Excellent, reminded me of Peter S. Beagle, who is one of my favorite fantasy writers. This is a man against the gods type tale set not in ancient times but right now in the 21st century. Absolutely amazing - his imagination is incredible. He also is a very impressive writer - top of the field. I highly recommend.

Couldn't finish it, too weird and far-fetched.

Novela entretenida y algo confusa, Calle de magia, pertenece a un subgénero muy difícil de encontrar: la fantasía contemporánea. Es decir, aquel género en el que el mundo real y cotidiano tiene que coexistir con lo fantástico y la magia. Sin embargo, el autor sale de este lío de forma excelente, creando una historia que te atrapa desde la primera página.

El autor de este libro no es otro que el célebre escritor Orson Scott Card. Ya he leído otros trabajos de él y reconozco que tengo debilidad por sus obras de fantasía. Y es que no solo me parece un escritor notable, si no que su estilo resulta sencillo pero sin dejar de ser fresco y original. Cuenta con una prosa ágil, un lenguaje funcional y unas descripciones normalitas. Sin embargo, los personajes de Card son fabulosos. Construidos de forma sólida, resultan verosímiles y profundos. Y es que en este libro los aspectos psicológicos son muy importantes, ya que estamos hablando de sueños y deseos.

Calle de magia nos narra una versión más oscura de los personajes fantásticos de la obra de Shakespeare, Sueño de una noche de verano, Oberon, Titania y Puck. Pero en esta novela hay un personaje más que es el protagonista de nuestra historia: Mack Street, un niño que es encontrado en un parque de Baldwin Hills, una urbanización de clase media/alta de gente de color. Mack es encontrado en una bolsa de plástico por Ceese y adoptado por Ura Lee, ambos vecinos del barrio. Pero, a medida que crece, Mack va descubriendo que tiene la capacidad de meterse en los sueños de los demás, haciendo que se cumplen de la peor manera posible. Muy pronto se da cuenta de que solo es un peón en una guerra mucho más grande, la que mantienen el rey y la reina de las hadas entre sí. En esta disputa, en la que está obligado a participar, nada es lo que parece. Deberá escoger un lado y pelear a la vez que intenta mantener a salvo a todos los habitantes del barrio. Y poco más puedo decir salvo que nos encontramos ante la típica trama que narra otra batalla del mal contra el bien. Aunque en este caso, resulta difícil decir donde está cada cual. Además también hacen acto de presencia otros temas no menos importantes, tales como el amor, los celos, los prejuicios y la insatisfacción. Al final, la novela se desarrolla de forma más o menos abrupta. Y es que el desenlace es resuelto demasiado rápido, dejándote perplejo y con ganas de más.

En suma, Calle de magia, es una lectura muy entretenida que ayuda a pasar las horas muertas. Quizás no sea lo mejor del género, pero Card vuelve a demostrarnos su portentosa imaginación y su brillante manera de desarrollar tramas de forma coherente y atractiva. Mi recomendación es que no dudéis en leerlo. No volveréis a ver a vuestros vecinos de la misma manera.

A modern day twist on a Shakespeare classic.

I liked the story concept and most of the characters. (For some reason I just never warmed up to the Professor-maybe something about his car obsession.) My two biggest criticisms were the ending and the unnecessary politicism. Not what happened in the ending per se, just that the lead up and climax battle felt rushed. The resolution felt as if it came too easily without much cost. I read the epilogue, I understand why the author felt it was important to have an African-American protagonist. I have no issue with the ethnicity of the main character in this or any other novel. What troubles me is when the author feels the need to re-emphasize his choice constantly. It becomes an unnecessary, distancing distraction. Particularly when the characters go off on internal tangents that don't progress the story or the understanding of the characters. The neighborhood comraderie, the middle-aged ladies gossiping in everyone's business, the fear of losing touch with your roots, are not an exclusive experience. Italians, Irish, Latinos, people of the jewish faith, poles.....etc. What joins us is so much more than what divides us. It was clear early in the book the setting was an African-American neighborhood. Done. In fairness, there are places where I think the re-emphasis is done well and makes sense within the context of the story. For example, the young man who wants to become a preacher agonizing over how he is going to connect with parishoners whose life experience was so different from his own. That felt real, gave us insight into the character and even provided some foreshadowing.
Overall, I would recommend the book as a fun read to anyone that likes modern twist fantasy.

too weird for me, I quit reading it, was not enjoying it.

