Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Book Six Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator), M.E. Willis (Narrator), cast (Narrator),

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From the end of the 18th century, Americans traveled west to find new homes and new lands. They brought with them the magics of plain people. It is from these roots of the American dream that award-winning writer Orson Scott Card has crafted what the Charlotte Observer called "a uniquely American fantasy." Using the lore and the folk magic of the men and women who settled a continent, and the beliefs of the tribes who were here before them, Card has created an alternate frontier America. Charms, beseechings, hexes, and potions all have a place in the lives of the people of this world.

Alvin Miller is the seventh son of a seventh son, born while his six brothers all still lived. Such a birth is a powerful magic; such a boy is destined to perhaps become a Maker. Rejoin the tale of Alvin and his wife Peggy as they work to create the Crystal City of Alvin's vision, where all people can live together in peace.

Listening Length

11 hours and 31 minutes
Author

Orson Scott Card
Narrator

Stefan Rudnicki, see all
Audible release date

July 14 2004
Language

English
Publisher

Macmillan Audio
ASIN

B072HZNS98
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	11 hours and 31 minutes
Author	Orson Scott Card
Narrator	Stefan Rudnicki, M.E. Willis, cast
Audible.ca Release Date	July 14 2004
Publisher	Macmillan Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B072HZNS98
Best Sellers Rank	#17,675 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #168 in Espionage Thrillers #1,057 in Epic Fantasy (Audible Books & Originals) #1,794 in Spy Thrillers

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

451 global ratings

5 star		55%
4 star		26%
3 star		13%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from Canada

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Beth Lai

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 2, 2017

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Loved the whole series

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Philly

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 21, 2014

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awesome book in an awesome series

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Arthur W Jordin

The New Exodus

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 14, 2004

The Crystal City is the sixth novel in the Tales of Alvin Maker series, following Heartfire. In the previous volume, Alvin and Verily Cooper convinced Judge Adams that the witchcraft charges brought against Purity Orphan and Alvin were backed only by hearsay and outright perjury and that their knacks were given by God upon birth, so the court suspended the licenses for all interrogators (or witchers) for their grievous malfeasance in office. Since a licensed interrogator was required to prosecute a witchcraft charge, Judge Adams dismissed all charges against Purity and Alvin pending restoral of such licenses.
Immediately after completion of the trial, Alvin and Arthur ran with the greensong toward Camelot to rescue Calvin and Peggy. Since Calvin was close to dying, Peggy convinced Gullah Joe to use powerful potions to raise Calvin to consciousness. Peggy then coaxed Calvin (with a little remote help from Alvin) into flooding the land near the river, thus driving all of the agitated slaves to higher ground. Thereupon, Peggy talked Calvin into storing his heartfire within a magical box just prior to his death. When Alvin arrived, he managed to repair enough of Calvin's corpse to support a small trickle of heartfire back into the corpse, which kept the repaired parts working while he moved on to repair other parts, until Calvin was restored to full life.
Despite Peggy's best efforts, King Arthur and his advisors refused to listen to her explanation that the uprising was an unfortunate accident resulting in no real harm. Instead, they insisted on making an example of the slaves who had stirred up so much fear. John Calhoun wanted to hang a third of the slaves, but was finally convinced to execute only twenty of those involved in the uprising. When the news of these executions reached the northern territories, however, a great public outcry was raised against any further accommodations with the slaveholders.
In this novel, Peggy is pregnant again and living in her father's roadhouse, but she has sent Alvin and Arthur down the Mizzippy to Neuva Barcelona -- i.e., New Orleans -- in an attempt to avoid the upcoming war over slavery. On the trip down the river, they have had several enlightening experiences and met a number of interesting people, including a failed storekeeper from Noisy River named Abe Lincoln. They also have had another encounter with Jim Bowie, a killer with a big knife who plans to join Steven Austin's expedition into Mexico.
After reaching New Orleans, they find lodgings with Mama Squirrel, Papa Moose and their dozens of kids in a large boarding house. While they wait for some sign of their task, Alvin and Arthur help with the chores and gather information with the help of the kids and soon find that Neuva Barcelona is filled with plots and conspiracies. One day, as they are getting water from a public foundation, a young woman named Dead Mary asks Alvin to heal her mama, Rien, who has yellow fever. While not sure of his ability to cure the disease, Alvin goes with the young woman to a shack in swamp and repairs all the damage that he can discover with his doodlebug, focusing particularly on her liver and blood vessels, and clears away the rotting blood under her skin.
Alvin's gross repairs help Rien to heal her own body, but doesn't even touch the disease itself. Rien becomes a carrier of the infection that spreads via the swamp mosquitoes throughout the city. As the disease spreads, Alvin continues to heal as many people as possible in the area around his lodgings, but other people notice that there is a circle of wellness centered on his boarding house. A crowd gathers around the building with torches, egged on by rumors spread by Jim Bowie. Then Arthur uses his knack to extinguish all the torches and the crowd gets really spooked and runs away.
Alvin is summoned by the local voodooienne, La Tia, and learns that the townsmen are working themselves into a mob which will attack others in addition to his friends and himself. She says that he must lead an exodus of slaves and poor out of Neuva Barcelona. Calvin helps by shrouding the city in fog, then Alvin and Arthur lead the crowd of thousands out of the city and across Lake Pontchartrain on a bridge made of crystallized water. Gathering more migrants as they go, Alvin takes them all to the future site of the Crystal City.
This story reflects the flight of the Hebrews from Egypt as well as the repeated escapes of Joseph Smith and his followers from persecution. The people following Alvin are not only black slaves, but also free colored and poor creoles. They are escaping not just de jure slavery, but also a climate of de facto persecution that limits their freedoms and threatens their lives.
This migration culminates all prior efforts by Alvin to break the social constraints of class, color and wealth. This exodus does not wrest their promised land from the prior inhabitants, but instead tames an unwanted wilderness which they then open to all others who wish to settle there. Their new freedom will not be at the expense of others.
This volume ends with the first foundations of the new utopia, but already the snakes have started to gather. The new city may be a paradise, but all the people therein will not be paragons of virtue. The next volume in this series should indicate how Alvin will handle dissent and corruption in the Crystal City.
Highly recommended for Card fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of temptation, morality and social justice among people with powerful and fantastic talents.
-Arthur W. Jordin

