Summary
This is the sixth installment in the Alvin Maker series, a fantasy series about the beginnings of the Mormon religion, set in an alternate America where the Revolution never happened and people have magical talents of varying types. As the book opens, Alvin is mourning his stillborn child, which, despite his considerable magical power over physical objects, he could not save. His wife Peggy, a "torch" with the ability to see the hearts and destinies of others, has sent him to the Spanish-controlled city of Nueva Barcelona (previously known as New Orleans), as part of their effort to ameliorate the future violence of the inevitable war between slave owners and abolitionists. The challenges that Alvin will meet in Nueva Barcelona will finally lead him to begin building the Crystal City, the ideal city he saw in a vision as a boy.
Customer Reviews
Review this book!
Media Reviews
"...[S]till enchants."
-- Publishers Weekly
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: St Martins Pr
Published date: 2003
Size: 6.25 x 10 inches
Weight: 2 pounds
Pages: 416
Other Editions
Similar books
Alchemist's Door
by Lisa Goldstein
With the publication of her American Book Award-winning debut novel The Red Magician , in 1982, Lisa Goldstein joined the front ranks of the finest fantasy writers of our time. Since then, she has enchanted a host of readers with her exquisitely crafted novels, blending strange magics with passionately realized characters. Now, with The Alchemist's Door , Goldstein delivers her most entertaining and compelling work to date, a tale of remarkable people caught up in a turbulent time of extraordinary changes. Scientist, mathematician, and court astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee is also one of the sixteenth-century's most renowned alchemists, driven by a passion to fathom the elemental secrets of the cosmos. But when his reckless assistant, Edward Kelley, succeeds in using a crystal sphere to summon angels, Dee is catapulted into an awesome struggle that may extinguish the light of reason forever. One of the spirits invoked is a cunning demon who takes possession of Dee's young daughter, Katherine, and shows Dee a frightening vision of his own future. Terrified by what has been foretold, Dee abruptly decides to close his house in London and flee to Eastern Europe with his long suffering wife, Jane, and their two young children. Their desperate flight brings them at last to the fabled city of Prague; a center of culture, knowledge, and learning, both sacred and profane, a gateway between the Eastern and Western worlds, and also, it is whispered, a door between our world and the world of the spirits. There, in the city's ancient streets, Dee encounters the mystic Rabbi Judah Loew, who enlists his aid in the creation of a Golem--a man fashioned from clay--to defend the city's Jewish Quarter from persecution. And he asks Dee's help to avert an impending crisis that threatens to engulf the world. For ancient legends say that the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of thirty-six righteous men. And if one of those righteous men dies before his time, the world will end and dark spirits will remake it in their own image.
The Priest of Blood
by Douglas Clegg
The bastard son of a whore, a predator trainer in the royal court, and a conscripted soldier serving in the Crusades against the Saracens, Falconer finds his true destiny when he is transformed into a vampire by a creature called Pythia.
Myth Conceptions
by Robert Asprin
As Court Magician to Rodrick the Fifth of Possiltum, Skeeve must oppose the universe's mightiest invading army, but he is not sure how, and his mentor, Aahz, who lost his sorcerer's power, cannot help.
On Crusade
by Katherine Kurtz
Following up on the successful Tales of the Knights Templar, a collection of original stories by leading fantasy authors--including Andre Norton, Diane Duane, Deborah Turner Harris, and others--continues the adventures of the legendary medieval French warrior-priests on their journey to the Holy Land. Reprint.
Heartfire
by Orson Scott Card
A new episode in the "Tales of Alvin Maker". Alvin's wife, Peggy, who has the ability to read the heartfire of others and know their futures, makes a perilous journey to the court of the exiled king of England in the southern city of Charleston. There she hopes to somehow influence him to change the dreadful future that she has seen--a war between the free nations and the slave nations of North America.
|
0 items in cart
Muze Inc. For personal non-commercial use only. All rights reserved. Some content for books is owned by Baker & Taylor, Inc. or its licensors and is subject to copyright and all other protections provided by applicable law.
