Magic Street

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: Mirron E. Willis

Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Living in a peaceful, prosperous African-American neighborhood in Los Angeles, Mack Street is a mystery child who has somehow found a home. Discovered abandoned in an overgrown park, raised by a blunt-speaking single woman, Mack comes and goes from family to family, a boy who is surrounded by boisterous characters and yet deeply alone. But while Mack senses that he is different from most and knows that he has strange powers, he cannot understand how unusual he is until the day he sees, in a thin slice of space, a narrow house. Beyond it is a backyard, and an entryway into an extraordinary world stretching off into an exotic distance of geography, history, and magic.

Passing through the skinny house that no one else can see, Mack is plunged into a realm in which time and reality are skewed, a place where what Mack does seems to have strange effects on the "real world" of concrete, cars, commerce, and conflict. Growing into a tall, powerful young man, pursuing a forbidden relationship, and using Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as a guide into the vast, timeless fantasy world, Mack becomes a player in an epic drama. Understanding this drama is Mack's challenge. His reward, if he can survive the trip, is discovering not only who he really is but why he exists.

Both a novel of constantly surprising entertainment and a tale of breathtaking literary power, Magic Street is a masterwork from a supremely gifted, utterly original American writer, a novel that uses realism and fantasy to delight, challenge, and satisfy on the most profound levels.

©2005 Orson Scott Card (P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"[Card's] prose is a model of narrative clarity; the author never says more than is needed or arbitrarily withholds information; yet even a simple declarative sentence carries a delicious hint of further revelation." (The New York Times)

Lots-o-plots

It sometimes seems that Mr. Card has a somewhat mechanical method to his writing: slice up a dictionary, toss the pieces in the air, pull out a few random entries and see what kind of unlikely drama he can cobble from them. Yes, Shakespeare is forced into the black box this time along with "I just been to L.A.". All this in Card's consistently strident, argumentative tone, signature since Ender's Game (I haven't read many of his earliest works). Magic Street is not among his best efforts. I have truly enjoyed a number of his other works, but I hope not to see any more of this derivative kind of stuff.

When I got done I needed a nap

I like Card - always have. I like his dialogue and the pace of his stories till...he starts trying to define his story's version of the universe and the meaning of life or religion as very longwinded subplots. I also hate when writers try to redefine God and the nature of faith to fit their fictional landscape. There are times and ways in which an amusing read should just be an amusing read.

In the end, the fact that a writer wants to figure out rules for his hypothetical unviverse simply doesn't mean I want to sit through the explanation. I think I'm not alone in this which is why the majority of us choose not to learn Klingon.

See? Now I'm too tired to talk about the rest of the story. Next time I hope Orson just tells the story and lets us make our own observations about deeper meanings as we read or listen. The story should create questions and answers without so obviously trying. Night night.

Total reliance on fantasy to make the pieces fit

The story opens up intriguingly, building a nice atmosphere of suspicion that things are not quite right. Some wonderfully colorful characters are introduced and you're on the verge of getting hooked. And bang, enter Shakespeare, the fairies and extremely handy answers and excuses based on "things that are normal in fairy land". Nothing really clever or thought provoking happens after the half-way point, with a total reliance on magic, and not much in the way of writer ingenuity. I'm never disappointed having read a book, but I sometimes feel taken advantage of; this would be a case in point. Be prepared to be swallowed whole by a "giant slug" in his "slug-like" mouth!

Disappointing

After listening to Ender's Game I was ecstatic to get my hands on this. I was disappointed. The story is interesting, the narration ok (when I'm awake). The problem is I keep falling asleep during this thing. Not so with Ender's Game. I was always dying to get back to it. Listening at my house, in the car, whenever possible. This one, I've started to put on as a sleep aid. I've had it for months and am still not finished. Seriously, I'm usually asleep in less than 5 minutes . . . and I used to call myself an insomniac. It may be a good read, but I wouldn't classify it as a top listen.

Not what I expected

I purchased this book because I loved Orson Scott Card's previous work, but I was definitely let down. Card says in the afterword that he had a friend keeping him true to the African American experience and dialect, but that friend must not have been paying much attention. The characters are flat, while the dialect is outdated and overpowers the story.
The plot is loosely held together by mythical characters adapted from "Midsummer Night's Dream," who advance the story through the use of magic. I love fantasy, and I have no problem reading about magical people and creatures and their adventures. However, in this story Card uses magic to distract us from the fact that nothing is happening and the characters aren't interesting.

dreadful

why do white writers think they know a lot about black people? i generally find card a pleasure but this one was unbearable.
sorry.

Disappointing

I am a huge fan of Card's, but this was a very disappointing book. The story had a lot of potential but the dialogue was TERRIBLE.

really?

What disappointed you about Magic Street?

Strange twist of Shakespeare and a random story. I guess it was interesting enough because I finished it but not the best work by Card.

Desperate

I've enjoyed other books by Card, but this one was weak. It was as if he was deperate to write a book no matter how bad it was. At the end he claims he wrote the book to please a friend who wanted a book with a Black hero in it. Sadly the only way he could think to accomplish this was by plagerizing a Mid Summer Nights Dream. He took the characters and brought them into modern times as African-Amerian fairies.

The book itself was long, boring, the plot was too broken and anti-climatic. If you did nothing more than listen to the first and last hour of the book you would have the best parts of it.