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A review by randomprogrammer
The Crystal City by Orson Scott Card
2.0
pitiful end to an increasingly mediocre series.
especially in the first 4 or so books, the characters were woefully one-dimensional, like a moralizing children's tale that is required to have clear delineations of right and wrong, good and evil. This makes for a tepid read, where even if there's technically action or plot, it somehow manages to bore.
And as the series reached it's end, long built-up relationships and conflicts just fizzled out pitifully. The supposed great conflict arc between the two brothers had no climax, much less a conclusion. And the way the two used their powers was consistently lame. The first couple books were great, as a young Alvin explored the limits of his skills. But grown-up Alvin was such an unbelievable bore. And writer Orson Scott Card completely lacked the ability to wow the reader with the scenes that were certainly intended to be amazing.
A shitty bridge across water is the coolest thing Alvin ever does? Um, you mean like ice? As a maker how just tells molecules how they should be, and they carry on the instructions, the basic fundamentals of the magic system make it clear that creating an ice bridge should be trivial. And yet for some silly reason we are asked to be amazed by this "crystal" bridge he builds. Not to mention this lame-ass plow he carries around everywhere.
I suspect that much of the lame plot stemmed from a need to maintain some type of symmetry with Mormon myths and "symbolism" in early books.
I've recently recommended some other Orson Scott Card books to people, like Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, and I shudder to think that childhood may have clouded my vision, and in fact these books are as bad as the Alvin Maker series.
In summary, Orson managed to take a freaking awesome premise -- magical realism in early 1800s frontier america -- and bore the reader to tears with one-dimensional characters, lame mormon shout outs, characters that refused to use their magic in interesting ways, and a weird absence of a meaningful climax or resolution.
especially in the first 4 or so books, the characters were woefully one-dimensional, like a moralizing children's tale that is required to have clear delineations of right and wrong, good and evil. This makes for a tepid read, where even if there's technically action or plot, it somehow manages to bore.
And as the series reached it's end, long built-up relationships and conflicts just fizzled out pitifully. The supposed great conflict arc between the two brothers had no climax, much less a conclusion. And the way the two used their powers was consistently lame. The first couple books were great, as a young Alvin explored the limits of his skills. But grown-up Alvin was such an unbelievable bore. And writer Orson Scott Card completely lacked the ability to wow the reader with the scenes that were certainly intended to be amazing.
A shitty bridge across water is the coolest thing Alvin ever does? Um, you mean like ice? As a maker how just tells molecules how they should be, and they carry on the instructions, the basic fundamentals of the magic system make it clear that creating an ice bridge should be trivial. And yet for some silly reason we are asked to be amazed by this "crystal" bridge he builds. Not to mention this lame-ass plow he carries around everywhere.
I suspect that much of the lame plot stemmed from a need to maintain some type of symmetry with Mormon myths and "symbolism" in early books.
I've recently recommended some other Orson Scott Card books to people, like Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, and I shudder to think that childhood may have clouded my vision, and in fact these books are as bad as the Alvin Maker series.
In summary, Orson managed to take a freaking awesome premise -- magical realism in early 1800s frontier america -- and bore the reader to tears with one-dimensional characters, lame mormon shout outs, characters that refused to use their magic in interesting ways, and a weird absence of a meaningful climax or resolution.