Thirteenth Child (1) (Frontier Magic)

I've always liked fantasy novels in "American" settings, but I haven't read a satisfying one since Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker books. This middle-grade novel evokes much of what makes the Card novels interesting, including a similar obsession with big families and birth order, and "uniquely American" magic. Unfortunately it fails to do what Card does successfully, which is acknowledge/incorporate the real complexity of American history and culture.

The story focuses on Eff, the thirteenth child of the title, who happens to be the twin sister of Lan, a seventh son of a seventh son. By the standards of the (Europeanish) magical system their family uses, Lan is destined to do great things and Eff is destined to "go bad". Because their extended family insists upon treating Lan like a king and Eff like a walking time bomb, the children's parents decide to move them to another town closer to the frontier, where Lan might not grow up with a swelled head, and Eff can grow up with a fresh start.

I liked the way this book focused on family dynamics; a lot of the "drama" in the story comes from just the ordinary interactions of a large family full of headstrong people. That's what kept me reading. I also liked Eff herself, who wasn't too perfect or anachronistically "modern", and yet also wasn't stupid or passive. She struck me very much as a "real" and normal character, coping with some decidedly abnormal stuff. She tackles those problems with pluck and cleverness.

Unfortunately the characters outside of the family weren't as well-realized (which is why I deducted a star). I guess this is inevitable when the family in question consists of twenty-some people... not much room to focus on the other folks in town, even though many of those people were fascinating. Eff seemed to have no friends but William, the son of the town magic snob -- I wanted to know a little more about him. I wanted to know lots more about Miss Ochiba, who seemed to have no purpose in the story other than to act as Eff's mentor (and as the only black woman in the story, she edges dangerously close to Magical Negro territory). I was also put off by the way the people who feared Eff's status as a thirteenth child were depicted as simply mean and bigoted. I wanted to know if they'd known a bad thirteenth child before, or if there was some history they were reacting to which might clarify their behavior. Were Caligula or Jack the Ripper thirteenth children, for example? Instead their objections were never explained, and these characters ended up being just one-dimensional villains. Even in a story aimed at kids, I expect more depth than this -- and after years of Harry Potter, Scott Westerfeld's books, etc., I think most kids will too.

I also deducted a star because of the worldbuilding, though I waffled on this. That's because I enjoyed a lot of it, such as the explanation of the world's three main magic systems (one corresponding to Europe, one corresponding to Asia, and one corresponding to Africa, though they all have different names here). And I loved the idea of a fantasy-alternate America populated with dragons and mammoths (!) and other "magical" wildlife. But I was actively offended by the apparent erasure of indigenous people from this America -- there's nothing on the continent but forests and animals, making for a spooky sort of Manifest Destiny message as the mostly-European settlers make their way across it. The author appears to have considered what this absence would do to her alternate America -- for example, all place-names based on Native naming have been changed (e.g. the Mississippi is now the "Mammoth river"). But this actually adds to the problem, because it suggests Native Americans contributed nothing to early American culture but names. Also, though there are a few black people present among the settlers and Asians are said to exist somewhere, there doesn't seem to have been a system of slavery (or I missed it) or labor exploitation in this world. So I can't help wondering how this alternate America has been settled so effectively. Slavery was evil, yes, but it's also an inescapable part of American history because of the desperate shortage of labor in the country's early years. There simply weren't enough Europeans to do it all, grow at such a breakneck pace, and still feed themselves -- so who did the work here? It's not just that. This world has a railroad system, but we see no Chinese people, so who laid the tracks? For that matter, where are the poor white people, struggling to eat when (at one point in the book) there's a string of crop failures? If they're mentioned, I didn't see them.

I think this is what bugs me most. The book's theme is that America is unique because of its diverse mix of cultures, yet the book fails to actually *depict* much of that.

The children and teens who this book is aimed at might not pick up on this, or they might be sufficiently dazzled by dragons!!! over the Mississippi!!! which I will admit almost distracted me. But I think a lot of kids are pretty savvy these days, and a lot of them *will* notice. I think it might leave the same bad taste in their mouths that it did me, ruining my enjoyment of an otherwise decent story. Because of that I cannot recommend this book.

