Alvin Maker is unfortunately one of those books that tingles your imagination for a few hundred (thousand?) pages before leaving you senseless with a pretty bad smell in the mouth. Feel the irony inside – that’s the passionate reader speaking – I loved the begining book, I loved it so much that it pains me that Orson Scott Card, the author, twisted it in a way that ends up so fucked-up.
The story takes place at the crossroads between the American colonization, Native American legends, the birth of our modern civilizations, pure magical fantasy… and builds itself up to become the story of a fight against something that is more than god: the Unmaker.
Consistent with the pure fantasy guidelines, the story follows one character named Alvin, the seventh son of a seventh son – it is of course a birth status that comes with great power (and thus with great current squared times resistance 
) – on his path to become a Maker, a modeler of the matter itself, a guy strong enough to curve the path of destiny (sounds epic huh?).
As you can see, the story promises a lot and starts on a path that will really leave any fantasy reader speechless. The battle of the elements, the earth being strong and welcoming while the water being treacherous and murdering. The religion is strong and plays a big role as well, but is constantly manipulated by the greater evil of the unmaker and its tools used against their own will. The indians legends of the knacks (between magic, genius and extraordinary abilities) and the precise use of key history elements produces a wonderful background that could have led to a legendary story. The whole book in which Alvin discovers how to manipulate the matter is simply astonishing, one just cannot stop reading.
Unfortunately, if the first books are simply fantastic, the story pretty soon stops expanding and starts repeating itself. The first part of the story seemed so far from our daily troubles and thus so wonderful. The personal discovery of his powers and the learning curve of Alvin, coupled with his moral righteousness and constant combat against the Unmaker were more than enough to create a great story. Why in hell did Orson Scott Card need to bring there some law-troubles where Alvin cannot do anything (and twice) and the more-than-mystical-crap of the Crystal City? It is as if the author had an overload of ideas about the background but did not know how to make this all coherent in a really interesting story.
Sorry Orson, as you can see I’m pissed because the story had such a fantastic potential.