Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Book Four

Orson Scott Card

Sep 1996 · Alvin Maker Book 4 · Sold by Tor Fantasy

About this ebook

Orson Scott Card's The Tales of Alvin Maker is a series of fantasy novels set in frontier America.

Alvin is a Maker, the first to be born in a century.

Now a grown man and a journeyman smith, Alvin has returned to his family in the town of Vigor Church. He will share in their isolation, work as a blacksmith, and try to teach anyone who wishes to learn the knack of being a Maker. For Alvin has had a vision of the Crystal City he will build, and he knows that he cannot build it alone.

But he has left behind in Hatrack River enemies as well as true friends. His ancient foe, the Unmaker, whose cruel whispers and deadly plots have threatened Alvin's life at every turn, has found new hands to do his work of destruction.
The Tales of Alvin Maker series
Seventh Son
Red Prophet
Prentice Alvin
Alvin Journeyman
Heartfire
The Crystal City

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

Not as good as the first three, in my humble opinion; not half so much happens. Where we left off, Alvin was returned home to Vigor Church, a Journeyman blacksmith and unofficial Journeyman Maker, and has decided to try to teach Making. He’s teaching the wrong things, I think; at any rate the teaching goes slowly, and only Measure and Eleanor, two of his own siblings, learn much. Calvin, Alvin’s younger brother, has basically gone sour with jealousy, and, although being the seventh living son of a seventh son and thus having the most natural Making ability, cannot learn from Alvin. So, he leaves Vigor Church, hoping to learn more than Alvin elsewhere. Also, Alvin goes back to Hatrack River, and the fraudulent claims of his former teacher, Makepeace Smith, on Alvin’s living golden plough, and the adopted black boy Arthur Stuart’s freedom, are resolved in court. White Murderer Harrison, an evil, scheming slimeball who has it in for Reds and Blacks both, is elected president, and is somehow tied in with the same people who hired a laywer to oppose Alvin, and some ruffians to kill him afterwards. Safely escaped from Hatrack River, Alvin leaves with two additions to his posse in tow: Whats-His-Name Cooper, an English lawyer come to America to learn more about his knack, which was seen as witchery back in Europe, and Mike Fink, a river rat who Alvin once fought and laid low, for whom the experience was a turning point. Also, there are wedding bells. ^_^ As much as I want to keep reading, I shall be quite depressed to finish the last of Orson Scott Card’s series, and have only a few stand-alone novels left. Anyone know what he’s working on currently, while I’m brooding on the subject?

Card delivers another great addition to the Alvin maker series.

About the author

Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win these two top prizes in consecutive years. There are seven other novels to date in The Ender Universe series. Card has also written fantasy: The Tales of Alvin Maker is a series of fantasy novels set in frontier America; his most recent novel, The Lost Gate, is a contemporary magical fantasy. Card has written many other stand-alone sf and fantasy novels, as well as movie tie-ins and games, and publishes an internet-based science fiction and fantasy magazine, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. Card was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, Card directs plays and teaches writing and literature at Southern Virginia University. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, and youngest daughter, Zina Margaret.