Francis (nicknamed Eff) was born the 13th of 14 children. While her twin brother Lan (#14) is lauded for his potential as a natural magician (he is the 7th son of a 7th son), Eff is tormented and told that she'll turn evil. After her Uncle Earn tries to get her arrested for supposedly cursing his house when she was 4 years old, Eff's father decides to accept a University position (Magic instructor) out west to get both children away from the harmful influence on both twins; falsely glorifying one child, while falsely belittling the other.

Eff's mother puts it best: "I can see plain enough that an angel straight from heaven itself would grow up crooked if she was watched and chivvied and told every morning and every night that she was sure to turn evil, and I can see equally plain that fussing and fawning over a child that hasn't even learned his numbers yet, as if he were a prince of power and wisdom, will only grow him into a swell-headed, stuck-up scarecrow of a man, who like as not will never know good advice when he hears it, nor think to ask for it when he needs it."

Eff's family moves to the North Plains Territory east of the Great Barrier. The Great Barrier is a magical barrier that keeps creatures like Mammoths, woolly rhinoceri, swarming weasels and spectral bears on the west side of the barrier.

The oldest of Eff's siblings stay in the east (either to marry or go to University) and for the first few years in the new territory, no one mentions that Lan is the 7th son of a 7th son or that Eff is a 13th child.

Eff's first 4 years of life made an indelible impression and she is convinced that someday she will go bad. It preys on her conscience and finally she confesses to her magical teacher, Miss Ochiba. Miss Ochiba teaches the students to look at ordinary things in multiple ways and points out that Eff is also a 7th daughter, the first born of twins, and many other things besides a 13th child.

When strange creatures start to overwhelm settlers west of the Great Barrier, a 13th child may be the only one to see the solution.

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I've been anticipating this book since I first heard Ms. Wrede give a reading last August and "The Thirteenth Child" doesn't disappoint. Ms. Wrede's world-building is complete with an alternate history (Lewis and Clark never made it back from their expedition), and has that sense of adventure that the frontiersmen had when they explored the west. From different theories of magic to people who don't believe in using magic at all, the world Eff lives in has a depth and complexity worth exploring.

Set in an alternate historical, magical America, young Eff is an unlucky thirteenth child. Her twin brother Lan, on the other hand, is the seventh son of a seventh son -- destined for greatness. She and most of her immediate family move away from Helvan Shores for a fresh start on the magical frontier after her extended family refuse to stop harassing her for her supposed bad luck.

I had heard a lot about the controversy surrounding Wrede's alternative history frontier fantasy before I read it, so I settled down to read this book with some trepidation, even though I dearly love Patricia Wrede. Because her new Frontier Magic series takes place in an alternate American history, one where the United States never had a Native American population, many readers and critics were troubled. It seems deeply insensitive to eradicate a group of people who have already been through so much. And yet, reading the book, didn't feel as overwhelmingly uncomfortable as I would have thought. I'm also a fan of Joss Whedon's Firefly, a science-fiction/Wild West type show, and I have to admit, the lack of Native Americans on that show never bothered me. It was unclear to me, reading Wrede's book, if slavery had ever existed in her alternate history. While Aphrikan people (and their magic) seem to be a rare minority, no further backstory is given.

I liked the idea of frontierspeople struggling to hold their own against magical creatures; mammoths, dragons, enchanted beetles. Magic, in this world, is commonplace and everyday. The Wild West twang to the character's speech added depth to the story.

Eff's continual low self-esteem became a bit wearing as the story went on. She is just as worried at age eighteen about inadvertently causing bad luck to befall her family and loved ones as she was at age five, when her maliciously bad-tempered extended family went so far as to outright suggest that her parents do away with her. Some of the terms like Mammoth River (for the Mississippi) or Columbia (for America) being thrown together with place names such as Philadelphia threw me a bit. I wish that this had been set in a completely new world altogether, kind of like Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword.

