Heartfire / Orson Scott Card

Heartfire by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don’t know how to rate this book. On one hand, I had to keep reading to see what happens, so I know the sequence of events. But, on the other hand, I felt like I was seeing and not understanding. If this is the religious allegory that it seems to be, I'm finding it very slippery to hang onto.

This volume makes the comparison of Calvin and Alvin to Cain and Abel explicit. So there's that. But then we have Alvin wandering the countryside, doing his miraculous Maker things and being persecuted by the law in a very Christ-like way. Even Purity, who causes so much trouble in the book, recognizes the men that he is travelling with as disciples. Card's world seems to have two evil doers, the Unmaker and Satan. Most of the time, Calvin seems to be allied with them, playing Judas maybe? Everybody seems to get multiple Biblical identities.

Just like Philip Jose Farmer's use of Mark Twain in the Riverworld books, which made me cringe, I found myself feeling sorry for the historical figures that Card incorporates into the narrative. John James Audubon and Honore de Balzac must be rolling in their graves. John Quincy Adams might be uneasy too.

Then there's the whole Black slavery issue, which has particular relevancy in these days of protest and the Black Lives Matter movement. Add to this the whole question, during the witch trial, of the nature of law versus justice. There are an awful lot of irons in this fire and I'm sure I don't know how the author intends to wrap it up. And that, I guess, is an admission that I will read the next installment.

Book number 370 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.


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