Rating: 
Summary: Indian/White AWars in a Revised America
Review:
Card's second novel in the Alvin MAKER series (see SEVENTH SON)
Focuses more on national events than the simple tale of the boy, Alvin Miller, in early America. In this alternative world, religion proves but one of many factors directing men's lives: superstition, folklore, and forces undreamed of by most men. The Unmaker is stealthily at work, rending more than any Maker can create or restore. Folks have special talent too: to ward, to fend and to hex, and to doodlebug. A Spark can set fires with his mind; a Torch can predict the future, or several possible versions. How will Alvin be expected to help mankind?
In this revised geographical North America many forces are working viciously for war, with only a few urging peace. The Indians themselves (called Reds) are divided on this epic controversy as two brothers seek to attract increasing numbers of their own people to their respective causes; one to unite
all Reds to fight the white men and drive them back across the sea; the other to live with whites in peace.. The Prophet has his visions and his duty, as does the war leader, but they both come to respect the ten-year-old boy who senses the greensong of the land beneath their feet, who learns to walk in Indian ways.
Meanwhile the French and English struggle for control of the New World, where Americans exercise their fledgling democracy. This tempestuous mix is further poisoned by the personal schemes of Governor William Harrison and Senator Andy Jackson, with their own private agendas of power and revenge. How can a mere boy keep the feuding agents apart and stave off Red massacre? The day Measure and Alvin set of for the lad to become an apprentice blacksmith begins a year of incredible personal growth for both the Miller boys. How can all 4 dedicated protagonists prevent the carnage of Native Americans?
<P> Master storyteller Card has woven a fascinating tapestry on his literary loom, with the warp of Fantasy and the woof of History, connecting all with the shuttle of Superstition. Readers who delighted in Alvin's growing awareness in the first novel will eagerly await his entrance after the start of this second book. Darkly brooding, emotionally riveting, this book is for adults of all ages to savor.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow going, but still worth reading
Review: At the end of Seventh Son, Alvin goes off to become a prentice blacksmith. Red Prophet is about what happens instead. It's very slow going at the start, as Card has to introduce us to a whole new set of characters including a couple whose names we know, but not in this form: Napoleon, Andrew Jackson, and William Henry Harrison. The three are presented in a very negative light, as they are all anti-Red, but at the same time they are working toward opposite goals. Nevertheless, I'm reading this series for the interest I have in the character of Alvin Miller, Junior (Alvin Maker), so this becomes a bit of a trial. It is, in fact, not until around page 90 that Alvin is even mentioned, and he doesn't become lead character again for some time later. Taleswapper, his mentor, doesn't show up again until two-thirds in -- albeit very mysteriously. Red Prophet, however, is still a solid continuance of the story, even though it is presented as tangential. Alvin, with the help of Ta-Kumsaw, Taleswapper, and a former "likker-Red" called Lolla-Wossiky -- Ta-Kumsaw's brother -- who becomes the title character and changes his name to Tenskawa-Tawa, discovers ever more about his abilities, including that his half-Red, half-White soul allows him to do things that either side cannot. We get to see him heal a lot, and perform new feats of natural magic while confounding the Reds (who can usually sense the Whites' hexes, but not Alvin's). All in all, Red Prophet is a good entry in the series and gives us a lot more information than we had before. However, it doesn't flow like Seventh Son did, and it was a struggle to get through; the suspense quotient just wasn't there. If the next book (Prentice Alvin) is this difficult to finish, I may not get through the series at all.
Rating: 
Summary: A solid Card
Review: Better than the first book, we can see (and fell) the growing of Alvin personality and powers, in the middle of a suberb historic/fiction plot, historical persons reewrite in new but truly verosimilar caracteristics, Lafayette, Napoleon, Tecumseh, Finn, etc.