Okay...I've read a few books by Orson Scott Card, and most of them are pretty good. Most of them. Every now and then I guess everyone has a misstep. IN MY OPINION this is one of Card's.

I knew early on I was in trouble as the homeless man of mystery carried off the apparently still born baby and the domestic scenes rolled on setting the scene for our entry into wonder.

We just had trouble getting there.

This was supposed to be inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream. But I just didn't find the expected magic. Some seem to like this book, but I just didn't care for it and have a lot of books waiting...including another Card book, so not for me.

Didn't like it, should have read the reviews before buying. They pretty much summarize my response to it. Quit part way through.

What?! Woah! Whew! Wow!! This 3.5 story caught and held my attention and wouldn't let me go. Mr. Card took me there and back again as Word, Ceese, and Mack made me wish there were more of guys like them walking around to join the ranks of my dad and brother.
My actual reading time was three days, if you add up all the hours over the 4 months from when I started, but life, prepping for a certification exam (yea I passed), writing, and preparing to teach at a local university stole into my reading time, but once you start you want, no need to know what is going to happen next.
Be careful what you wish for. This wasn't an easy or simple read. There were many times I kept wondering just what is the author trying to convey with many more moments of "okay," and then tons of head scratching. My preference would have been a story with these characters striving, surviving and making life full of love and joy instead of a Black version of some sort of fantasy tale.

I almost read it all. I guess Orson Card isn't for everyone. I found the story ridiculous...

I can honestly say I've never ready anything quite like Magic Street. I picked it up because I'd recently finished reading Ender's Game and found that I really enjoy Orson Scott Card's gift for rich and believable dialogue, especially between adolescent boys. The setting of this story, in an upper-middle class African American neighborhood in LA, intrigued me, but other than that I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The book starts right off the bat with bazaar magic in a setting I've never imagined it before and kept my attention because it was just so... unique. The main character, a young boy named Mack Street, after a mysterious, magical (and somewhat upsetting) conception, is found as a newborn baby by a pair of 12-year-old neighborhood boys in a grocery bag near an open drain pipe. One of the boys, Cecil, takes the helpless newborn to his mother, who tells him to give it to the single nurse who lives next door and together, the nurse and Cecil take the helpless baby to the hospital. After filling out the paperwork to have an adoption agency brought in, the story flashes forward to several years later, when baby Mack is being raised by the nurse with daily babysitting help from Cecil.

As Mack Street grows, he finds that he's different from other kids in the neighborhood. He has dreams in which he can see the dreams of everyone else in the neighborhood and he knows what they want most in the world. When peoples' dreams start coming true in twisted and horrifying ways, Mack reaches out to Cecil for help in understanding his strange and mysterious origins. As the story goes on and Mack grows from curious child to rather mature teenaged boy, other magic starts to unfurl in the neighborhood. A suspicious homeless man who carries wads of grocery bags and a reckless, beautiful woman on a motorcycle seem to have something to do with fairy magic that is leaking out onto the suburban street.

At this point, the book took a deep plunge from intriguing to weird, and from there to ridiculous. Characters from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream start to infiltrate the story and it all just got to be too much for me. By the end, I didn't even care about any of the characters anymore or what happened to them, I just wanted the book to end.

Sadly, there was a lot of potential in the setting and the characters, but the overall plot killed it in my opinion.

WTF? Don't read this book.