Orson Scott Card has the distinction of having swept both the Hugo and
Nebulaawards in two consecutive years with his amazing novels Ender’s
Game
and Speaker for the Dead. For a body of work that ranges from science
fiction to nonfiction to plays, Card has been recognized as an author
who provides vivid, colorful glimpses between the world we know and
worlds we can only imagine.
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 at once surrounded by boisterous
characters and deeply alone. But while Mack senses that he is different
from most, and knows that he has strange powers, he cannot possibly
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 where time and
reality are skewed, a place where what Mack does and sees seem to have
strange affects in the “real world” of concrete, cars, commerce, and
conflict. Growing into a tall, powerful young man, pursuing a forbidden
relationship, and using Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night 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.