The Crystal City (Tales of Alvin Maker, Book 6) (Hardcover)

by Orson Scott Card (Author) "IT SEEMED LIKE everybody and his brother was in Nueva Barcelona these days..." (more)
Key Phrases: Arthur Stuart, Dead Mary, Papa Moose (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"Card creates a solid episode in what is perhaps his most interesting ongoing seeries." -- Bookpage, Nov 28 2003 --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (November 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312864833
• ISBN-13: 978-0312864835
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #441,664 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but a bit of a letdown after Heartfire, August 31, 2005

By	Annette C. Nelson "webtarkeena" (Gresham, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume VI (Mass Market Paperback)

I felt a little let down by "Crystal City." The quality of the writing and of the characters is still excellent: that's not the issue. But it just didn't feel very climactic for what seems like it ought to be the last book in the series. Maybe if it hadn't been named "Crystal City" I'd have felt better about it being just a link in the chain.
I also found myself scratching my head and wondering if I'd missed a book in between Heartfire and Crystal City. There seems to have been at least a year in between the stories, which in any of itself isn't a problem except that they keep referring to things that happened - the death of a baby, Arthur's breakthrough, meeting Abe and Coz, rescuing a boatload of slaves, the splitting up of the Verily / Fink / Alvin / Arthur / Audobon crew, Peggy's acquaintence with Squirel and Moose... there seems to be a good book or two in there that we didn't get to read. Maybe he will fill in some gaps later the way he's done with Ender's universe?
Finally, the Crystal City story itself just didn't seem to be long enough. There was so much going on that didn't really get much detail - especially the role of Abe, Coz, and Verily in getting the charter, the invasion of Mexico, Arthur's return, the journey north, etc. It almost felt like some of those details were too boring to write about... but that doesn't make sense considering the time he spent on similar topics in "Journeyman" and even "Heartfire."
The book ended in such a way that we were left hopeful for another installment. I certainly hope we get one: as a climax for a really great series, this just didn't fit the bill.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Alvin moves on towards his destiny, November 27, 2003

By	Gary M. Greenbaum (Fairfax, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Alvin Maker, or Smith, still after five books has not found himself or the Crystal City of which he dreams. Sent to Nueva Barcelona (New Orleans) by his wife Peggy, he more or less accidently becomes Moses to an Exodus of slaves and other downtrodden people. With yellow fever and soldiers not far behind, and the seemingly impenetrable Mizzippi ahead, he must try to lead these people to freedom. Meanwhile, his uncontrollable younger brother, Calvin, is stirring up trouble on an expedition to conquer Mexico . . .

Good, but not great, continuation of the Alvin Maker series. As you can tell by the title, Alvin finally begins his Crystal City (and not surprisingly, since much in this series parallels Latter Day Saints beliefs, it seems to be on the site of Nauvoo, Illinois.)

While we meet Abraham Lincoln in this series (an Abe who apparently did not buy a barrel of law books at a cheap price to enable him to study law on his own), Lincoln's explanation as to why he doesn't have a last name reflecting his profession is weak. Most of the people who don't have such last names are historical characters in our world (William Henry Harrison, for example). It's not a new complaint, but--Card should have thought this through. He's inventive enough.

With Alvin seeming to parallel Joseph Smith, and with his people defying the U.S. to some extent, the groundwork seems to be laid for this universe's equivalent of the U.S. attack on Nauvoo and death of Joseph Smith, which eventually led to Brigham Young and his people's trek to Utah. How this will play out in Card's works should be interesting.

Finally, Card really, really, should update his political maps to show the developments he has mentioned through the series--the new states, the closing-off of the Trans-Mizzippi, etc. The maps are the same as at the start of the series, though this book's version does show Springfield and Crystal City--the latter on the WEST bank of the Mizzippi. It's more an annoyance than anything else.

Recommended, if you've read the previous five.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Spark is Gone, February 4, 2004

By	wysewomon "wysewomon" (Paonia, CO United States) - See all my reviews

In _The Crystal City_, Orson Scott Card's 6th book in the Alvin Maker series, Alvin starts an epidemic and builds a bridge, Arthur Stuart gets kissed and runs to Mexico and back, Calvin postures, Verily sulks and Margaret sighs. That's about it.

Before embarking on _The Crystal City_ I went back and reread the entire series, as it had been five years or so since I was through them last and I wanted to be sure everything was fresh. I was, once more, delighted by the voice with its smooth use of early American colloquialism, impressed by the obvious knowledge of history and folklore that went into them, captivated by the engaging characters and astounded by the scope of the work. "Boy," I thought, "This is one Great Series!"

Then I came to the current volume. And I was really disappointed. It purely does not compare with its companions in any way. The story was frankly boring and the Biblical allegory--which was very suave and subtle in the earlier works-- was just ham-handed. I don't object to Alvin's spending the entire book leading a group of slaves to freedom, but it doesn't make for very interesting action and the subplots weren't developed enough to alleviate the tedium. The language was mundane, without any of the personality I had come to expect. The earlier books seemed to be told by a breathing human being; TCC resembled a recitation by a history prof counting the days until retirement. The characters were flat. The characters we had seen before were not developed any further and the new characters were not developed at all. In previous books even minor characters had personalities and stories, but only lip service was paid to that here: note the stunning difference between _Heartfire's_ Denmark and TCC's Old Bart. Historical characters were inserted to fill the formula, but not even Abe Lincoln really added anything. And as for Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel, well, I read the reason for them in the Acknowledgements, but I personally think using those names was a REALLY BAD CHOICE. Every reference to "moose and squirrel" catapaulted me into a realm that had nothing to do with Alvin Maker and Co. I'm sure you know the one I mean.

I don't mind that TCC started about five years after _Heartfire_ and that Alvin was in a really different place than one might have expected. I do mind that the story behind this wasn't really told. It's as if Tolkein had finished FOTR with leaving Lorien, skipped TTT altogether and started ROTK with "Well, now that Saruman's been vanquished..." There was just a huge chunk missing, and I think that chunk would have been a great deal more interesting than the story Card chose to tell. It almost seems to me that Card has written himself into a corner with this series; his characters can no longer grow and change and have real human experiences because that might tarnish them. Good and bad are established, but there are no longer any of the shades of grey that make people interesting.

Though TCC ends with some events that foreshadow a possible cotinuation of this series, it also sums up enough -- with "curtain call" appearances by most major characters fromt he series -- that Card could stop here without much harm done. Unless he makes some radical choices for this universe, I hope he does stop. I really wouldn't like to see this series devolve any further. The spark is gone and laying this series to rest before it decays would be a mercy.