posted
Patiently awaiting the next/last Alvin book. Recently finished rereading all of them, for the zillionth time.
I know you're not doing this for me, Mr. Card, sir, that you must follow your muse-- and I respect that, as I respect so much of your amazing body of work.
But dude.... Alvin?
I drove from Cincinnati to Chicago last week, and back, in a day, on business. Passed by Prophetstown State Park.
posted
I think we'll have to wait a little while before we get to the thrilling conclusion, but yeah, pretty much everything I know about Native American history between the American Revolution and the War of 1812 I learned from the Alvin books.
Posts: 100 | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
On the other hand, Amazon sent out a date for Ender in Exile.... I don't know if it's valid or not, and Ender isn't Alvin, but maybe once one project is done he'll have time for another
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I honestly don't think it's going to be written. As far as I'm aware, OSC has never even spoken the words "Master Alvin," and the title was made by the fans. If you look at the language he uses, he always calls The Crystal City the "last" or "final" book in the series. Not the "latest book" or "most recent" book, but the final.
Also, he has explicitly posted on this forum (I won't bother looking it up, since it was a long time ago) the events that happened after Crystal City. Among them were Alvin being murdered and the Crystal City being torn down (paralleling the life of Joseph Smith, just as the previous books do). At the end of the post, he said, "Now you don't have to read the last story." Seems to be a pretty clear indicator to me that he doesn't want to write it.
Posts: 23 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I have heard OSC say "penultimate" when referring to The Crystal City. Maybe he doesn't have the heart to kill Alvin, or maybe he fears that he'd get carried away with emulating the life of Joseph Smith. OSC has said that he mostly writes the Alvin books whimsically, using whatever ideas he had had recently, so maybe nothing good has popped into his mind. I'd hate to read a book by OSC that the author doesn't care about, so it's for the better that Card is taking his time.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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I hope Crystal City isn't the last. That would be a huge disappointment, not to mention unexpected. I don't mind waiting for it as long as I know it will eventually be written.
Any one of the Ender's Shadows books could have ended and I would have felt the story wrapped up well enough. Each next book just felt like a bonus. However Alvin has been building up to a crescendo for Alvin Maker (or whatever it will be called) and to not finish it at this point would be a huge cop out. Especially if the excuse is that "its just too hard" or "you know the rest of the story already". No I don't know the rest of the story. Sure it may parralel the life and death of Joseph Smith, but its not Joseph Smith, and sure killing off your main charachter is hard, but this is the man that gave us Lost Boys for crying out loud. What could possibly have been harder than writing that?
Posts: 197 | Registered: Jan 2007
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The Alvis series isn't over if Alvin's alive. OSC has been very clear about that.
I imagine Master Alvin is up soon on his to-do list, because I seem to recall it's one of the books OSC's under contract to write. After Ender, Alvin is OSC's most valuable property and my guess is his publisher would like to have the last book in hand ASAP.
Also, of course, there're the teeming hordes that wish to read it. Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Here is a transcription of his comments on the geekson.com interview, which everyone can go and hear right now at www.geekson.com. It's show # 18, and the interview starts at about 57 minutes into the episode:
OSC (talking about the Alvin Maker series): "No, no, in fact I just did the 6th book, but there will be a 7th and that's the final one. It's definitely done because at the end of the 7th one, which will be called 'Master Alvin', Alvin will be very, very dead. Thoroughly, completely dead. Not like Ender in 'Children of the Mind'. He's completely dead, so that's how people will know the series is over."
EDIT: Granted, this interview is now 3 years old, but what he says is quite clear.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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From the notes on "The Yazoo Queen" in Keeper of Dreams: "Just as I was about to start writing The Crystal City, the penultimate book in the Alvin Maker series..."
And this was published just months ago, so presumably he's still planning to write another.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
I was at a book signing with Orson Scott Card and I heard him say there will be 1 more Alvin book (i.e. "Master Alvin"). So add me to the witness count.
Posts: 15 | Registered: May 2008
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posted
I really am a patient person, but not to even see it in the works in progress section of the bibliography is beginning to get old...I mean I realize that it probably is in the works, but not seeing that on this site, and not knowing any dates, any rough timeline or even a ballpark guess is starting to kill me.
posted
Well, his comments on the letter regarding GRRM's "letting down" the fan seem spot-on. Authors write books when they choose to write them. Whining about the fact that they haven't yet done so doesn't actually encourage them nearly as much as you might think. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Sure, sure, I imagine it gets very annoying after a while... And I don't feel that OSC is letting me down...I'm just so excited for the last book...Guess I'll just shut up and wait now.
Posts: 7 | Registered: May 2009
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I'll have to read up on that... EDIT: Just figured out what the deal is with WoT. That would be very dissapointing to have the author die just before the end of a long series.
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I felt like I stated upfront that I was acknowledging the entitlement thing. I don't expect an author to bend his schedule for me, or assume that the emotional connection I have to the work of the author is in any way reciprocal.
I just wanted to know if the on-and-off scuttlebutt about the perennially forthcoming final Alvin book had any updates, while voicing my desire for there to be some sort of closure. I respect my favorite authors enough not to try to impose my will over their lives-- but that doesn't mean I don't have wishes that I have a right to voice, if tempered with appropriate respect.
posted
I agree wholeheartedly with that statement, it's just that I recently (like, last week) finished reading books 1-6, and, just like everytime I get finished, I am dying for the end...but I don't mind waiting, there's always another book to read in the mean time...
