by Orson Scott Card

Author Information: Orson Scott Card has won a ridiculous number of awards for sci-fi and fantasy: four Hugos, two Nebulas, and a World Fantasy Award. His best known work is Ender's Game, a book I highly recommend.

Book Description: Enchantment is a complex blend of traditional fairy tale motifs, beginning with a version of "Sleeping Beauty."  Card places his comatose princess in the Ukrainian woods where she is found in the mid 1970s by ten-year-old Ivan Smetski, just as his parents are given permission to emigrate to Israel.  Ivan returns in the 1990s as a Ph.D. student researching his dissertation in Folklore and is again drawn to the glade where this vision, which has haunted him since he left the Soviet Union, began.   At this point, Card introduces a wide variety of Ukrainian, Russian, and Jewish folktales, blending their disparate threads into a intricate, but seemless story.

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One of Card's strengths in Enchantment is not the deft characterization or the flowing plot, although those are both notable, but his ability to portray the cultures of early Christian Ukraine and late-twentieth century society so differently while understanding (and showing the reader) how ingrained their beliefs are.  Things which seem silly to Katarina are extremely serious offenses to Ivan and vice versa. (read the rest of the description at SFSite)

Recommendation: There seems to be some of the usual mixing of Ukraine and Russia, including by Card himself, sad to say. However, the book comes recommended by Orange Ukraine reader R. Smith: "An enjoyable read, and it takes place mainly in Ukraine--ancient and modern. Baba Yaga probably should have stayed out in Siberia, but I give it a thumbs up nonetheless."

Book Links

Interview with Orson Scott Card
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