Customer Reviews

Thirteenth Child (Frontier Magic)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If Diana Wynne-Jones and Laura Ingalls Wilder had ever collaborated on a book, it might have turned out something like "Thirteenth Child."

Specifically, Patricia C Wrede's latest book is a unique fantasy set in an alternate world where dragons, mammoths and stray patches of magic stream across the United States (here called "Columbia"). While Wrede doesn't fully flesh out her cast or her alternate history, "Thirteenth Child" is a solid little merge of wagons-and-cabins frontier stories and exceptional magic.

Lan was born a seventh son of a seventh son, a natural for magic. But his sister Eff was born a thirteenth child, which popular superstition says will inevitably be evil and bring bad luck -- and her relatives take every chance to torment her about it.

Fortunately their parents decide to move all the children still living with them out west, to a small university. Over the years, Eff has problems other than her status as a "thirteenth" -- the Rationalists, who avoid all magic; the steam dragons that fly overhead; and some nasty encounters with fellow students. And Eff starts learning from the kindly Miss Ochiba, who introduces her to Aphrikan and Hijero-Cathayan magic.

But Eff's family is thrown into chaos when one of her sisters causes a massive scandal. And when a strange plague of grubs and insects (which once destroyed an entire settler town) threaten to destroy all the settlements in the west, Eff accompanies a research team to the Rationalist town. But not only are the insects all over the place, they seem to be impossible to eradicate with magic. Can a thirteenth child hope to save the settlements?

The biggest problem with "Thirteenth Child" is that Patricia C Wrede's imagination is bigger than her book -- she creates an epic alternate history full of strange creatures and different spins on American history, and a sprawling magically-gifted clan with fourteen kids and countless other relatives. But she ends up not quite having enough time to fully develop either her history or her fictional family -- especially the latter, since I had trouble keeping track of all Eff's siblings.

Thankfully, that problem doesn't sink "Thirteenth Child," mainly because Wrede is talented enough to keep a sprawling frontier tale intertwined with Eff's personal story. This book is full of solid steady writing and period anecdotes, often with the problems (like rheumatic fever) and experiences (spelling bees, dances, small schools) that settlers would have had. Her style that sounds both earthy ("the grass dried out hard and sharp as pins") and exquisite ("its silver snake body trailing steam...").

And despite being patchy, her vision of the western frontier is a colourful one -- a Great Barrier that tries to keep back weird creatures like sabertoothed tigers, steam dragons, mammoths and woolly rhinos. Not to mention the creepy grubs and mirror bugs. At the same time she explores Eff's formative years right up to adulthood, as well as her family's personal woes and problems.

And Wrede clearly gave plenty of thought to her magical world, whether it's the different brands of magic or the possible effects that NOT using magic might have on a person. It would be interesting to see where she takes this next, since the ending is left wide open for a sequel.

Though she mopes too much about her thirteenhood, Eff comes across as a likable underdog who slowly gains confidence and strength throughout the story, while her buddy (and potential love interest) William starts off rather prickly but soon becomes a sensible counterpoint to Eff. And Lan is an excellent blend of overconfidence mingled with protectiveness -- this guy would be totally unbearable if he weren't so devoted to his sister.

"Thirteenth Child" has a few flaws, but the story itself is a solid Little-House-on-the-Prairie tale set in a magical world. And it leaves you wondering what Eff might do next.

Set in an alternate historical, magical America, young Eff is an unlucky thirteenth child. Her twin brother Lan, on the other hand, is the seventh son of a seventh son -- destined for greatness. She and most of her immediate family move away from Helvan Shores for a fresh start on the magical frontier after her extended family refuse to stop harassing her for her supposed bad luck.

I had heard a lot about the controversy surrounding Wrede's alternative history frontier fantasy before I read it, so I settled down to read this book with some trepidation, even though I dearly love Patricia Wrede. Because her new Frontier Magic series takes place in an alternate American history, one where the United States never had a Native American population, many readers and critics were troubled. It seems deeply insensitive to eradicate a group of people who have already been through so much. And yet, reading the book, didn't feel as overwhelmingly uncomfortable as I would have thought. I'm also a fan of Joss Whedon's Firefly, a science-fiction/Wild West type show, and I have to admit, the lack of Native Americans on that show never bothered me. It was unclear to me, reading Wrede's book, if slavery had ever existed in her alternate history. While Aphrikan people (and their magic) seem to be a rare minority, no further backstory is given.

