Tales of Alvin the Maker (Series) by Orson Scott Card
Hello, Stranger.
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Pass, but only barely. As in, I think in only one book.
Technobabble: Mild fantasy babble.
Review: The delicate crafting of Alvin's world gets wackier and wackier the further the series goes. Card desperately scrambles to cram any and all historical figures he can into the narrative with little to no justification. Pervasive religious themes come across as excessive. Slow plotting and attempts to overdevelop backstories leave the story at a standstill.
So many lessons, and I have learned them all, Mistress Modesty. All so I would be ready to bear the title you taught me was the finest any lady could aspire to.Goodwife.
Go get it, Peggy! You emancipate yourself on your quest to be a damn good Goodwife, damn!
One of the things that makes this such a rough read are the occasional sparks of actual brilliant storytelling. Verily Cooper is a great example. What a fun dude. He's just a lawyer who can make things fit together. First physically: he's capable of making objects bond and connect seamlessly. But then conceptually as well: binding people, ideas, forging connections. And he's an outsider, so he gets to learn about knacks and powers in a way that lets the reader learn too.
Calvin Smith is an intriguing character who does not really live up to his potential. He is Alvin's younger brother, also a seventh son of a seventh son (after the death of their older brother). Calvin is used to show how power without morality can be perverted. There are some phenomenal scenes with him, some of the best in the series. When he tries to fix Napoleon's gout, for example. Calvin has (though earlier experimentation) figured out that pinching nerves will do something - but he does not know more precisely how it works.
Which nerve? It wasn’t like Calvin had them all charted out. That sort of methodical thinking was Alvin’s game. In England, Calvin had realized that this was one of the crucial differences between him and his brother. There was a new word a fellow just coined at Cambridge for people who were ploddingly methodical like Alvin: scientist. While Calvin, with dash and flair and verve and, above all, the spirit of improvisation, he was an artist...
He pondered that for a while until, watching a secretary rise up and rush from the room, it occurred to him that Bonaparte’s weren’t the only legs around. Now that it mattered that Calvin find out exactly which nerve did what, and that his pinch deadened pain instead of provoking it, he had to play the scientist and test many legs until he got it right.
He started with the secretary who was next in line, a shortish fellow (smaller even than the Emperor, who was a man of scant stature) who fidgeted a little in his chair. Uncomfortable? Calvin asked him silently. Then let’s see if we can find you some relief He sent his bug into the man’s right leg, found the most obvious nerve, and pinched...
Calvin explored each secretary in turn, finding other nerves to pinch, ever so slightly. He left the nerves of movement alone now; it was the nerves of pain that he was finding now, charting his progress by the widened eyes, flushed faces, and occasional gasps of the unfortunate secretaries.
The above showcases both why Calvin is an engaging character and how Card's writing style lets him down. Calvin is very obviously a foil for Alvin. There are earlier scenes showing us how Alvin goes about this type of work, using his powers to map and chart before doing anything. It would be enough to show us these scene and allow the reader to draw contrasts themselves. Calvin is driven by his competition with Alvin, his feelings of inferiority - but it means that Card constantly tells the reader precisely what the differences between Calvin and Alvin are. That's the game, chief! It feels like he thinks his readers are just dumb as toast. Which is rude: I would prefer to at least be considered deliciously buttered.
The stylistic choice to spoon-feed the reader everything relevant is infantilizing. It also makes scenes of violence and gore extremely jarring: it feels like careening between a YA series and a blood soaked hellscape. If it is meant to slap the reader, it works. But it makes the mood and target audience of the series unclear.
That was the first time he really noticed what all was happening to the Reds, what they were doing, what they werent doing. They weren’t screaming. They weren’t fighting back. They were just standing there, men and women and children, just looking out at the White men who were killing them. Not a one even turned his back to the hail of shrapnel. Not a parent tried to shield a child from the blast. They just stood, waited, died.
The grapeshot carved gaps in the crowd; the only thing to stop the spray of metal was human bodies. Miller saw them fall. Them as could, got up again, or at least knelt, or raised their heads above the mass of corpses so that the next blast would take them and kill them.
What is it, do they want to die?
Miller looked around him. He and the men with him were standing in a sea of corpses—they had already walked out to where the outer edges of the crowd of Reds had been. Right at his feet, the body of a boy no older than Alvin lay curled, his eye blown out by a musket ball. Maybe my own musket ball, thought Miner. Maybe I killed this boy.
This is part of an extended massacre of Native Americans, one which goes on for a full chapter.
Miller noticed that the blood didn’t soak into the grass of the meadow. As it poured out of the wounds of those most recently hit, it formed rivulets, streams, great sheets of blood flowing down the slope of the meadow, toward the Tippy-Canoe Creek. The morning sunlight on this bright clear day shone vivid red from the water of the creek.
It's an intense and evocative scene - it just clashes with the tone and timbre of most of the series. Heavy.
Now for one that does not hit as hard because it is dumb as hell: we spend a lot of time with an outbreak of yellow fever, caused by Alvin unsuccessfully trying to cure someone. He keeps her alive long enough that she spreads the disease. A whole lot of people die. But it's a way to save more lives because it slows down an army and blah blah blah. It just feels lazy - there is so much nuance in most of the early world building, this just feels tacked on.
"Hello! How did you get in here? The doors are too small!" - Me, to the elephant in the room. Mormonism. That's a thing. This entire series is a reimagining of the life of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. I'm not just making things up: Card's official website includes a thesis on the subject. If you're curious, click here: Orson Scott Card: Without Joseph Smith and Mormonism There Would be No Seventh Son, No Red Prophet, No Alvin Maker. This is not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing - but it is a thing. And the religious messaging becomes progressively more prominent throughout the books. Even if you are unaware that Joseph Smith had a brother named Alvin, imagery of the Crystal City is quite clear. I'll note that I figured it was a parallel to John Winthrop's "City on a Hill" sermon about founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630). Apparently there is a much clearer Mormon link. Apparently the Crystal City is intended to evoke Joseph Smith's Celestial Kingdom:
1 The heavens were opened upon us, and I beheld the celestial kingdom of God, and the glory thereof, whether in the body or out I cannot tell.2 I saw the transcendent beauty of the gate through which the heirs of that kingdom will enter, which was like unto circling flames of fire;3 Also the blazing throne of God, whereon was seated the Father and the Son.4 I saw the beautiful streets of that kingdom, which had the appearance of being paved with gold.5 I saw Father Adam and Abraham; and my father and my mother; my brother Alvin, that has long since slept;
Well, you get the idea. The whole series is pretty densely steeped in Mormonism, and I'm sure that if I knew more about Mormon theology off the top of my head it would feel omnipresent.
This review has gone sufficiently deep into the weeds. And off the rails. I guess it is an overgrown trainline. I'm going to call it here before I start getting some very odd targeted ads...
There is (in theory) a planned seventh book, but book six came out in 2003, so I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you.
Go make something cool, Stranger.
And don't forget to read a book!
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