Rating:
Summary: The saga darkens
Review: Book II of Card's Alvin Maker fantasy alternative history of frontier America covers some of the same ground as in Book I, Seventh Son, but now through different eyes. Rather than the mostly idyllic and rational vision of the white man's world-that-was-or-might-be, centered on Alvin's family, this story mostly gives us the Red man's view of white oppression versus working to live together. White's forest clearance vs. Red's forest custodianship is the most powerfully expressed metaphor of the contrast, while the black, Unmaker, rivers run through. Certain central events in Alvin's numinous awakening to his powers in the first novel are now seen from an unsuspected "other" side, not that of the Devil as the intolerant Rev. Thrower would have it, but from the native Shaw-Nee or Kicky-Poo side of the rivers. This book includes a version of Tippecanoe, the massacre that made William Harrison our President, that chills the blood. Card has an especially different take on liberty-loving Lafayette, an associate here of Napoleon rather than dead Washington! Really, these amazing shifts in view on American political icons are one of the great appeals of this series.
The other appeal, of course, is that Card is an imaginative teller of tales. He infuses this tale with a mythic, sometimes elegiac and mystical, quality, despite dialogue cast in backwoods provincial patois. Card is imagining a more hopeful frontier experience, among Hoosier "hill-billys," where the green hope of the Reds and their Napoleon is crushed finally. The story has become fiercer, bleaker and more desperate. It can be hard going because attention is not always on the central character, but digresses into sweeping quasi-historical tangents that only eventually feed back in to the "main story"--if that really is Alvin. I suspect the more you know of frontier history in the old Northwest Territory (after the East Coast Revolution and before the Cowboy Frontier of the West), the more fun these stories will be. That adds a level of detection to the interest of the story. The similarity here to Card's totally brilliant ENDERS GAME is the coming of age of another boy, who also struggles with "swarms" and powers whose strength is only slowly revealed.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe 3.75?
Review: First off, this isn't my favorite Orson Scott Card book. That honor falls to "Ender's Game," and to a lesser extent the novels that follow it. However, many people consider his "Alvin Maker" series to be just as good, and so I've begun working my way through them. Like "Ender," Alvin is a gifted child who is destined to play a major role in the events of his world (in this case a magical alternate 19th century America). Alvin's enemy, the Unmaker, is a bit more mystical than Ender's alien enemy, and certainly more evil. On the basis of the first two books of the series, it looks like there may be a few other parallels as well, but not having read the other books, I can't be sure how--or if--these will work themselves out. "Seventh Son," the first volume of the series, dealt with Alvin's early years and first struggles with the Unmaker. Much of its focus was on tangled family relationships, especially that between father and son. "Red Prophet," however, is darker and more disturbing. It picks up when Alvin is on his way to become an apprentice blacksmith and paints a broader picture of the history of Indian-White relations in Card's alternate America. Many historical figures, including Napoleon, Mike Fink, and William Henry Harrison, make appearances, although they bear little resemblance to their real life models. Because of a plot intended to upset the fragile peace between Reds and Whites, Alvin spends much of his time as a sort of hostage to Ta-Kumsaw (Tecumseh) and his brother, the Prophet. During this time, he learns more about his own magic, which is as much Red as it is White, and has his first visions of the Crystal City, which it is his destiny to build. There are many effective scenes in this novel--Alvin entering the mound and Becca's loom, for instance. However, I found that the emphasis on the political machinations of the Whites and the Reds made the book drag. When it was good, it was very very good, When it wasn't--well, I got through it. Eventually I'll get around to reading the next volumes too.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe 3.75?
