Some of you know that I'm a huge fan of the Orson Scott Card books Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. Well, I was at the book store about a month ago and decided that I was going to get something else by Orson Scott Card, besides he is called "the great story-teller". Here's the thing about most of OSC's works, most of them are done in volumes. He's a big fan of sequels and that's always been the reason I haven't read a lot of his stuff.

After looking through all of his books at Davis Kid's I decided to start on 2 of his series. One being the Homecoming series, the first book is titled "The Memory of Earth", and the Alvin Maker series, "Seventh Son." I haven't gotten to the Homecoming books, this post is about the Alvin Maker series and it's great.

The settings of this series is the American colonies in the early 19th century but with a twist. Instead of the colonists being Christian, some are but not the majority, they're grounded in folk magic; hexes and what have you. It's a very cool concept and Card even included some people like Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison, but much different than the real people.

What I also love about these books are the writing styles. He makes blantant... er.. "spelling errors". For instance, instead of calling it the Ohio River it's the Hio River. Instead of the Mississippi River, it's the Mizzipy River. But he does it in a way that makes the book even that much more interesting.

The Seventh Son book is about the Miller family having a son, but not just any son. Alvin Miller is a seventh son himself, and he's about to have a seventh son. In this timeframe that means a lot. A seventh son is supposed to be special, but a seventh son of a seventh son is, for lack of a better saying, sumthin' else. The book is focused around Alvin Jr. and his special abilities, or what they call "knacks."

I don't know really how to explain much more of it without giving anything away. The first book in the series is very much worth picking up, and is definately worth getting through to read the second book called "Red Prophet", which takes a thrilling turn. I just thought I'd share that piece of information to you. I just hope that the Homecoming series is anywhere close to as good as the Alvin Maker books. See ya.

We"definately not a writer"dge