From Library Journal
YA-Card uses Grimm's "Sleeping Beauty" as the loom upon which he weaves his magical time-travel tale. Using the fabric of traditional fairy-tale elements and Russian folklore, myth, and history, he sets the stage for his drama set in the present and 1000 years in the past. Ten-year-old Ivan stumbles upon Sleeping Beauty deep in the Russian forests near his uncle's farm, only to flee in terror at some dimly perceived menace. Now an American graduate student studying folklore and ancient Slavic languages, he is drawn back to Russia to research his thesis and to seek out his uncle's farm. Back in the woods, he defeats Sleeping Beauty's evil guardian through athletic prowess and intellect. He awakens her with a kiss, only to find that he now has to promise to marry her in order to help her save her kingdom from the witch Baba Yaga. The youthful protagonists, the elements of fantasy and romance, and Card's imaginative, humorous storytelling make this a winner for young adults.
John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Card's new fantasy (Heartfire, 1998, etc.) reworks an Old Russian variant of the Sleeping Beauty tale. In the Carpathian forest, the boy Ivan Smetski stumbled upon a leaf-filled pit where an eerie malevolent presence deterred him from reaching a pedestal upon which lay a beautiful sleeping girl. Years later, Ivan, now an upstate New York scholar of Slavic languages and folklore, returns to Russia to research ancient manuscripts. Inevitably, he returns to the pit . . . to find a huge, slavering bear guarding the sleeper. This time, he puts out the bear's eye with a rock, leaps to the pedestal, and wakens the girl with a kiss. Princess Katerina conducts him across an invisible bridge, where, astonishingly, it's 890 a.d., and the horrid megalomaniac witch Baba Yaga threatens Katerina's homeland. Ivan struggles to adjust: not only does Katerina despise him because he lacks the muscles necessary for plowing or battle, but because he's Jewish and has to convert to Christianity before they can marry (which they must do to avert Baba Yaga's curse). Worse, the evil witch goads Katerina's folk into plotting and treachery, so the coupletheir marriage solemnized but unconsummatedflee back to 1992, a world as bewildering to Katerina as is hers to Ivan. But Baba Yaga soon follows, so Ivan's good-witch mother Esther helps Katerina fend off the witch's magical sorties, while Ivan learns how to make gunpowder, a secret he can carry back with him to 890. Finally, the pair realize they love each other, consummate the marriage, and return across the bridge. Baba Yaga also returns (she hijacks a 747), and the stage is set for a desperate showdown involving contending armies, loyalties, magic, and wits. Richly detailed and engagingly peopled: a fascinating remake, if sometimes dreadfully long-winded. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"Orson Scott Card is a master storyteller . . . Enchantment is the ultimate proof."
--ANNE MCCAFFREY
"[A] MASTERPIECE OF THE FANTASTIC . . . THIS IS A NOVEL TO SAVOR . . . DELICIOUS."
--Rocky Mountain News
"Mixing magic and modernity, the acclaimed Orson Scott Card has woven threads of history, religion, and myth together into a convincing, time-hopping tale that is part love story, part adventure."
--Amazon.com
"CARD IS A POWERFUL STORYTELLER."
--Los Angeles Times
From the Paperback edition.
From the Publisher
As one of the most consistently exciting writers to emerge in the last twenty-five years, Orson Scott Card has been honored with numerous awards, immersing readers in dazzling worlds only he could create. Now, in Enchantment, Card works his magic as never before, transforming the timeless story of Sleeping Beauty into an original fantasy brimming with romance and adventure.The moment Ivan stumbled upon a clearing in the dense Carpathian forest, his life was forever changed. Atop a pedestal encircled by fallen leaves, the beautiful princess Katerina lay still as death. But beneath the foliage a malevolent presence stirred and sent the ten-year-old Ivan scrambling for the safety of Cousin Marek's farm.