Review: First off, this isn't my favorite Orson Scott Card book. That honor falls to "Ender's Game," and to a lesser extent the novels that follow it. However, many people consider his "Alvin Maker" series to be just as good, and so I've begun working my way through them. Like "Ender," Alvin is a gifted child who is destined to play a major role in the events of his world (in this case a magical alternate 19th century America). Alvin's enemy, the Unmaker, is a bit more mystical than Ender's alien enemy, and certainly more evil. On the basis of the first two books of the series, it looks like there may be a few other parallels as well, but not having read the other books, I can't be sure how--or if--these will work themselves out. "Seventh Son," the first volume of the series, dealt with Alvin's early years and first struggles with the Unmaker. Much of its focus was on tangled family relationships, especially that between father and son. "Red Prophet," however, is darker and more disturbing. It picks up when Alvin is on his way to become an apprentice blacksmith and paints a broader picture of the history of Indian-White relations in Card's alternate America. Many historical figures, including Napoleon, Mike Fink, and William Henry Harrison, make appearances, although they bear little resemblance to their real life models. Because of a plot intended to upset the fragile peace between Reds and Whites, Alvin spends much of his time as a sort of hostage to Ta-Kumsaw (Tecumseh) and his brother, the Prophet. During this time, he learns more about his own magic, which is as much Red as it is White, and has his first visions of the Crystal City, which it is his destiny to build. There are many effective scenes in this novel--Alvin entering the mound and Becca's loom, for instance. However, I found that the emphasis on the political machinations of the Whites and the Reds made the book drag. When it was good, it was very very good, When it wasn't--well, I got through it. Eventually I'll get around to reading the next volumes too.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting world along with some great characters
Review: I originally read this several years ago, but read it again after getting the new book in the series for Christmas. I enjoyed the book even more this time than I did the first. Card does a great job of creating a world that is very similar to our own from the same time period, but with some very important differences in how the world works and some tweaking to early American history. He populates this world with many interesting characters including some historical figures. The result is an incredibly compelling story which has many different levels. The massacre at Tippy-Canoe and the results are particularly well done. This book is better than the first in the series and leaves me eager to re-read the next one, Prentice Alvin. If you have read Seventh Son, you should definitely continue the series by reading this.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!!!
Review: I picked this book thinking it would be hokey. It's an amazing book! One of the best books I remember reading in the last ten years. I need to get Number 1 in the series, now. It stands alone. Innovative!!! Genius!
Rating:
Summary: Reds, Whites, and Makers
Review: Orson Scott Card has created a captivating alternate world of colonial America: a world rich in magic, peril, and culture.
One of these cultures is the Reds, as Card calls the Indians. One of these Reds is a whisky-red named Lolla-Wossiky and he is under the tyrannical care of the white Governor Bill Harrison. Lolla-Wossiky manages to steal a keg of whisky, a necessary tool for his survival, and runs away. He searches for his dream beast, "All of life at first is a long sleep, a long dream. You fall asleep at the moment you are born, and never wake up, never wake up until finally one day the dream beast calls you" (Card 63). He finds the beast in a white boy named Alvin. Alvin is the seventh son of the seventh son, which we find out in the first book of the series, which is appropriately titled Seventh son.
With this order of birth come certain knacks, supernatural abilities, and attributes. Alvin is only eleven at the beginning of Red Prophet and is yet unaware of his powers, but Lolla-Wossiky finds him and is able to see his potential.
Lolla becomes Alvin's dream beast and teaches him a powerful lesson on the administration of his powers. Alvin, in turn, is able to be Lolla's dream beast and cures him of "the black noise". Lolla-Wossiky is then able to accept his destiny as a leader of Red men. "He would call the Reds together, teach them what he saw in his vision, and help them to be, not the strongest, but strong; not the largest but large; not the freest, but free" (Card 98). Lolla-Wossiky becomes the Red Prophet and his name changes to Tenskwa-tawa.
