Book Review: Red Prophet

Orson Scott Card

1988

Awards: Locus
Nominations: Nebula, Hugo

Rating: ★ ★ ★ – –

Red Prophet is the second book in Orson Scott Card’s “Tales of Alvin Maker” series. It picks up the story of Alvin Miller right where the first book, Seventh Son, left off, in Alvin’s tenth year.

But while Seventh Son focused mainly on Alvin himself, Red Prophet spends much more time on wider historical events (or at least the versions of them that happen in this alternate history). It is also a lot more depressing and grisly.

America in the 1810s—both in real life and in Alvin’s world—is ripe for conflict. White settlers are expanding into the Midwest, displacing and, of course, angering the Native Americans who already live there. Various would-be governors and/or dictators are jockeying for power in the incompletely defined and often lawless territories. And other international powers such as France are meddling as much as they can to advance their own interests.

One of the most ruthless of the would-be dictators is William Henry Harrison, who, by the beginning of the book, has built himself a little fiefdom on the Hio, the river that forms the southern border of Wobbish Territory. He has formed an army and is using bribery, muscle, and malicious tactics to put himself in position to be the first governor of Wobbish, if and when it becomes a state. He controls trade up and down the river, especially the trade in liquor, which he parcels out strategically to keep the local Indians incapacitated and subservient.

One of the major threats to Harrison’s goals is the booming town of Vigor Church, up in the northwest corner of Wobbish Territory. The town seems to be doing very well economically, without his interference, and has relatively peaceable relations with the Indians. And one of the residents, Alvin’s brother-in-law, Armor-of-God Weaver, could well prove to be gubernatorial competition for Harrison.

The other major threat to Harrison is Ta-Kumsaw, a strong-willed and charismatic Shawnee tribesman who doesn’t drink and who wants to unify the Indian tribes and drive all the white men off the land.

Harrison thinks he has a lever against Ta-Kumsaw in the form of Ta-Kumsaw’s brother, Lolla-Wossiky, a hapless, one-eyed, pathetic alcoholic who will do whatever self-abasing thing Harrison wants him to do in order to get more liquor. But things start to crumble for Harrison when Lolla-Wossiky has a vision of Alvin—it's the same vision Alvin had in Seventh Son, but this time we see it from Lolla-Wossiky’s point of view. After the vision, Lolla-Wossiky changes his name to Tenskwa-Tawa (“Open Door”), renounces alcohol, and heads up north to found a peaceful, pan-tribal Indian settlement on the Tippy-Canoe river.

Never one to take threats lying down, Harrison concocts an evil plan. He hires a sociopathic mercenary to go up to Vigor Church, kidnap and murder some white children, and plant evidence that indicates that Ta-Kumsaw and Tenskwa-Tawa did it. Harrison plans to then ride in with his army to avenge the children’s deaths, giving him an excuse to kill the Indian leaders and making him a victorious hero to the white settlers.

But, of course, the white children that Harrison’s mercenaries make the mistake of choosing to kidnap are none other than Alvin and his brother Measure, innocently on their way eastward to deliver Alvin to his blacksmithing apprenticeship.

After that, nothing goes according to Harrison’s plan. Alvin and Measure evade the kidnappers, hook up with Ta-Kumsaw and Tenskwa-Tawa, and go on a long, somewhat tedious cross-country journey that is educational and character-building for all of them. And the unrelenting Harrison pursues them until they all finally confront each other at what ends up being a horrific massacre at the Indian settlement on the Tippy-Canoe. 

 

Tecumseh

What gives this story extra weight is that the core events really happened. The Battle of Tippy-Canoe (Tippecanoe) was, in reality, a major battle in the War of 1812. Harrison, Ta-Kumsaw (Tecumseh), and Tenskwa-Tawa (Tenskwatawa) were all real people. And Tenskwa-Tawa’s settlement, Prophetstown, was a real place. It all just plays out differently—and with more than a dash of magic—in this alternate America.

Folk mysticism pervades this book, as it did in Seventh Son. I liked that most of the movers and shakers of this period had special abilities that, often, were what had allowed them to get where they had gotten. This included Napoleon, who had an uncanny way of making people admire him and want do whatever he said, and de Lafayette, who had an amulet protecting him from Napoleon's wiles.

Inasmuch as Alvin himself enters the story, it is mainly to give him an opportunity to learn more about what he can do and to expand his powers into new areas. He learns from the Indians, both of whom have powers too, but who draw theirs directly from the land and water, and aren’t as clunky and obvious as the white men with their “knacks.”

It is also to give Alvin the opportunity to grow up and stop being a child (even though he is only ten). This is understandable and necessary, given what is going to come next for Alvin; a boy with the powers he has is going to have to grow up fast. But I found that his increasing visions and know-it-all instinctive understanding of everything made it a little harder to identify with him as a person, and made me a little less sympathetic to him as a character. He started to seem less like a vulnerable boy in the world alone, and a little more godlike.