Posts: 7 | Registered: May 2009
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posted
in an article in 2007 he mentioned the title of a final alvin maker book called master alvin. There is a database that has a release date in 2013 but that doesn't mean it will happen then for sure.
Posts: 4 | Registered: Jul 2012
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I agree a writer works at his own speed and to meet the contractual obligations he has set for himself but, hey,over 20 YEARS to do a 7 book series and many, many years since the last one? I don't have that many more left!
Posts: 7 | Registered: Jul 2012
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what does this have anything to do with this thread??
I read this article from Gaiman a few months back, and i don't agree with it. At all.
The fact is that when an author begins a series, he is in fact entering into an implied contract with the reader. It's not legally binding, of course, and sometimes life does interfere. But the author is saying, "Buy this book, read it, live with it for a while. Invest your time, and trust me that the journey I am taking you on is worth the effort."
Readers who entered that contract with Robert Jordan got the short end of the deal. Now, I highly doubt RJ planned to die, or thought he would die, or wanted to die. Like I said earlier, sometimes life happens. But the fact is RJ didn't fulfill his end of the implied contract with his readers.
My problem is not so much writers who take years between novels. I'd rather wait five years for a good novel than get a mediocre book-a-year. I get frustrated when authors introduce massive contradictions, plot holes, and unresolved questions. When this happens, I feel cheated (I'm looking at you, Executive Producers of LOST!), as if I cared more about the story than the writers.
Posts: 187 | Registered: Jul 2003
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what does this have anything to do with this thread??
I read this article from Gaiman a few months back, and i don't agree with it. At all.
The fact is that when an author begins a series, he is in fact entering into an implied contract with the reader. It's not legally binding, of course, and sometimes life does interfere. But the author is saying, "Buy this book, read it, live with it for a while. Invest your time, and trust me that the journey I am taking you on is worth the effort."
Readers who entered that contract with Robert Jordan got the short end of the deal. Now, I highly doubt RJ planned to die, or thought he would die, or wanted to die. Like I said earlier, sometimes life happens. But the fact is RJ didn't fulfill his end of the implied contract with his readers.
My problem is not so much writers who take years between novels. I'd rather wait five years for a good novel than get a mediocre book-a-year. I get frustrated when authors introduce massive contradictions, plot holes, and unresolved questions. When this happens, I feel cheated (I'm looking at you, Executive Producers of LOST!), as if I cared more about the story than the writers.
The problem with Robert Jordon is that his greed overtook his original scope. He had planned on just a trilogy, then kept going because they started selling. He got to what...13 books? That's too much.
A lot of people are afraid that A Song of Fire and Ice is going to end up taking too long, but at least the author is concentrating on them. He isn't starting several new series and leaving this one unfinished.
OSC is under a different kind of predicament. He doesn't know how to stick to just one series. Instead of working on a single line of stories at a time, he's starting up two or three different series. It's like he has some strange form of literary ADD or something. I don't know. I wish he'd give a statement on it, but I suppose he's busy right now with the Ender's Game movie happening. Maybe once all of that has settled down he'll release some information. Maybe not.
Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
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posted
GRRM is totally concentrating on writing A Song of Ice and Fire. And not Wild Cards. Or figurines of characters from his books. Or replica Valyrian swords. Or the tv show made from his books. He's laser-focused.Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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what does this have anything to do with this thread??
I read this article from Gaiman a few months back, and i don't agree with it. At all.
The fact is that when an author begins a series, he is in fact entering into an implied contract with the reader. It's not legally binding, of course, and sometimes life does interfere. But the author is saying, "Buy this book, read it, live with it for a while. Invest your time, and trust me that the journey I am taking you on is worth the effort."
Readers who entered that contract with Robert Jordan got the short end of the deal. Now, I highly doubt RJ planned to die, or thought he would die, or wanted to die. Like I said earlier, sometimes life happens. But the fact is RJ didn't fulfill his end of the implied contract with his readers.
My problem is not so much writers who take years between novels. I'd rather wait five years for a good novel than get a mediocre book-a-year. I get frustrated when authors introduce massive contradictions, plot holes, and unresolved questions. When this happens, I feel cheated (I'm looking at you, Executive Producers of LOST!), as if I cared more about the story than the writers.
I hear you about Lost. I'm still angry about that myself.
But I agree with Gaiman that a writer OWES you nothing. You buy the ticket, you take the ride. There is no implied anything. "Here is a book. Hope you enjoy it." Artists are not indentured servants. They have absolute freedom to go where they want to go with what they create. If someone doesn't like it, that's very sad and all, but... they owe you nothing. You exercise your freedom to sign on to an unfinished series, or not. To buy the book, or not.
Although any time that GRRM wants to release the next book is a-ok with me. I'm dyin' over here.
Posts: 115 | Registered: May 2011
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posted
That's part of the reason I haven't bothered with the Alvin series. If there's little to no indication that he'll ever finish, then why should I read it? Sure it might be fun for a while, but then I'll always feel like it was incomplete.
That was always the beauty of Ender's Game to me. It was a stand alone novel that didn't need to be followed up with. Even with the sequels, they're still complete. Everything he writes for the series now is just a bonus, which is fine with me. I've read the main story, so whatever else he writes is merely to fill in the gaps and answer lingering questions.
Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
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posted
Well, there's no indication that Ice and Fire will finish, but you should probably read that.
Also, a ton of televion shows don't finish (well), but I don't regret watching them cos they was awesome.
Posts: 1407 | Registered: Oct 2008
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