Now, years later, Ivan is an American graduate student, engaged to be married. Yet he cannot forget that long-ago day in the forest--or convince himself it was merely a frightened boy's fantasy. Compelled to return to his native land, Ivan finds the clearing just as he left it.
This time he does not run. This time he awakens the beauty with a kiss . . . and steps into a world that vanished a thousand years ago.
A rich tapestry of clashing worlds and cultures, Enchantment is a powerfully original novel of a love and destiny that transcend centuries . . . and the dark force that stalks them across the ages.
Like countless others I was mesmerized by Scott Card's seminal Ender's Saga. But it wasn't until I read his other books when I realized just what a brilliant writer Card really is. Books like Treason, Dispatches of Christopher Columbus, the Alvin-Maker series and Wyrms were just as good as Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead yet so completly different. Which brings me to ENCHANTMENT. In this book Scott has written something perhaps no one but himself exepcted to write - a love story. And what an engaging story this is. One never knows what to expect from Orson Scott Card, except he always manage to astound and surprise, and ENCHANTMENT is Card at top-form!
--Kuo-Yu Liang, Associate Publisher, Del Rey Books
Orson Scott Card is one of those writers who never fails to amaze me. His extraordinary language and imagination draw me into his stories, but its
his characters that keep me glued to the page. They feel so real to me that I find myself nodding in agreement and thinking, "yes, that's exactly the
way life is" or "that's just how a person would react in that situation." His work is so rich that I can read the same book over and over and find
something different and wonderful each time.
Enchantment does all this and more. In addition to showcasing all of Card's hallmark talents, this novel breaks new ground -- no small feat for a
writer of such high calibre.
--Amy Stout, Editor, Del Rey Books
From the Inside Flap
e most consistently exciting writers to emerge in the last twenty-five years, Orson Scott Card has been honored with numerous awards, immersing readers in dazzling worlds only he could create. Now, in Enchantment, Card works his magic as never before, transforming the timeless story of Sleeping Beauty into an original fantasy brimming with romance and adventure.
The moment Ivan stumbled upon a clearing in the dense Carpathian forest, his life was forever changed. Atop a pedestal encircled by fallen leaves, the beautiful princess Katerina lay still as death. But beneath the foliage a malevolent presence stirred and sent the ten-year-old Ivan scrambling for the safety of Cousin Marek's farm.
Now, years later, Ivan is an American graduate student, engaged to be married. Yet he cannot forget that long-ago day in the forest--or convince himself it was merely a frightened boy's fantasy. Compelled to return to his native land, Ivan finds the clearing just as he left it.
From the Back Cover
"Card is a powerful storyteller."
--Los Angeles Times"[His] 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
"Card is skilled at pacing and good with an action scene, but he has raised to a fine art the creation of suspense by ethical dilemma, and in doing so has raised his work to a high plane."
--Chicago Sun-Times
"Orson Scott Card makes a strong case for being the best writer science fiction has to offer."
--The Houston Post
"Card understands the human condition . . . He tells the truth well--ultimately the only criterion of greatness."
--Gene Wolfe
About the Author
Orson Scott Card, a New York Times bestselling author, has won several Hugo and Nebula awards for his works of speculative fiction.
Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than three thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile's Golden Voices in 2012.
Gabrielle de Cuir, award-winning narration, has narrated over two hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. She was a cowinner of the Audie Award for best narration in 2011 and a three-time finalist for the Audie and has garnered six AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her velvet touch as an actor's director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"I'm ten years old, my whole life you've called me Vanya. My name is on the school records, on government papers as Ivan Petrovich Smetski. Now you tell me I'm really Itzak Shlomo. What am I, a Jewish secret agent?"
Vanya's father listened silently, his face as smooth, weathered, and blank as parchment. Vanya's mother, who was merely hovering near the conversation rather than taking part in it, seemed to be having a little trouble keeping herself from smiling. In amusement? If so, at what? At Vanya? At her husband's sudden discovery of their intense commitment to Judaism?