I liked the idea of frontierspeople struggling to hold their own against magical creatures; mammoths, dragons, enchanted beetles. Magic, in this world, is commonplace and everyday. The Wild West twang to the character's speech added depth to the story.

Eff's continual low self-esteem became a bit wearing as the story went on. She is just as worried at age eighteen about inadvertently causing bad luck to befall her family and loved ones as she was at age five, when her maliciously bad-tempered extended family went so far as to outright suggest that her parents do away with her. Some of the terms like Mammoth River (for the Mississippi) or Columbia (for America) being thrown together with place names such as Philadelphia threw me a bit. I wish that this had been set in a completely new world altogether, kind of like Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword.

I was fascinated with the Rationalists, Puritan-like settlers who eschew magic entirely. I was really rooting for them, especially after seeing how callously many of the magicians in the story treated Eff. Eff's older sister Rennie elopes with one of the Rationalists and her encampment is one of the only ones resistant to a particularly nasty strain of magical locust-like mirror bugs. So, I was disappointed when Eff finally has the chance to visit them and Rennie breaks down, admitting that life without magic is very, very hard -- so much so, that she's resorted to sneaking in a spell or two to make her hardscrabble life a bit easier.

On the whole, I enjoyed this book, and I'll definitely put it in the hands of young fantasy readers who enjoyed Wrede's Sorcery and Cecilia series, or the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. I'm curious how this book would fare as book club material; there are so many different themes at play to provide fodder for discussion.

Francis (nicknamed Eff) was born the 13th of 14 children. While her twin brother Lan (#14) is lauded for his potential as a natural magician (he is the 7th son of a 7th son), Eff is tormented and told that she'll turn evil. After her Uncle Earn tries to get her arrested for supposedly cursing his house when she was 4 years old, Eff's father decides to accept a University position (Magic instructor) out west to get both children away from the harmful influence on both twins; falsely glorifying one child, while falsely belittling the other.

Eff's mother puts it best: "I can see plain enough that an angel straight from heaven itself would grow up crooked if she was watched and chivvied and told every morning and every night that she was sure to turn evil, and I can see equally plain that fussing and fawning over a child that hasn't even learned his numbers yet, as if he were a prince of power and wisdom, will only grow him into a swell-headed, stuck-up scarecrow of a man, who like as not will never know good advice when he hears it, nor think to ask for it when he needs it."

Eff's family moves to the North Plains Territory east of the Great Barrier. The Great Barrier is a magical barrier that keeps creatures like Mammoths, woolly rhinoceri, swarming weasels and spectral bears on the west side of the barrier.

The oldest of Eff's siblings stay in the east (either to marry or go to University) and for the first few years in the new territory, no one mentions that Lan is the 7th son of a 7th son or that Eff is a 13th child.

Eff's first 4 years of life made an indelible impression and she is convinced that someday she will go bad. It preys on her conscience and finally she confesses to her magical teacher, Miss Ochiba. Miss Ochiba teaches the students to look at ordinary things in multiple ways and points out that Eff is also a 7th daughter, the first born of twins, and many other things besides a 13th child.

When strange creatures start to overwhelm settlers west of the Great Barrier, a 13th child may be the only one to see the solution.

>>>>>>
I've been anticipating this book since I first heard Ms. Wrede give a reading last August and "The Thirteenth Child" doesn't disappoint. Ms. Wrede's world-building is complete with an alternate history (Lewis and Clark never made it back from their expedition), and has that sense of adventure that the frontiersmen had when they explored the west. From different theories of magic to people who don't believe in using magic at all, the world Eff lives in has a depth and complexity worth exploring.

Thirteenth Child (2009) is the first Fantasy novel in the Frontier Magic series. It is set in the nineteenth century in Columbia of the New World. A hundred years before, the United States had become independent from Avrupta.

The Columbians use magic from Avrupa, Aphrika and Ashia. Magicians are essential for settlements west of the Mammoth River. The wildlife in the west is deadly without magical safeguards.

In this novel, Francine Rothmer is the seventh daughter in her family and the thirteenth child. Eff is the twin of Lan.

Lan Rothmer is the seventh son of a seventh son. He is Eff's twin.

Daniel Rothmer is married to Sara and is the father of Eff, Lan and twelve other children. He is a Professor of Magical Theory.

Maryann Ochiba is a teacher in the day school in Mill City. She teaches systems of magic.

