Where’s the Magic?    A Review of Magic Street Orson Scott Card (©2005, Del Rey, ISBN 0345416899)

 

OSC fans will find this book a tired old re-hash of some of Card’s tried-and true formulae. He pits good and evil in a delicate dance that spills out into conflict where the object is to restore balance, not triumph over the other. In fact, triumph is generally seen as a bad thing. Meanwhile he flirts with the concepts of free will, destiny, personality formation and a host of other standard issues that Card toys with throughout most of his books.

 

This rather disappointing tale is a new take on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in suburban California. Ever an explorer of new worlds, cultures and creatures, Card tries his hand at exploring the alien world of black suburban America. While this may not sound too far afield for a significant percentage of Americans, this is previously uncharted territory for Card, not to mention a great many science fiction and fantasy authors. The central character who is about as two dimensional as the Hive Queen from the Ender series, Mack Street, barely participates in the story until the book is well underway. Attempting to weave a Dickensian interplay of various characters and their complex web of interactions, Card falls far short of this goal. Flitting from one character to the next, he spends more time on exposition than he does character development. Card is at his best when describing internal turmoil and moral conflict, baring the thought processes of his characters to naked inspection by the reader. Yet he does very little of this effectively in Magic Street.

 

The story itself is about a child born in a miraculous fashion into a black suburban neighborhood in California who was abandoned and raised by an unmarried nurse with the help of a neighborhood boy. Mack, it finally turns out, has the power to make dreams come true but in typical Card fashion, this doesn’t mean happy endings are in store. Instead, every dream is made to come true in a horrible way that causes untold suffering. By the time this mystery unfolds and the source of Mack’s power is identified, only the most patient readers have retained their interest in the story. Card uses a clever Jekyll/Hyde device to explain Mack’s origin but his character, despite Card’s best attempts, remains flat and only mildly interesting. Mack lacks the tortured angst of Ender or Bean from their respective books and the plot resolution is only mildly satisfying.

 

If one is going to skip an OSC book, this would be the one to skip. Read Enchantment instead since it covers some of the same ground but on a footing more familiar to Card and with characters that have more depth.

 

by Rick Presley