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Title details for The Crystal City by Orson Scott Card - Available

The Crystal City

#6 in series

by Orson Scott Card
Stefan Rudnicki
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

Using the lore and the folk-magic of the men and women who settled North America, Orson Scott Card has created an alternate world where magic works, and where that magic has colored the entire history of the colonies. Alvin, the seventh son of a seventh son, is a very special man indeed. He's a Maker; he has the knack of understanding how things are put together, how to create them, repair them, keep them whole, or tear them down. And he can teach his knack to others, to the measure of their own talent. Alvin has been trying to avert the terrible war that his wife, Peggy, a torch of extraordinary power, has seen down the life-lines of every American. Now she has sent him down to the city of New Orleans, or Nueva Barcelona as they call it under Spanish occupation. Alvin doesn't know exactly why he's there, but when he and his brother-in-law, Arthur Stuart, find lodgings with a family of abolitionists who know Peggy, he suspects he'll find out soon.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Tales of Alvin Maker

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 18, 2006

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • File size: 331824 KB
      • Duration: 11:31:17

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      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
    • Publisher's Weekly

      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.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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