I was fascinated with the Rationalists, Puritan-like settlers who eschew magic entirely. I was really rooting for them, especially after seeing how callously many of the magicians in the story treated Eff. Eff's older sister Rennie elopes with one of the Rationalists and her encampment is one of the only ones resistant to a particularly nasty strain of magical locust-like mirror bugs. So, I was disappointed when Eff finally has the chance to visit them and Rennie breaks down, admitting that life without magic is very, very hard -- so much so, that she's resorted to sneaking in a spell or two to make her hardscrabble life a bit easier.

On the whole, I enjoyed this book, and I'll definitely put it in the hands of young fantasy readers who enjoyed Wrede's Sorcery and Cecilia series, or the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. I'm curious how this book would fare as book club material; there are so many different themes at play to provide fodder for discussion.

This is an alternate reality fantasy, set in Columbia (America) in the mid-1800s. The War of Secession took place earlier (1832) and the North still won. Settlement hasn't been progressing nearly as fast, in fact it's more or less stalled at the Mammoth River (Mississippi). The first person protagonist's (Eff) family moves from the civilized east out to the town of Mill City, a jumping off point for western settlement, when she is 4, as her father accepts a position as Professor of Magic at the land grant college there.

At least part of the reason that the family moves is to get Eff and her younger twin brother Lan away from a really poisonous (for different reasons) atmosphere in the family home. Their father is a seventh son, which is viewed as bestowing strong luck and strong magical talent, and Lan is his seventh son and, being the seventh son of a seventh son, is considered super-duper special by everyone. His parents don't like the attention and fawning, which they consider likely to spoil him. Meanwhile Eff (we find out around the middle of the book that F is for Francine, which she doesn't like) is their seventh daughter, which is not accounted for much, but also their thirteenth child, which is considered every bit as special as Lan's double seven, except in all the wrong ways. She is constantly told, until her family moves away to Mill City when she's 4, that she is irredemably evil and will inevitably cause disaster and destruction.

The bulk of the book takes place in Mill City (and the last few chapters 'across the river') as Eff chronicles growing up in a West that never was, from 4 to 16, and coming to terms with being a thirteenth child.

Like pretty much everthing Wrede has written, this is a worthwhile book. Part of the fun, as it with any alternate world book is working out the poionts of departure. Philadelphia is still Philadelphia, and Washington is still Washington (and still the capital), but New York hasn't changed from New Amsterdam, the continent is Columbia, and Mammoth River empties into the Gulf of Amerigo. There is no indication that the Spanish occupied the lands south of Columbia, and there is no indication of a native population. My first thought on Mill City was that it was filling in for St. Louis, but it's mentioned in the book that the ill-fated Lewis & Clark expedition had started from St. Louis to the south. Becuase the prairie is west of there, and the Great Northern Forest is to the north, I'm guessing that Mill City is in Illinois, across from Iowa (likely Rock Island/Dubuque).

Proper credit to the folks who dream big. Even if they fail, they fail brilliantly, wrapped tightly within the confines of their meticulously constructed little worlds. When I got my copy of "Thirteen Child" I was told by two similar people two very different things. Friend #1 said: It's brilliant. It's like nothing you've read before. If you haven't read it, start. Friend #2 said: It's dull. Nothing happens. Don't waste your time. And as I am a fan of divisive books, I plunged right in. They've been describing this book as "[[ASIN:0064400409 The Little House on the Prairie]]" meets "[[ASIN:0545044251 Harry Potter]]". I'd call it the "[[ASIN:0812533054 Alvin Maker]]" books meet "[[ASIN:0142409138 Monster Blood Tattoo]]". However you choose to describe it, Wrede has woven a complex, thoughtful world. One that is not without its issues, but may be worth a visit just the same.

Eff was trouble from the moment she was born. That's what her relatives would have you believe anyway. Her twin brother Lan is the seventh son of a seventh son, and that's a good thing. But Eff is a thirteenth child, which as "everybody" knows means that she'll be turning evil one of these days. Eff's willing to believe it herself, but fortunately an opportunity comes up that allows her to leave the world of whispers and false accusations. Her father has accepted a commission to work at a college in the west. Once there, Eff learns that while she may not be powerful in the same way as her twin, she has access to magic and learning of an entirely different sort. And when a crises comes up that traps her nearest and dearest, Eff must draw upon new strength to solve the problem.

