Product Description

Now a grown man and a journeyman smith, Alvin has returned to his family in the town of Vigor Church. He will share in the 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. More information on this book and others can be found on the Orbit website at www.orbitbooks.co.uk

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #301560 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Review
'From beginning to end, this novel is full of riches' BOOKLIST 'The most important work of American fantasy since Stephen Donaldson's original Thomas Covenant trilogy.' CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 'History, legend, magic, dreams: Card stirs them into a rich brew with a remarkably authentic flavour' LOCUS

CHICAGO SUNTIMES
'The most important work of American fantasy since Stephen Donaldson's original Thomas Covenant trilogy.'

LOCUS
'History, legend, magic, dreams: Card stirs them into a rich brew with a remarkably authentic flavour'

Customer Reviews

What about the story?
Card really is a skilled writer. I admit having read through Journeyman very fast and eagerly, as i did with the first 3 of the Alvin books. His very american, right-to-the-point style and the colorful settings have a sure way of making me live with the story. Still, this is exactly why the book becomes such a dissappointment. Card's ability to design absorbing atmosphere makes him the ideal author of first books in series. I was totally taken by the first Alvin, and the second book also promised more, despite of the storylines that were obviously discarded (I thought they would come up again in the sequels). And then he goes on writing several hundreds of pages that have nothing to do with the ideas in the first or even the second book, indeed increasing the pace so that he does not even seem to remember the earlier chapters of the Journeyman by the end of it. The blatant changes in the plot and in the characters remind me frighteningly much of E. R. Burroughs' classic Tarzan novels, originally written as serial stories for magazines, in which the author actually did forget the names and motives of the characters on occasion.

When I finished the Seventh Son I was hungry for it's sequel, and I still am!

A great read by fantasy's greatest author.
Orson Scott Card has weaved has creative magic throughout the Alvin Maker series, and he has done so again with a book that is not only a fine story, but fine literature as well.

Amazing. Orson Scott Card is now my favorite Author.
I was first introduced to Orson Scott Card as I randomly searched through Amazon.com's sci-fi section for a book to buy with a ten dollar gift certificate. I ended up buying Ender's Game. I read it in two days(while attending high school and keeping up with all it's related hoopla). I went on to read the entire Ender Series and love it. I have read all the books in the Alvin Maker Series in about two weeks. They are entrancing. I stayed up until after four o' clock in the morning reading Alvin Journeyman, as I couldn't put it down. This book is just as good as any in the rest of the series, in my opinion. It is a superb work by an extraordinarily talented author.(I guess you could say his knack was writing ;-)