Helpful

Maddi Hausmann

Close but no City

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 27, 2003

This is the sixth book in the ingenious Alvin Maker series. In this alternate North America of the 1850s, folk magics work. Blacks make charms from personal items, Reds use the forces of nature, and Whites have knacks; inborn magical talents. Alvin Maker, born Alvin Miller and known as Alvin Smith, is the seventh son of a seventh son and was expected to have an ususually strong knack. He is even stronger than that: apprenticed as a blacksmith, he discovers he has the powers of Maker, one who understands the essences of all things and can manipulate them. Yet as this book begins, Alvin is despairing again, because despite his awesome powers, he was unable to save he prematurely born child.
If you're reading these book reviews, there's an excellent chance that you've read books 1-5 already, and want to know whether this book finally hits the money note. Does Alvin finally get to build his Crystal City? Does he at least figure out how he will do it, or where, or with whose help? And is this book worth reading?
If you've read the other five books, yes, you should get this one. It has much more plot and character development than the fifth book, Heartfire. In the last volume, Alvin dithered and fretted about how he was going to build his city, but didn't find himself any closer to his goal; he didn't even find himself closer to beginning it. In Crystal City, Alvin begins on another vague errand, sent by his future-seeing wife who is doing her best to avoid an all-out war she sees in almost every possible path.
Alvin meets two of Peggy's abolitionist friends in Neuva Barcelona, the unfortunately named Moose and Squirrel. (This odd reference to Rocky and Bullwinkle is merely another of Card's fans on his Hatrack River discussion group; some of the other books suffered by including characters from the bulletin board whether or not they advanced the plot.) And once again, Alvin's attempt to improve things makes them worse. By curing an old woman dying from yellow fever, Alvin finds the entire city now under threat from the plague. And by keeping Moose, Squirrel and their 55 children (of various races, their household is an illegal school for blacks so they follow the letter of the law by not allowing the children to recite their lessons aloud) healthy while all around them are dying, their neighbors pay more attention to the unusual domecile.
Several characters from the previous books return, including Tenskwa-Tawa (the Red Prophet of volume 2), Jim Bowie and Steve Austin, and Verily Cooper. Calvin reappears in Barcy, still seething with resentment toward his older brother. Arthur Stuart is growing into a man and discovering his abilities are more than anyone expected from him. Some strong new characters develop in this work, especially La Tia, a voodoo queen with powers rivalling his own, who gives Alvin a much more ambitious mission than he ever expected.
We also meet this universe's Abraham Lincoln, but I think that was not an effective device. Most charcters from Alvin's part of the world take a new last name when they enter a profession, yet the historical characters Lincoln, Bowie and Austin did not. It would have been better if they had more appropriate monickers, and let us figure out who they were supposed to be (I'm thinking of Turtledove's alternate America where the CSA remains a separate country; many of his historical cameos are not fully identified).
This is clearly not the last book of the series, but we are getting closer to the end. Alvin learns more about himself, his abilities and limits, and how to teach others to work toward a common goal. Yet the book ends with plenty of unresolved familial and political tensions, so there's at least another novel waiting. It would be appropriate to finish this series about a seventh son of a seventh son with book... seven.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Mrs Vanessa Anthony