Whatever the cause of her almost-smile, Vanya did not want to be ridiculous. Even at the age of ten, dignity was important to him. He calmed himself, spoke in more measured tones. "We eat pork," he pointed out. "Rak. Caviar."
"I think Jews can eat caviar," offered his mother helpfully.
"I hear them whispering, calling me zhid, they say they only want to race with Russians, I can't even run with them," said Vanya. "I've always been the fastest runner, the best hurdler, and yesterday they wouldn't even let me keep time. And it's my stopwatch!"
"Mine, actually," said Father.
"The principal won't let me sit in class with the other children because I'm not a Russian or a Ukrainian, I'm a disloyal foreigner, a Jew. So why don't I know how to speak Hebrew? You change everything else, why not that?"
Father looked up toward the ceiling.
"What is that look, Father? Prayer? All these years, whenever I talk too much, you look at the ceiling--were you talking to God then?"
Father turned his gaze to Vanya. His eyes were heavy--scholar's eyes, baggy and soft from always peering through lenses at a thousand hectares of printed words. "I have listened to you," he said. "Ten years old, a boy who thinks he's so brilliant, he rails on and on, showing no respect for his father, no trust. I do it all for your sake."
"And for God's," offered Mother. Was she being ironic? Vanya had never been able to guess about Mother.
"For you I do this," said Father. "You think I did it for me? My work is here in Russia, the old manuscripts. What I need from other countries is sent to me because of the respect I've earned. I make a good living."
"Made," said Mother.
For the first time it occurred to Vanya that if he was cut out of school classes, Father's punishment might be even more dire. "You lost your place at the university?"
Father shrugged. "My students will still come to me."
"If they can find you," said Mother. Still that strange smile.
"They'll find me! Or not!" cried Father. "We'll eat or not! But we will get Vanya--Itzak--out of this country so he grows up in a place where this mouth of his, this disrespect for everyone that doesn't measure up to his lofty standards, where they will call it creativity or cleverness or rock and roll!"
"Rock and roll is music," said Vanya.
"Prokofiev is music, Stravinski is music, Tchaikovski and Borodin and Rimski-Korsakov and even Rachmaninov, they are music. Rock and roll is smart boys with no respect, you are rock and roll. All the trouble you get into at school, you will never get into university with this attitude. Why are you the only child in Russia who doesn't learn to bow his head to power?"
Father had asked this question at least a dozen times before, and this time as always, Vanya knew that his father was saying it more in pride than in consternation. Father liked the fact that Vanya spoke his mind. He encouraged it. So how did this become the reason for the family to declare itself Jewish and apply for a visa to Israel? "You make a decision without asking me, and it's my fault?"
"I have to get you out of here, let you grow up in a free land," said Father.
"Israel is a land of war and terrorism," said Vanya. "They'll make me a soldier and I'll have to shoot down Palestinians and burn their houses."
"None of that propaganda is true," said Father. "And besides, it won't matter. I can promise you that you will never be a soldier of Israel."
Vanya was scornful for a moment, until it dawned on him why Father was so certain he wouldn't be drafted into the Israeli military. "Once you get out of Russia, you aren't going to Israel at all."
Father sighed. "What you don't know, you can't tell."
There was a knock at the door. Mother went to answer.
"Maybe here in Russia you aren't in class for a while," said Father. "And this nonsense of running, you'll never be world champion, that's for Africans. But your mind will be quick long after your legs slow down, and there are countries where you will be valued."
"Which other countries?" asked Vanya.
Mother was letting somebody into the apartment.
"Maybe Germany. Maybe England. Canada, maybe."
"America," whispered Vanya.
"How do I know? It depends where there's a university that wants an aging scholar of ancient Slavic literature."
America. The enemy. The rival. The land of jeans and rock and roll, of crime and capitalism, of poverty and oppression. Of hope and freedom. All kinds of stories about America, from rumor, from the government press. It was 1975 and the Vietnam War had ended only a few years ago--America had bloody hands. But through all the propaganda, the rivalry, the envy, one message was constant: America was the most important country on earth. And that's where Father wanted him to grow up. That's why Mother's Jewish relatives were suddenly the only ones who counted, they and Father's grandmother on his mother's side. To get them to America.