Alvin's life is in danger so his parents send him to Hatrack River to be a blacksmith's apprentice. On the road to his new life, Indians, who were hired by Harrison to torture white boys, stirring the whites against the Red Prophet's people, capture Measure and Alvin. Alvin uses his powers to keep them from harm but the Red Prophet senses their danger and sends his brother, Ta-Kumsaw, to save the boys' lives. Ta-Kumsaw takes the boys back with him to see his brother. Alvin and the Prophet are reunited and Alvin is taught and informed of his future. Alvin is then sent to accompany Ta-Kumsaw on his crusade against the white man. He learns to understand the ways of the land; he learns to understand the Red man. He is so in tune with the land and with the people that at the end of his journey with Red men Ta-Kumsaw tells him, "If all White men were true like you, Alvin, I would never have been their enemy" (Card 304). Red Prophet is dripping with Archetypes. Alvin is the young hero, the only one who can save the world from being unmade. As Joseph Campbell states in his book A Hero With a Thousand Faces, "the `call to adventure'-signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown. This fateful region of both treasure and danger may be variously represented: as a distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountaintop, or profound dream state; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds, and impossible delight" (Campbell 58). Alvin also goes into the belly of the whale when he goes with Ta-Kumsaw into the Red man's world, "The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown and would appear to have died" (Campbell 90).
Alvin is helped in his journey by Taleswapper, a wanderer who trades stories with those he meets. Taleswapper is very wise and is able to help Alvin realize his destiny. A young girl named Peggy also aids him. He does not know of her existence or her role in his life, but she is always aware of him and keeping him safe. Card is not as opposed to allegory as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. He openly states in his introduction his thanks to "my great-great-grandfather Joseph for the stories behind the story in this book." He is speaking of Joseph Smith. The similarities in the lives of Alvin and Joseph are prominent in the novel: Alvin is Joseph Smith's brother's name, Joseph hurt his leg the same age as Alvin, Measure and Hyrum Smith share many similarities. Yet, as author Michael Collings says, you do not have to be a Mormon to understand the book, "Card is not a `Mormon' writer. He is a writer who is a Mormon. . . He never sets out to preach, to proselytize, to convince" The fantasy themes in Red Prophet are subtle. It almost seems that Red Prophet is a historical novel but for the knacks, charms, hexes, and beseechings that really work. They use their knacks to build, to protect, and to heal. There are special knacks that only certain people possess: a spark can start fires with their minds; a torch, which is Peggy's knack, can see people's heartfires, and the rarest is a maker, the last maker was Jesus Christ and the next is Alvin. Colonial America never seemed so captivating as in Orson Scott Card's alternate world of the Red Prophet.
Rating:
Summary: Height of The Tales of Alvin Maker so far, wonderfully epic
Review: RED PROPHET is the second book of Orson Scott Card's "Tales of Alvin Maker" and perhaps the best book in the series (out of the five released so far). It has unforgettable events, an epic sweep, and gives a sobering reminder of how white settlers wiped out the Native Americans. For the first forty pages the reader is introduced to the world outside of the frontier town of Vigor Church, where most of the first book SEVENTH SON was set. There is a glimpse at the French Canadians in this alternate history, and the black heart of one William Henry Harrison, who in our world became president after his slaughter of the Indians at Tippecanoe. The novel's main plotline then begins with Alvin's setting out from Vigor Church to Hatrack River, the place of his tumultuous birth and where he now will become an apprentice smith. He is accompanied by his brother Measure and it isn't long before they are captured by Choc-Taw hired by Harrison to smear the reputation of the Red prophet Tenskwa-Tawa (formerly Lolla-Wossiky) and his brother Ta-Kumsaw. Alvin and Measure survive their capture and are rescued by Ta-Kumsaw. Then, on the shores of Lake Mizogan, Alvin begins to learn of his destiny as a Maker and the incredible city which he must build. And this is only the beginning. RED PROPHET takes us over a wide array of places and shows us incredible characters and sweep of history. There is so much here that stays with the reader long after the novel ends, such as the anger of the townsmen at Tippecanoe, Alvin's travels all over this wide land, Eight-Face Mound, and Becky's mystical loom. Card has triumphed in creating such an enchanting novel. While The Tales of Alvin Maker isn't of the highest quality in terms of prose, I'd certainly recommend this series, especially because RED PROPHET is part of it. This installment is not only captivating, but it also spurs one to read more about this era of American history, when settlers and Native Americans violently clashed.
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