{"id":1794,"date":"2020-01-08T15:00:13","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T22:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1794"},"modified":"2020-01-03T19:07:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04T02:07:06","slug":"book-heartfire-1998","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/08\/book-heartfire-1998\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Heartfire (1998)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Heartfire\"Heartfire<\/u><\/strong>
\nYear: 1998
\nAuthor: Orson Scott Card
\nLength: 728 minutes \/ 12.13 hours<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a while since I read this far into a series, and I can start to see why I like trilogies and stand-alone books. If I didn\u2019t know any better, I\u2019d think this series had evolved into a courtroom drama instead of a historical fantasy. At this point, the whole premise of this series seems to have veered off course and has lost its focus to tackle unrelated issues that were somewhat prominent at the time. Or, at least it\u2019s merely acting as a chance to name drop historical figures and take the side of history against well-known issues that haven\u2019t aged well over time.<\/p>\n

If anything, Heartfire<\/em> could have easily been the fourth book in the series, since Alvin Journeyman<\/em><\/a> added nothing to the story. Even so, Heartfire<\/em> didn\u2019t feel as strong as earlier books in the series. It almost seems like there\u2019s more of a focus on world-building. There is less focus on actually progressing the story\u2014like the path toward the Crystal City. Certain plot elements were almost entirely forgotten as well, even if there was a whole legal battle in the last book to re-hash how Alvin came into possession of a sentient golden plow (which itself is still unclear why it\u2019s important).<\/p>\n

By now, I\u2019m merely reading the series on autopilot just to see if there is any conclusion to the alternate history presented here. I still think there are clever takes on historical figures, but by now, they seem added in as a heavy winking nod to the reader, most of whom will already know the referenced individual. Perhaps the lack of overall character growth in this book is what made it such a so-so read for me. Sure, there were baby steps toward some redemption arc, but in the end, nothing ended up changing the drive of the overarching story.<\/p>\n

Another weak link in the Alvin Journeyman<\/em> series, I give Heartfire<\/em> 3.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" <\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heartfire Year: 1998 Author: Orson Scott Card Length: 728 minutes \/ 12.13 hours It\u2019s been a while since I read this far into a series, and I can start to see why I like trilogies and stand-alone books. If I didn\u2019t know any better, I\u2019d think this series had evolved into a courtroom drama instead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,54],"tags":[2128,2037,55,2129,2091,554,8,28],"class_list":["post-1794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-book","tag-2128","tag-alvin-maker","tag-book","tag-heartfire","tag-historical-fantasy","tag-orson-scott-card","tag-review","tag-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1799,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions\/1799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}