Disappointing after the rest of the series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 30, 2012

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I absolutely love the Tales of Alvin Maker! It's easy to engage with and like the characters. Scott-Card really makes them come alive.
I read the first books in the series years ago but parts of them stayed with me so I decided to re-read them all and finally read the last book - The Crystal City
I was very disappointed. It feels as though the author was working to a strict deadline and was just churning out words to make up the numbers. Whilst all the characters are still there, the story seems almost perfunctory without any of the usual descriptive prose that makes the rest of the series so enjoyable. It's more like just a PLAN for a book than the novel itself

Linda C

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 15, 2018

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Love the whole series. A bit of an abrupt ending to this one with no follow on?

D C PARR

Good condition.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 15, 2018

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Condition as described. Story good - surely not the end.

Aaron

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 9, 2018

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Unfortunately it seems that Orson Scott Card phoned it in when writing volume six of the Alvin Maker series. While he provided an adequate ending for the series (he may or may not write any more), this book lacks the polish of the previous novels. Dialogue between characters is flat so every character reads like the same person, the plot is rushed, new characters that are based on historical figures are not that interesting, Calvin is still present and there is very little character development with him (disappointing), and when the Native Americans finally return to the plot it is extremely disappointing in how terrible the dialogue is and how uninteresting Orson Scott Card made them. Overall, just a disappointing conclusion to this wonderful series.

3 people found this helpful

Patrick Shepherd

Exodus, with Revisions

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 30, 2003

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It's been five years since the last installment in this series, which is a long time without fuel to maintain the energy and enthusiasm this series originally engendered. As an alternate history where people have 'knacks' for doing things, from repairing barrels and bones to seeing the future, its fire came from its ideological underpinnings, of the fight between those who build and those who destroy, of machine versus nature, of the rights of all to be self-directing autonomous individuals versus the cultural assumption that some are better than others, and those inferior beings are suited only for slavery. While much of this underpinning is highly relevant to this latest installment, it does not seem to bring with it the deep emotional involvement that would have made this story come alive.
Alvin Maker is the prime mover here, a man conflicted between his incredible abilities and the knowledge that regardless of how much he builds, however much good he can accomplish in the world, the Unmaker will be following right behind, tearing down all he can accomplish. Alvin's dream of a city built by Makers seems further and further off, as he becomes embroiled in actions to save many of the slaves and poor of the city of Nueva Barcelona (New Orleans) from both yellow fever (that he unwittingly helped to spread) and its other bigoted and superstitious citizens. Almost as a side plot, his brother Calvin becomes embroiled in a foray by Steve Austin and Jim Bowie to conquer the Mexica, with Calvin's typical disregard for the consequences or moral rightness of his actions.
The depiction of the historical characters that dot this novel, from Abe Lincoln to Bowie, is definitely problematic. All of them seem to have no depth, all are portrayed with only the sheen of their legendary characteristics, from Abe's honesty to Bowie's fighting drive, with no signs of other human foibles that would have made these stick-figures into something real. The plot itself is reasonable, a modern alternate version of Exodus with Alvin as Moses, and its final resolution points the way towards where this series may ultimately be headed. But I found as I was reading that I was looking for something more concrete to the action; too little description, not enough supporting details, an almost dreamlike feel to what could have been a very gritty slice of life under very unappetizing conditions.
While Card has a long list of those people who helped check this manuscript for continuity errors with earlier volumes, and obviously their efforts did help eliminate most of those kinds of problems, I did find it a little amusing that the maps on the end papers clearly show Alvin's Crystal City located on the wrong side of the Mississippi river.
Card does manage to make most of his moral points without clobbering you over the head with them, and some of the final section shows at least a willingness to concede that not all that is man-made is bad or that all that is nature-derived is good. But the fire that drove the earlier books, of their implied Great War between good and evil, is not here. Clearly, Card is planning at least one more book in this set, where perhaps the anticipated and long delayed war against slavery will combine with Alvin's dream of a better world to form a heart-wrenching finale. I do hope so.
--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

11 people found this helpful

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Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Book Six Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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