Ce-am mai citit – Septembrie 2009

Timpul meu dedicat cititului a fost iarăși invadat abuziv și absolut contrar voinței mele, de Orson Scott Card, cu următoarele trei cărți din seria Tales of Alvin Maker.

Red Prophet (The Tales of Alvin Maker) – Orson Scott Card. Red Prophet is about Alvin Miller, the seventh son of a seventh son, Lolla-Wossiky, a troubled whisky “Red” who has reformed and grown into the “Prophet” Tenskwa-Tawa, and Ta-Kumsaw, Lolla-Wossiky’s older brother. While it is a self-contained story, the book continues and develops many of the themes touched on in the first book. When Alvin Miller and his older brother Measure travel to the place of his birth (where Alvin is expected to become apprenticed to the Hatrack River blacksmith) the two brothers are captured by ‘Reds’ (Native Americans) and caught up into a plot with ramifications on the entire future of America involving the Prophet, Ta-Kumsaw, William Henry Harrison, and even Napoleon and La Fayette.

Prentice Alvin (The Tales of Alvin Maker) – Orson Scott Card. After being released from his time with Ta-Kumsaw, an Indian leader who taught Alvin the ways ofIndian people, the young boy sets out to start his apprenticeship as a Smith in the town where he was born. While there he meets a young half-black boy by the name of Arthur Stuart, the son of a slave and a slave-owner who has been adopted by the owners of the local guesthouse. Another new friend comes in the form of Miss Margaret Larner, who he later discovers to be the “torch” who helped him to be born so many years ago, and with whom he has been strangely linked since that day. Eventually, Alvin is forced into helping Arthur to escape some slave-hunters, something that requires him to slightly change Arthur’s DNA enough to prevent the hunters’ knacks from identifying the runaway child. Alvin also creates a plow of living gold, which is bestowed with magical properties, as his journeyman piece to release himself from his apprenticeship as a Smith (and also as a Maker). The story ends with Alvin and Arthur leaving the town and returning to Alvin’s home in the west.

Alvin Journeyman (The Tales of Alvin Maker) – Orson Scott Card. Alvin is a Maker, and what he can make is a new future for America. But to do that he must defeat his ancient enemy, the Unmaker, whose cruel whispers and deadly plots have threatened Alvin’s life at every turn. Now a grown man and a journeyman smith, Alvin has returned to his family and friends in the town of Vigor Church, to share in their isolation, to work as a blacksmith, and to try to teach anyone who will learn the knack of being a Maker. For Alvin has had a vision of the city he will build, and he knows that he cannot build it alone. But the Unmaker is not through with Alvin. If that spirit of destruction cannot stop him by magic, or war and devastation, then it will try to crush the young Maker by simpler means – more human means. By lies and innuendo, and by false accusations, Alvin is driven from his home back to Hatrack River, only to find that the Unmaker has been there before him, and that he must now stand trial for his life. Against him in this trial stands Daniel Webster. Meanwhile his brother Calvin has started to grow into his own knacks, which he views to be equal to Alvin’s. When Alvin returned to Vigor Church he found that Calvin had been doing all the jobs that Alvin had done prior to his apprenticeship. When Alvin started to teach how to be a maker, Calvin resented the way he felt he was being treated and decided to learn how to be a Maker on his own, but by any means he deems necessary. He finds passage to England, and then to the courtship of EmperorNapoleon himself in Paris, to treat him for his gout. By healing the pain each day, he spends a few hours a day learning from Napoleon on how to Rule. Calvin makes a friend in Paris, who he then leaves Napoleon (healed from ever feeling pain again) and heads to America with.

Comentariul meu: Ca de obicei, cărțile lui Orson Scott Card sunt scrise în așa fel încât nu le mai poți lăsa din mână. Ușor de citit, cu o narațiune care curge de la sine, pot fi citite atât separat cât și în ordinea în care au fost scrise. Universul lui Alvin nu este cu nimic mai prejos ca complexitate decât cel al lui Ender, iar combinația de fantasy și (de ce nu) speculative ficțion este excelentă. Ba chiar a mai introdus și ceva “hard science”. Ce am putea să mai vrem? Poate marțieni verzi!

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