World building. That's the two-word phrase that circles this book like moths to a fluorescent bulb. Sometimes it feels like you can't find a review out there that doesn't use the term at some point. World building. It sounds like an arduous process, don't you think? The sheer construction of a world. If God did it in six to seven days then heaven only knows how long this took Wrede. And the sheer amount of thought that has gone into this book can leave you reeling. The explanation about how after the Secession War (which ended in 1838) the Assembly created colleges in the homestead areas to teach agriculture and engineering and Latin, law, and magic? That's clever. Or a sect of people who see magic as enabling, and living without it as healthy and whole. Smart stuff.

The downside of world building is speed. Wrede isn't going to begin this book with a slam bang action sequence or even much in the way of any conflict aside from the natural born suspicions of Eff and a brief confrontation between her family and her uncle's. Instead, the story rolls out with the details, thoughts, and feelings of another age. I found I liked reading this book because of the amount of depth Wrede poured into it, but I could see a lot of kids giving up a couple chapters in. Eff, for her part, often ponders things for entire days before acting on them. This isn't to say that there aren't kids out there that won't get into it. But it's a contemplative book. And for some, a dull process until the excitement at the end.

The whole "Little House meets Harry Potter" idea is cute, but that's not what I thought of as I read through this book. To my mind this book reminded me of nothing so much as the "[[ASIN:0142409138 Monster Blood Tattoo]]" series by D.M. Cornish, right now to the bone. Consider the similarities. In this story humans are trying to make lives for themselves but are constantly fighting magical beasts that destroy and devour them. In "Monster Blood Tattoo" humans are trying to live their lives only to be constantly fighting magical beasts that destroy and, occasionally, devour them. Both books are about frontiers (American vs. a disguised Australian outback). Both involve quite a bit of world building. The difference is in the details. When I told my "Thirteenth Child" disliking friend about these similarities her point was that this book was much slower than Cornish's texts. There is also the fact that in Cornish's world, the monsters speak. They become stand-ins for the Aborigines. An "other" that humans hurt and abuse because they refuse to learn anything about them. In "Thirteenth Child", though, Wrede has taken a very different tactic. While she could have gone the old natives-as-beasts route, she has chosen a different way of handling the situation. "Monster Blood Tattoo" is about colonization. "Thirteenth Child"? Manifest destiny.

Which brings up the whole issue of race. Now full credit where credit is due, Ms. Wrede has two three-dimensional people of color in this book, and that's great. One of them, Mr. Wash Morris is a kind of Lee Scoresby character. The kind of rough-hewn man of the world that a girl-child like Eff/Lyra is going to instantly trust. A stand-in father figure, perhaps. Miss Ochiba is a little more difficult to define. With race you never want the minority to be the all-knowing wise person who teaches the white people a little more about themselves. Miss Ochiba comes dangerously close to that description, but what saves her from stereotype is her wit, character, and the fact that she really doesn't hand our heroine all her answers on a silver platter.

Then there is the issue of the American Indians. Which is to say, there aren't any. I had a discussion with my husband about this fact and the two of us hammered it out. Wrede had a couple ways she could go with this. You can include the American Indians and then give them magic like everyone else in this world. Problem with that is the potential for offense. I mean, if Wrede doesn't want her focus to be on the native population, then they're going to be relegated to the sidelines. To be historically accurate they'd be at war with our heroine's family too. And then there'd be the danger of learning their form of magic, how it's not better than anyone else's, etc. etc. etc. It could get all New Age spiritual on you. Alternatively, you don't give them any magic and then there's the question of why everyone else in the world has it EXCEPT for them. So Ms. Wrede removed them from the picture entirely. She didn't make any of the beasts of the wild sentient either, so there's no way of making a parallel between fighting beasts vs. fighting Indians. Is it a perfect situation? No, because now you've just gotten rid of an entire race. People are going to get mad about this absence.

Finally: "[[ASIN:0812533054 Seventh Son]]" (also known as the "Alvin Maker" books) by Orson Scott Card. Forget any comparisons to any other books I've mentioned. The story and world that I kept flashing back to when I read this book was Card's. Both his series and this one is concerned with seventh sons of seventh sons who live in an alternative frontier version of America where there is magic. History conforms to these new rules (as do place names). Card's world makes magic out of old wives' tales and hexes. Wrede actually teaches her magic in schoolhouses and universities. Card worked in American Indians, Wrede doesn't, and so the two series makes for a fascinating compare and contrast.