Anthony Graham is the other professor of magic in the college. He has an invalid wife and a son William, who is about the same age as Eff and Lan.

In this story, Eff is treated badly by an uncle and her cousins because she is the thirteenth child of her family. Her mother and father care for her just like the other kids. Naturally, Lan is given more care and schooling since he is a double-seven.

Uncle Earn believes that Eff has cursed his house and brings in the police to take her away. Her father refutes the whole idea and the policeman doesn't take it seriously. But Daniel calls a family council afterward to announce that he was taking a position at the land-grant college in the North Plains territory.

Only Daniel, Sara and the younger kids are going to Mill City. The rest of the family will be staying behind with their families, schools and jobs. But everybody -- except Earn and his wife -- drop by to talk about the frontier.

The family household goods are packed and shipped to Mill City. After a month of packing, the house is mostly empty. The aunts and uncles are invited to a big party. The next morning, the travelers board a train headed west.

The trip is exciting and boring, with long stretches of fields and then prairie and occasional towns. The gaps between towns became longer as they traveled west. Finally they reach Mill City on the east bank of the Mammoth River.

The town is much larger than the other towns along the way. Yet it is also much newer. The homes and businesses are constructed from newly cut lumber.

The dean of the college meets them at the station. Miss Ochiba is also there. Sara asks Ochiba to notify her of the start date and time for the day school.

The cottage has provided them with a good size house. Every child gets a separate room. The school had intended to use it for classrooms, so Daniel and Professor have classes in the front parlor and sitting room for a while.

Eff likes living at the college. She especially enjoys classes with Miss Ochiba. Eff eventually gets extra studies in Aphrikan magic from her.

Meanwhile, towns on the other side of the Great Barrier are having problems. One town loses its magician to illness and is overrun by wild beasts. Then mysterious grubs start appearing.

This tale takes Daniel, Graham and another professor across the Mammoth River to investigate the difficulties. The Settlement Office wants Lan to accompany them, but Sara puts a stop to that. Then an older sister gets married and most of the family go east to attend the wedding.

Eff worries constantly about being the thirteenth child. Miss Ochiba relieves some of the anxiety by pointing out that other magic systems do not view numbers in the same way. But Eff still worries.

Nonetheless, Eff helps more than she harms. The next installment in this series is Across the Great Barrier.

Highly recommended for Wrede fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of wild frontiers, magical systems, and determined young ladies. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

How the west was won - with magic. I loved this book. We had here a complciated character who had a central problem to get over, and struggled with it. The first person perspective was also executed well, without any slips into other heads or out of character chepters. Eff's point of view remained fresh trhougout, and I for one could not wait to see her to concur her fears and blossom into the power that she obviously possessed.

The only down side is how long I'll have to wait for book two.

I've always liked fantasy novels in "American" settings, but I haven't read a satisfying one since Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker books. This middle-grade novel evokes much of what makes the Card novels interesting, including a similar obsession with big families and birth order, and "uniquely American" magic. Unfortunately it fails to do what Card does successfully, which is acknowledge/incorporate the real complexity of American history and culture.

The story focuses on Eff, the thirteenth child of the title, who happens to be the twin sister of Lan, a seventh son of a seventh son. By the standards of the (Europeanish) magical system their family uses, Lan is destined to do great things and Eff is destined to "go bad". Because their extended family insists upon treating Lan like a king and Eff like a walking time bomb, the children's parents decide to move them to another town closer to the frontier, where Lan might not grow up with a swelled head, and Eff can grow up with a fresh start.

I liked the way this book focused on family dynamics; a lot of the "drama" in the story comes from just the ordinary interactions of a large family full of headstrong people. That's what kept me reading. I also liked Eff herself, who wasn't too perfect or anachronistically "modern", and yet also wasn't stupid or passive. She struck me very much as a "real" and normal character, coping with some decidedly abnormal stuff. She tackles those problems with pluck and cleverness.

Unfortunately the characters outside of the family weren't as well-realized (which is why I deducted a star). I guess this is inevitable when the family in question consists of twenty-some people... not much room to focus on the other folks in town, even though many of those people were fascinating. Eff seemed to have no friends but William, the son of the town magic snob -- I wanted to know a little more about him. I wanted to know lots more about Miss Ochiba, who seemed to have no purpose in the story other than to act as Eff's mentor (and as the only black woman in the story, she edges dangerously close to Magical Negro territory). I was also put off by the way the people who feared Eff's status as a thirteenth child were depicted as simply mean and bigoted. I wanted to know if they'd known a bad thirteenth child before, or if there was some history they were reacting to which might clarify their behavior. Were Caligula or Jack the Ripper thirteenth children, for example? Instead their objections were never explained, and these characters ended up being just one-dimensional villains. Even in a story aimed at kids, I expect more depth than this -- and after years of Harry Potter, Scott Westerfeld's books, etc., I think most kids will too.