For a moment, Vanya almost understood.
Then Mother came back into the room. "He's here."
"Who's here?" asked Vanya.
Father and Mother looked at him blankly.
"He's called a mohel," said Mother finally. Then they explained what this old Jewish man was going to do to Vanya's penis.
Ten seconds later, Vanya was down the stairs, out on the street, running for his life, running in despair. He was not going to let a man take hold of his member and cut bits of it off just so he could get on a plane and fly to the land of cowboys. By the time he came home, the mohel was gone, and his parents said nothing about his abrupt departure. He took no false hope from this. In Vanya's family, silence had never meant surrender, only tactical retreat.
Even without the mohel, though, Vanya continued to take solace in running. Isolated at school, resentful at home, cut off from romping with his friends, he took to the streets again and again, day after day, running, dodging, leaving behind him ever-grumpier mutters and shouts of Slow down! Watch your step! Show some respect! Crazy boy! To Vanya that was part of the music of the city.
Running was the way he dreamed. Having never been in control of his own life, his idea of freedom was simply to break free. He dreamed of being at the mercy of the wind, carried aloft and blown here and there, a life of true randomness instead of always being part of someone else's purpose. Father's earnest, inconvenient plans for him. Mother's ironic vision of life as one prank after another, in the midst of which you did what was needed. What I need, Mother, is to kite myself up in the air and cut the string and fly untethered. What I need, Father, when you're setting out the pieces for your living chess game, is to be left in the box.
Forget me!
But running couldn't save him from anyone's plans, in the end. Nor did it bring him freedom, for his parents, as always, took his little idiosyncrasies in stride. In fact they made it part of their story; he overheard them telling some of their new Jewish friends that they had to be patient with Itzak, he was between realities, having had the old one stolen from him and not yet ready to enter the new one. How did they think of these glib little encapsulations of his life?
Only when Father underwent the male ritual of obedience himself did Vanya realize that this Jewish business was not just something they were doing to their son. Father tried to go about his ordinary work but could not; though he said nothing, his pain and embarrassment at showing it made him almost silent.
Mother, ever supportive, said nothing even to refer to what the mohel had done to her husband, but Vanya thought he detected a slight smirk on her face when Father asked her to fetch him something that ordinarily he would get up and find for himself. He wondered briefly if this meant that Mother thought the whole enterprise of believing in God was amusing, but as Father's wound healed and life returned to what passed for normal these days, Vanya began to suspect that, despite her irony, it was Mother who was a believer.
Perhaps she had been a believer all along, despite slathering the tangy, bacony lard on her bread like any other Russian. Father's discovery of his Jewishness was part of an overall strategy; Mother simply knew who ran the universe. Father was forcing himself to act like a believer. Mother showed not a doubt that God really existed. She just wasn't on speaking terms with him. "Six million Jews died from the Fascists," she said to Father. "Your one voice, praying, is going to fill all that silence? When a child dies, do you comfort the parents by bringing them a puppy to take care of?"
Mother apparently believed not only in the idea of God, but also that he was the very same God who chose the Jews back when it was just Abraham carting his barren wife around with him, pretending she was his sister whenever some powerful man lusted after her.
That was a favorite story for Vanya, as Father insisted that they s...
In a variation of the tale of "Sleeping Beauty," Ivan is transported back about a century with his princess. Then unravels a story of magic and a classic struggle of good and evil, with a little time-travel and a sprinkling of fantasy thrown in. Alyssa Bresnahan narrates with enthusiasm, control, and empathy. Her no-nonsense style makes it easy to follow the complicated plot. She does not provide distinct voices for each character, but the dialogue is clear and flows smoothly. The plot is a little hard to follow, but that may be function of the abridgment. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
