Magic Street- Orson Scott Card

Magic Street
By: Orson Scott Card
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Del Rey ( June 28, 2005) 
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0345416899
ISBN-13: 978-0345416896
Read it or not: Read it!

From the publishers website: 

(Abbreviated due to spoilers) 

In a peaceful, prosperous African American neighborhood in Los Angeles, Mack Street is a mystery child who has somehow found a home. Discovered abandoned in an overgrown park, raised by a blunt-speaking single woman, Mack comes and goes from family to family–a boy who is at once surrounded by boisterous characters and deeply alone. But while Mack senses that he is different from most, and knows that he has strange powers, he cannot possibly understand how unusual he is until the day he sees, in a thin slice of space, a narrow house. Beyond it is a backyard–and an entryway into an extraordinary world stretching off into an exotic distance of geography, history, and magic.

Review, spoiler free!

Mack Street is a black boy born in a unusual nature who posses magical powers. He lives on Magic Street with his adoptive mother profoundly affecting the lives of his entire neighborhood. He embodies the concept of 'be careful what you wish for'. 

 I found the overarching theme of the story to be somewhat formulaic: abandoned boy of magical nature must undertake a quest and he succeeds in an unlikely manner. That being said, it is an formula for a reason and Card makes use of it as a scaffolding in order to create a beautiful, unusual building. Card has done what few SF/Fantasy authors dare to do- he has created a novel entirely populated by black characters. The protagonist is a black male that was abandoned and is now being raised by a single mother. ** ( I'm not going to get into the racial stereotypes that this is touching on yet). The neighborhood that he lives in is prosperous. Most of the people that live there are nuclear families and he is basically adopted by the whole neighborhood.  But he is black and I can't emphasize that enough. Neither can Orson Scott Card. He makes it very obvious that the culture that he is describing is 'black culture' *see spoiler 1 *. I must admit, that I got this book and didn't read it for a while- I have read other 'urban fantasy novels' that focus on the fact that the characters are black and forget to develop them as characters. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not the case with Magic Street. Mack Street was a character that I could relate to. He struggled with feelings of loneliness, abandonment, of not knowing his place. These feelings  transcend culture and race. 


The rest of the preview- with spoilers! 

Passing through the skinny house that no one else can see, Mack is plunged into a realm where time and reality are skewed, a place where what Mack does and sees seem to have strange affects in the “real world” of concrete, cars, commerce, and conflict. Growing into a tall, powerful young man, pursuing a forbidden relationship, and using Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream as a guide into the vast, timeless fantasy world, Mack becomes a player in an epic drama. Understanding this drama is Mack’s challenge. His reward, if he can survive the trip, is discovering not only who he really is . . . but why he exists.

Both a novel of constantly surprising entertainment and a tale of breathtaking literary power, Magic Street is a masterwork from a supremely gifted, utterly original American writer–a novel that uses realism and fantasy to delight, challenge, and satisfy on the most profound levels.


Review chock full of spoilers- delicious!

*spoiler 1* In the author's note Card reveals that the neighborhood described is based on an actual neighborhood in L.A. and that he spoke to both neighborhood residents and his black friends. He says this in a much more politically correct manner than I do. 

We first meet Mack Street when he is found abandoned in a plastic bag near an old sewer pipe. He is found by Cecee who in turns brings him to a single nurse Ura Lee Smitcher. Together Cecee and Ura raise Mack. Or attempt to. Mack takes to wandering the streets. He begins to have dreams about the wishes of his neighbors - and through him they come true. Although not in the way that he would like. One of his neighbors loves to swim and dreams of being a fish. She is found within her parents water bed, half drowned.

The book then turns into A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puck enters, and Mack street learns that he is actually a part of the faery realm and must free the Queen of faery Tatiana. Freeing her leads to a colossal battle with her estranged spouse - Oberon. In the end it turns out that  Mack Street is really all of the good parts of Oberon, his conscience that Oberon got rid of in order to get more power. That part got a little weird. 

Mack Street is in some sense the stereotypical black youth- abandoned, raised by a single mother, a wanderer. But at the same time, Card moves away from this stereotype. Mack Street is a beloved member of his community, he is a crusader in the fight against evil, he is rooted in his neighborhood though he may wander within it. . I'm not sure Card was thinking about these stereotypes as he was writing but I couldn't help thinking about them while reading. Card very clearly made the protagonist black, but he did not make his blackness the entire focus of the novel. I think that overall he struck a good balance between illuminating racial issues and weaving a fantasy tale. 

A raft of ducks

An army of ants

Foundling- D.M. Cornish

The Foundling
Monster Blood Tatoo Book 1
By: D.M. Cornish

• Hardcover: 404 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Juvenile (May 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039924638X
• ASIN: B00394DG7S
• Read it or not: Read it!
• 
  

From the author's website:

Set in the world of the Half-Continent-a land of tri-corner hats and flintlock pistols-the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy is a world of predatory monsters, chemical potions and surgically altered people. Foundling begins the journey of Rossamund, a boy with a girl's name, who is just about to begin a dangerous life in the service of the Emperor. What starts as a simple journey is threatened by encounters with monsters-and people, who may be worse. Learning who to trust and who to fear is neither easy nor without its perils, and Rossamund must choose his path carefully

