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Prentice Alvin
lvin's mortal enemy, the Unmaker, has found hearts and hands willing to do its
bidding, while Alvin and the Prophet's people were making their last stand. Just across the
Hio River from the town of Hatrack River was the first of the slave-holding territories - and
they ran south all the way to the sea.
Both the United States and Appalachee have abolished slavery, while the Crown
Colonies still deal in human flesh. But the slaves know that their hope of freedom lies just
beyond the river; and the daring - or desperate - have often come within the range of
Hatrack River's torch. Little Peggy is now sixteen, and has seen more of the world's evil
than anybody rightly should - and when she "sees" a young girl and her infant son she isn't
surprised by the cruelty the slave is running from. Peggy's father takes the risk of bringing
the two back to the guest house, and in doing so creates the one path in all of Peggy's
possible futures that may lead to happiness for both her and Alvin.
And so when Alvin arrives in Hatrack River to take up his apprenticeship with
Makepeace Smith and learn to be a blacksmith, he finds that nothing is as he expected it to
be. The would-be Maker is on his own, and the works of the Unmaker are close at hand.
Orson Scott Card's Tales of Alvin Maker have created a moving fantasy world from
the dream of America and the simple magics of the people who settled her. Here is a world
where folk magic is as much a part of life as hard work and religion, and where the red man
and the white still have hope for living in peace with the land and each other. It is a
fantasy unique to literature, yet as inevitable as breathing. It is a work that will live forever
in your heart.
"In Seventh Son, Card achieves the near miracle of bringing something new to fantasy."
-- Locus
"[Red Prophet] superbly demonstrates Card's solid historical research, keen understanding of
religious experience, and, most of all, his mastery of the art of storytelling."
-- Booklist
"The most important work of American fantasy since Stephen Donaldson's original Thomas
Covenant trilogy."
-- Chicago Sun Times
Copyright © 1989 Orson Scott Card
A Tor Book - Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
Cover art by Dennis Nolan - Cover design by Carol Russo
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