While it's sophisticated and (relatively) slow, there's nothing in this book that's inappropriate for the advanced 10-year-old. Even the one mention of out-of-wedlock sex is only obliquely referred to in terms of counting back the months from a child's birth. And for the right reader (maybe the one who likes "Seventh Son" even) there are just so many little details to enjoy. Like the fact that Benjamin Franklin was a self-educated seventh son of a seventh son (not hard to believe when you look at how many siblings he had in real life). You can respect an author's vision without necessarily loving it. But while I would have liked there to be just a touch more action and occurrences in "Thirteenth Child" I can respect that it's a studied look at a new alternative history. Not a perfect one, certainly. But original.

I have read and enjoyed as many of Patricia Wrede's books that I can get my hands on. Many I have bought and read over and over again. So I was very excited to read this new offering from a favorite author. Unfortunately, this book was not up to the standard of her others. The characters were not as well-developed or as interesting. You felt somewhat vested in what happened to Eff, the main character, but she had nowhere near the personality of Kate or Cecilia ("Sorcery and Cecilia") or even of Kim ("Mareilon the Magician"). The story itself was an ongoing narrative of Eff's growing older. The problem is, I kept waiting for something to happen, it felt like something was going to happen, but nothing ever did. The end did have a larger "event" but even that was anti-climactic. I also expected some sort of resolution of the character's lives, which did not come. The parts of the book that went into magic were extremely confusing and hard to relate back to the story. I'm sad to give this such a mediocre review, but maybe Wrede will give us something a little better next time?

Thirteenth Child is set in the northern mid-west of a frontier America with magic, where some things are familiar (the first three presidents, the state of Pennsylvania), but many are not (particularly the mammoths and steam dragons of the great plains). Eff's large family is realistic and delightful. Her twin brother is the lucky and powerful seventh son of a seventh son, but she is the unlucky thirteenth child, or at least so her more distant relatives, especially her uncle, insist. Their magic teacher leads them to explore the three main geographical schools of magic. Lovely worldbuilding and a good story, but I'm glad that this is the first book of Frontier Magic, as it seems to be setting up for much more to come.

How the west was won - with magic. I loved this book. We had here a complciated character who had a central problem to get over, and struggled with it. The first person perspective was also executed well, without any slips into other heads or out of character chepters. Eff's point of view remained fresh trhougout, and I for one could not wait to see her to concur her fears and blossom into the power that she obviously possessed.

The only down side is how long I'll have to wait for book two.

This book is a wonderful twist on `magical worlds'. Instead of following the typical conventions of the magical fantasy genre, Wrede recreates our own history, complete with the same people, like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. The only difference is that the world operates openly in magic. There are magic schools everywhere throughout the world, and several branches of magic that emerged from various cultures.

Set in what would have been the settler time of American history, Wrede tells the story through the eyes of Eff, who narrates in an honest and personal style that makes it a very enjoyable read. Also, Wrede keeps more with the genre of literature during that time period with a tone that harkens to Mark Twain or Willa Cather. My personal favorite part, however, is the fact that unlike most stories about magic, this isn't about one child hero who needs to save the world from the greatest evil that history has ever known or ever will know. It's a story about a girl's personal journey with her own power and her process of growing up, and the evils that she faces are not necessarily related to terrible magical creatures that threaten to end life as everyone knows it. Although there's a little of that as well.

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This is a great alternate history of the western expansion where witches and wizards are just as important as the founding fathers!

When Eff receives nothing but grief from neighbors and family alike for being the 13th child her parents decide to take a postion at a University on the edge of the magical divide. The kids are excited and afraid of what awaits in this new frontier...the boys can't wait to see the Wooly Mammoths but Eff can't wait to be in a place where no one knows she is the 13th child!

Wrede does a wonderful job of character development and I love the introduction of the Realists who believe that they can conquer the frontier without magic.

This book will keep you captivated from the first page - I loved it!