No Spoilers


Our hero is Rossamund, a foundling living in a world much like pre-industrial England. With one important exception. This world is populated by monsters. The world created by D.M Cornish over 12 yaers is deeplu imagined. He has thought out everything about this world down to the smallest details. So many interesting characters! There are the monsters and the everymen. Then there is a special subset of people known as the teratologists that study and fight monsters. The lahzar, people who have been surgically altered with foreign organs to have extraordinary powers, fight the monsters for pay and glory. For every monster they slay they get a tattoo of their blood.. One of my favorite parts of the book were the author's drawings interspersed in the chapters. The back of the book also has an extensive glossary of all terminology used in the story and even more drawings. This is really a world that young adults can fall into and continue explore. I found the story a bit hard to get into, but once I did I couldn't wait to find out what happened to Rosammund. Really, this is a great first novel in a series, but I enjoyed the later books in the series more. I found that the characterization was more nuanced and developed. Recommended for anyone that is looking for a new world that is fully developed where you can continue the stories in your own imagination. 

The Long Earth

• The Long Earth

  By: Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper (June 19, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062067753
• ISBN-13: 978-0062067753
• Read it or not: Read it! 

From the publisher's website:


The possibilities are endless. (Just be careful what you wish for. . . .)

1916: The Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong and the wind in the leaves. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of no-man's-land gone? For that matter, where has Percy gone?

2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Police officer Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive—some say mad, others allege dangerous—scientist who seems to have vanished. Sifting through the wreckage, Jansson find a curious gadget: a box containing some rudimentary wiring, a three-way switch, and . . . a potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way humankind views the world forever.

The first novel in an exciting new collaboration between Discworld creator Terry Pratchett and the acclaimed SF writer Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth transports readers to the ends of the earth—and far beyond. All it takes is a single step. . . .


Completely Spoiler Free:


The Long Earth is a collaboration between authors Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. The title refers to the long earth, an infinite series of earths that one can reach by 'stepping', moving East or West between worlds using a portable gadget.  For die hard fans of Sir Terry his name alone will make you pick up this novel. Watch out though, the book lacks most of the trademark Pratchett satire and humor that Discworld fans have come to know and love. Once you get over your initial disappointment at the book's lack of Discworldness, you will grow to love the characters. Especially our heroes:  Joshua - a natural stepper raised by nuns and Lobsang- a Tibetan reincarnated as a computer.Together they explore the long earth, learning more about its mysteries and their own. Their tale is interspersed with the stories of others affected by the long earth. Unfortunately, the various vignettes can feel a bit disjointed at times. This may be due to the collaboration of the authors, or because these stories were originally separate ideas. Ultimately the writing is great and the book is well worth reading. Bottom line, read it, if only to see Terry Pratchett break out of Discworld and to spend an enjoyable afternoon wondering if there actually is a long earth... 


Chock full of spoilers & in depth analysis:


The long earth is a system of endless earths that stretch to the East and West of ours. The book truly begins after 'Step Day'. This is the day when instructions for building 'Steppers', gadgets that allow you to travel between these infinite worlds, were posted on the internet. Thousands of kids built them and traveled to these new earths, beginning a mass migration of Earth's population. 


The main thrust of the story begins after Joshua meets Lobsang, a Tibetan motorcycle repair man that has been reincarnated into the brain of a computer. Together, they undertake an expedition to explore the long earth. Lobsang is full of himself, smug and hiding secrets from Joshua. For one thing, he suspects the existence of  'Trolls' and 'Elves', other humanoid species that have evolved the ability to step. The Trolls are migrating East - away from something deep within the long earth. Something that is frightening them deeply.  Lobsang and Joshua set out to find out what it is. On their way, they meet up with Sally a tough talking natural stepper who happens to be the daughter of the scientist that invented the stepper. She too is concerned about the migration of the Trolls and ends up accompanying Lobsang and Joshua on their journey. After a harrowing series of steps, they find what the Trolls are running from. The cause of all this distress turns out to be First Person Singular a huge amoeba like organism that is absorbing other creatures and 'observing' other worlds. As she observes these worlds First Person Singular devours these worlds she observes.   As Joshua says " There are times when the word ' weird' just isn't enough." In this act of observing First Person Singular basically devours the worlds she observes. 


Interwoven within the main story is that of the Green family. A middle-class American family they decide to step thousands of worlds away to colonize a new city- Reboot. There is just one problem, one of their three children Rod is a 'phobic'. Unable to step he gets left behind in Datum earth. After Step Day there are a multitude of children like this, left behind by their families. A backlash against stepping begins, fueled by Groups that resemble modern day fundamentalist Christians.While the Green family settles into their new community over the years Rod grows ever more bitter. Ultimately, at the very end of the novel he delivers a suitcase nuke to the center of Madison, Wisconsin. His sense of loss and abandonment and what it led to eloquently explored. 


While I enjoyed the book, I did feel let down by the explanation of First Person Singular. It was simplistic and seemed a placeholder. I also missed Terry Pratchett's traditional voice from Discworld. While we did see some of it in the interactions between Lobsang and Joshua it was largely absent. I found the story of the Greens and the nuke in Madison to be especially heartbreaking. To me, it was a commentary on how new technology can drive us apart and divide us. I found the ideas outlined in the book to be very thought provoking, especially in light of modern advances in science such as string theory etc. I spent an enjoyable afternoon wandering around thinking about whether or not there really is a long earth and if so, are there natural steppers? (and could I be one of them?)