced persons on an exodus to freedom. Like the hero of this novel, Stefan Rudnicki, in his exotic baritone, leads a team of readers including Scott Brick, David Birney, Gabrielle de Cuir, and M.E. Willis through an alternate American landscape in which the United States, New England, Appalachia, and the Crown Colonies (Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia) are separate nations. With the action beginning in Nueva Barcelona (Spanish-held Louisiana), Alvin and his half-brother, Arthur Stuart, meet up with Abe Lincoln, William Blake, Jim Bowie, and Tecumseh along their way. Just as Alvin is able to make bridges and buildings through his mystical "knack," Rudnicki and team bring Card's fantastic tapestry to life with their own narrative knacks. S.E.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine