4.23

The emotion was there but the descriptions felt more akin to the first two books. Very streamlined with an odd cluttered feeling. I hope the scope in “The Crystal City” is more on the fantasy elements. I think this mostly used history to its benefit; just felt truncated at points.

My favorite parts in this were the primitive science and discussions of cultural cross pollination. The thinking scientifically of Alvin especially in Prentice&Journeyman really set my Heart ablaze.

Let’s see how these lessons are learned in the future.

Първата книга в тази поредица, която прочетох без особено желание, даже я бях зарязал за няколко месеца, преди да се насиля да я довърша.
Не бих казал, че е точно ЛОША, по-скоро разхвърляна и до голяма степен излишна. Алвин ОТНОВО е даден на съд за магьосничество, както и в предния том, което ме кара да се чудя толкова ли авторът не е успял да измисли нищо по-оригинално. Единственото, което ми хареса в тази сюжетна линия, бе ловецът на вещици с бесния му религиозен фанатизъм и гнусните му манипулации; получил се е силен коментар за мракобесието на религията, от който тръпки те побиват. Само дето за разлика от истинската история, в алтернативната вселена на Кард съдебният процес е справедлив, а съдията - високо морален (има си хас, щом в реалния свят е бил президент на САЩ). Ето защо вместо кървава саморазправа, получаваме ударна доза американски патос и възхвала на законността. И това в страната, в която не само в началото на 19-и век, но и чак до средата на 20-и линчуването е било нормален начин за уреждане на проблемите. Ха-ха-ха!
Другата сюжетна линия, тази на Калвин, започна скучно, но след средата на книгата набра скорост и стана доста увлекателна; най-после се изпълни желанието ми да науча повече за негърските магийки с появата на един крадец на души.
Най-голямото ми оплакване от тази книга обаче са героите. Алвин вече е непоносимо съвършен и всемогъщ, някаква шибана богоподобна фигура, но предполагам, това са рисковете, когато използваш като модел за главния си герой основателя на своята религия. Така или иначе, открих, че е престанало да ми пука и за него, и за съвършената му жена, и за съвършената им любов, и за страхотните им верни приятели, които благоговеят пред него без никаква шибана причина, освен че той е Алвин и е съвършен, и е всемогъщ! Драйфа ми се, ама честно.
В заключение - усещам, че тази поредица отива на зле. Признаци за това имаше още в предната книга, но се надявах, че авторът все пак ще намери верния път. Уви, това не стана и честно казано, очакванията ми за следващия (и последен засега) том са доста ниски.

Despite covering concepts that I found to be some of the most interesting of the series thus far, this book connected with me the least. It seemed to languish and drag on. Only reaching unsatisfying heights at the very end. I'm excited to finish the series but am now worried if the final book will reach a satisfying conclusion

After a rather lackluster entry for the fourth installment, I had high hopes Orson Scott Card's Tales of Alvin Maker would get back on track in book five.

Yes and no.

Yes, the story actually moves the overall plot arc forward a bit. But it also suffers from the same criticism I head of "Alvin Journeyman"--too much time spent philosophizing about the current state of things or having debates that don't really do much in terms of plot progression or character revelation.

I get it, already....Calvin is jealous of Alvin. The two are mirrors of each other, working toward an upcoming conflict that, quite frankly, I wish would just get here already so we could move on.

Good but not that much going on.

Most of my reviews lately have been in the "more of the same" spirit, and this one will have to follow suit. If you liked the previous Alvin books, you'll like this one too. If you didn't, this one won't offer you new reasons to change your mind. I liked it better than the Journeyman, and that's probably because the plot is finally starting to (slowly) pick up: Arthur Stuart is no longer defined solely by his fanboyism, Verily Cooper gets fleshed out a little bit more, the plot around Alvin and Calvin sees some development, and we get to see some heavy duty lawyer on lawyer action! Oh, and the Crystal City gets mentioned.

Regarding the rating, I couldn't decide between 3 or 4 stars for this book - but it *was* better than the previous one in the series, to which I gave 3/5, so I thought 4/5 would be alright for this one. 7/10 is really what I would give it.

First time reading this, though I read books 1-4 back around 2004/2005. This was as immersive and engaging as the rest... fun to have more to the story after all these years.

This is kind of a dorky series, but I had a good time going through it.

Obviously a story with many lifted parts to anyone aware of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but Card takes an interesting path in choosing to examine the folk magic employed in those days as a part of the story of Alvin (read Joseph Smith pretty much).

It is an alternate history in both Church history and American history. I am fairly versed in both, so it was fun seeing how those things were changed in this story.

I also liked how the magic has been illustrated to not be good or evil, just a thing that is. People will use the things given to them as a reflection of who they are.

This pretty much holds as a review across all of the books. I think that they were all pretty good in their own rights.