I also deducted a star because of the worldbuilding, though I waffled on this. That's because I enjoyed a lot of it, such as the explanation of the world's three main magic systems (one corresponding to Europe, one corresponding to Asia, and one corresponding to Africa, though they all have different names here). And I loved the idea of a fantasy-alternate America populated with dragons and mammoths (!) and other "magical" wildlife. But I was actively offended by the apparent erasure of indigenous people from this America -- there's nothing on the continent but forests and animals, making for a spooky sort of Manifest Destiny message as the mostly-European settlers make their way across it. The author appears to have considered what this absence would do to her alternate America -- for example, all place-names based on Native naming have been changed (e.g. the Mississippi is now the "Mammoth river"). But this actually adds to the problem, because it suggests Native Americans contributed nothing to early American culture but names. Also, though there are a few black people present among the settlers and Asians are said to exist somewhere, there doesn't seem to have been a system of slavery (or I missed it) or labor exploitation in this world. So I can't help wondering how this alternate America has been settled so effectively. Slavery was evil, yes, but it's also an inescapable part of American history because of the desperate shortage of labor in the country's early years. There simply weren't enough Europeans to do it all, grow at such a breakneck pace, and still feed themselves -- so who did the work here? It's not just that. This world has a railroad system, but we see no Chinese people, so who laid the tracks? For that matter, where are the poor white people, struggling to eat when (at one point in the book) there's a string of crop failures? If they're mentioned, I didn't see them.

I think this is what bugs me most. The book's theme is that America is unique because of its diverse mix of cultures, yet the book fails to actually *depict* much of that.

The children and teens who this book is aimed at might not pick up on this, or they might be sufficiently dazzled by dragons!!! over the Mississippi!!! which I will admit almost distracted me. But I think a lot of kids are pretty savvy these days, and a lot of them *will* notice. I think it might leave the same bad taste in their mouths that it did me, ruining my enjoyment of an otherwise decent story. Because of that I cannot recommend this book.

I have read and enjoyed as many of Patricia Wrede's books that I can get my hands on. Many I have bought and read over and over again. So I was very excited to read this new offering from a favorite author. Unfortunately, this book was not up to the standard of her others. The characters were not as well-developed or as interesting. You felt somewhat vested in what happened to Eff, the main character, but she had nowhere near the personality of Kate or Cecilia ("Sorcery and Cecilia") or even of Kim ("Mareilon the Magician"). The story itself was an ongoing narrative of Eff's growing older. The problem is, I kept waiting for something to happen, it felt like something was going to happen, but nothing ever did. The end did have a larger "event" but even that was anti-climactic. I also expected some sort of resolution of the character's lives, which did not come. The parts of the book that went into magic were extremely confusing and hard to relate back to the story. I'm sad to give this such a mediocre review, but maybe Wrede will give us something a little better next time?

I've loved Patricia Wrede's previous books particularly the Cecilia series and the Enchanted Forest serries. This one was slow and dull and missing her trademark tongue-in-cheek humor. There were lots of unexplained things and underdeveloped characters like Miss Ochiba or Eff's magic capabilities. There was little magic being done but a ton of esoteric discussions about different types of magic from different parts of the world that got boring and was somewhat arrogant in a pseudo-multicultural academic fashion. The pacing was poor, very very slow at the beginning then very fast at the end with Eff solving all the problems out of the blue. Disappointing.

loved it. little house on the prarie mixed with harry potter. its as easy to read as the HP series. only complaint is this is labled BOOK 1 and so far no book 2 has shown up

The other reviewers here do a nice job of outlining the story. I just wanted to share my experience as someone new to Pat Wrede's work.

I got this book based on Tamora Peirce's recommendation. I loved it. I read it in one sitting, and bought the sequel and read that in one sitting, and have now purchased A Matter of Magic, which I am enjoying.

Great characters. Great heroine. Great plot. Great world building. I Want her to write the next book about Eff (or at least in that universe) to see what happens next. In the meantime, I will be following up every other book she has ever written.