This series is starting to get a bit disappointing. In Heartfire, Calvin didn't quite make the waves that I hoped he would. Instead, Card produced another average book in the series that from start to finish makes little progress in the overall conflict. And the overall conflict seems mediocre at this point as well - the conflict is simply how Alvin will build the Crystal City someday. I understand that Card meant to write an American epic poem or something and that perhaps he succeeded. However, the flow of the story isn't much my style. I still plan to finish out the story, but I don't expect any surprises in the final two books. And at this point, I don't even expect the final book to ever be published...

As the years have gone by so also Orson Scott Card's writing has matured. This is a more adult Alvin than ever, calm, sophisticated, but nonetheless still devoted to his great goal, the building of the crystal city nobody could tell him how he would manage or where he would have to try.

And so while his wife is far away in the south, fighting against slavery and for the simple decency of treating no human being as a household good, Alvin sits through a spectacular process against witchcraft - his own witchcraft or "knack" and his observations of the whole proceedings show quite unfavorable that every witchhunt will be successful, because when all the stops are pulled out there are only people left that have much to loose and some will be the most eager to sacrifice others just to stay unmolested themselves, until nobody is safe anymore. But there's also a point against bending the law to your likings, just because you feel uncomfortable with how the laws read, it could uproot the whole society if it is driven too far. The whole painting of society and society's faults shows a marvelous insight in 19th century America and the puritan set of mind, while at the same time argueing generally against bigottry, selfishness and self-deceit.

The other half of the story, Peggys fight against the enslavement of blacks in the southern kingdom of exiled King Arthur, includes similar moral lessons without driving them home by force but more by the comparrison of virtue and sinful behavior, by contrasting Peggy and Calvin who also dwells in Camelot at the same time, but whose motives aren't nearly as noble and whose acts are rather disgusting. When both find the leads to a terrible chapter of slavery in this world - slaves giving up their selves just to be able to live through oppression and humiliation - their different methods show most clearly in that Calvin from the start wants to use this secret to obtain his own ends whereas Margaret just wants to free the Slaves from this self-inflicted mutiliation of their souls out of misery for them. And so Calvin will find himself turned helpless by the very thing he wanted to use as his instrument, while Peggy finds herself before the choosing between Alvins future and Calvins existance.

So... right when the series reached a point where Alvin better must find what he's looking for, else his "search" would grow stale and start to bore more than entertain, Card found a way to introduce just another dilemma without interfering too much into the general storyline. There's lot of morale in this book, a big shot of religions too, but never so much to turn away the avid reader from watching how ... casually Alvin, the redneck in person, the simple minded fellow from the outback woods of "Hio", deals with questions of life and death, of faith and sin. It's already made up in his mind so there's no bothering nor fear with how it COULD come out in the end. and his steady course through this troubled waters gives the reader a holding line to which to cling while enjoying both sides arguments or deeds. Okay, most of the time that's easy... a foaming irrate irrational witchhunter or a slaveholder are no persons one could feel connected to these days, but then they DO have the laws on their side or they have the power to command the laws be rewritten as they wish.

This Story about the clash of born or natural authority against the grasped or organized authority of the ill-meaning profiteers could have turned sour from too much lecture, but at least this time Card managed to sweeten the story with his characters, their world views and the wonderful contemporary atmosphere he brings before the readers inner eye. And all the time telling a "what if" type story about how the world would have changed if almost everybody would have access to supernatural powers...

The continuing saga of Alvin Maker finds Alvin on the outs with his sweetheart Peggy and twiddling his thumbs in one jail after another. Makepeace Smith charges Alvin with stealing his gold in order to make his journeyman piece, the golden plow. Out of the kettle and into the fire, Alvin then finds himself embroiled in a witchcraft trial in New England. Meanwhile, Peggy takes on the institution of slavery in Camelot. New characters and new colonies are introduced as Alvin gets no closer to realizing his life's purpose of building the Crystal City but lots of philosophizing is done. Oh, and Alvin and Peggy finally sort things out and tie the knot.

The audiobook continues to be well-done and holds my interest even through the philosophizing, which, I suspect, I would largely skip over if I were reading this series the traditional way. And that would be a shame. Though sometimes dull and certainly long-winded, it does seem that the philosophizing is ultimately the point of this series, not the story itself. Card does keep the plot interesting, however, as he is not afraid to constantly have the next-worse-thing happen to his characters. Again and again. I am getting a little impatient for Alvin to finally get somewhere with making his Crystal City by this point though.

I really enjoyed this book. Alvin is really coming into his own as a maker, even though he doesn't yet call himself one :)
Calvin is more and more trouble, but I still have a bit of faith on the kid coming around. Who knows right? :)
I loved the part with the slaves. Incredibly interesting idea, and also, the part about witchcraft was great. I really like Verily Cooper :D