Customer Reviews

Children of Chaos (Sci Fi Essential Books)

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Dave Duncan's a writer you can always rely on to entertain with style, wit and sharp observations of human nature. Children of Chaos is the first volume in a duology, his first work since leaving behind the Tales of the King's Blades (another brilliant fantasy series, the first book is The Gilded Chain, do yourself a favour and read it now!).

In a nutshell: 4 children are taken as hostages by an invading army. They are separated for many years, and when they finally meet again they've become very different people. The question Duncan poses is: can these four strangers tied by blood find a way to become a family again and save their true homeland from the ravages of a ruthless enemy? Even though each is horribly scarred, physically and emotionally, by their experiences as hostages in enemy hands?

As you'd expect from Duncan, the book is fast-paced, with deft characterisations and really snappy dialogue. For me, one of the absolute standouts is the world/culture building. In particular the creation of the Werists, warriors who undergo hideous transformations in order to fight, is one of the finest examples of speculative fiction I've read in recent times.

Duncan doesn't write the really huge doorstop fantasies, his books are lean and mean -- but quality oozes from every page. Bottom line is, I live in Australia and I buy Duncan in imported US hardcover -- which costs a bomb. Every penny is hugely well spent.

After two years without a new Dave Duncan novel I was really excited for this one to come out. Typical of Duncan, Children of Chaos has interesting characters, fast paced adventure, plot twists, and some stuff to gross you out. The characters are realistic in that they are not perfect and thus not above revenge, greed, and misguided perceptions. There are a few clear bad guys, but you aren't sure whether the main characters are really the good guys. The novel ends at a good spot so that you get some closure but with enough suspense that you wish you had the sequel right now.

Traditional hack and slash ( sword & sorcerer sub-genre), lots of characters, standard fantasy world map. Author obviously experienced, good writing, fast pace, original social ideologies, some nice twist on the magic in this world, I enjoyed it, but I have a very soft spot for this sub-genre

Duncan has created a dodecahedral world (impossible by the laws of physics, but this is fantasy) ruled by a pantheon of 13 gods and goddesses. Most people worship at least the 12 "Bright Ones," but some chose to be "henotheists," who dedicate themselves to only one deity, though they acknowledge the existence and power of the others (since the gods take an active role in the world, it's hard to deny). The children of Harg - four sons and a daughter (who's also the mother of the sons) have taken over one face of the dodecahedron and try to take over an adjacent one, relying on the followers of the war/storm god Weru. But they make a mistake when they take the four children of the Doge of Celebre hostage, and a worse one when they try to draft the children of the second face into their Werist army. Most of the story takes place 15 years after the invasion of the second face, and follows the four children - now adult or nearly so - as they begin to move toward each other. I liked this book a lot, and am liking the sequel, MOTHER OF LIES, even better, though I haven't finished it yet.

This is the first of a duology, and I'm desperately waiting for book two.

I'm not sure why this world is a dodecahedron, but whatever. Dave Duncan is an accomplished writer and this is a wondrous book filled with reading pleasure. Yeah, you've read the synopses. They don't give a decent hint of the flavorfulness of this book. Buy it, read it, enjoy!

--Jerry

Children of Chaos (2006) is the first fantasy novel in the Dodec duology. On a world shaped like a die with twelve faces, the followers of Weru -- god of storm and battle -- leave the Vigaelian face and invade the Florenbian face. Piero -- the doge of Celebre -- sends his militia to fight the invaders and the Werists destroy them. Stralg -- Fist of Weru -- demands hostages from Piero and takes Piero's wife and all four children.

In this novel, Dantio Celebre is the eldest, at eleven years, and is taken to Skjar. He keeps running away and is repeatedly punished by Saltaja Hragsdor. Eventually he dies of his wounds.

Benard Celebre is the second eldest, at eight years, and is taken to Kosord. There he is raised by Horold Hargson and his wife Ingeld Narsdor. He has become a master artist, probably the best in Vigaelia. He is also a Hand of Anziel -- goddess of beauty -- and has had many gifts bestowed upon him. Now he has been commissioned to provide statuary of the gods for the new Pantheon.

Orlando Celebre -- under the name Orlad Orladson -- is the third son, at three years, and is taken to Tryfors. There he is raised by Therek Hargson and eventually becomes a Werist novice. He is unaware of his true ancestry.

Fabia Celebre -- under the name Frena Wigson -- is the only daughter and the youngest child -- a babe in arms -- at the time that she is taken hostage. She is given to Paola Apicella to nurse. Then Horth Wigson marries Paola and adopts Fabia. She is unaware of her true ancestry.

In this story, Benard inadvertently has a fight with Cutrath Horoldson and wins. Of course, Cutrath is drunk at the time, but so was Benard. Benard gains a hearing before Horold Hargson -- Cutrath's father -- and Horold unfortunately asks who won. The seer attending Horold tells him that Benard had won.

Poor Cutrath is thoroughly blasted and Horold provides Benard with his protection and a gold band. Benard knows that Horold and Cutrath are very upset with him, but he has other things to think about. For example, he needs to work on his statues.

Fabia is also having problems with Cutrath. Saltaja knows that Piero has become very ill and may die at any time. Stralg is losing the war in Florenbia and is falling back to Celebre, where it all started. Saltaja decides that Fabia would be a good puppet ruler in Celebre, but first she needs to be married to the right person. Saltaja selects Cutrath to be her husband.

Orlando passes his Attendance ritual in Nardalborg, scoring higher than any other novice. Hostleader Gzurg pronounces him as First. Now he is runtleader over his fellow cadets. Certainly is better that getting abuse from the Warriors and the other kids. Naturally, he plans on passing the initiation in record time.

The seers are also having a crisis. Stralg threatened to torture and kill all the seers if they didn't do his will. The Eldest compromised, but now she has died. The majority of the seers were hoping for a change in policy, but the Eldest named a conservative as her successor. Now there is a revolt among the seers against providing further assistance to the Werist leaders.

This story tells of events in Vigaelia from Skjar to Nardalborg. The hostages had been protected, but now the crisis in Celebre has moved Saltaja into sending Fabia to rule the city. Naturally, she decides to eliminate the boys to avoid any rival claimants to the throne.

The hostage children gather to discuss their actions, but Orlando is loyal to Therek and refuses to listen to anymore traitorous talk. But he does agree not to inform Therek of the meeting or the contents of their conversation.

This is only the first half of the story. The second volume will take place in Florenbia and should tie together all the loose strings. Enjoy!

Highly recommended for Duncan fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of exotic societies, stubborn individuals, and a touch of romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

As with most of Duncan's books, it starts a little slow. But, with the rich characters you really get wrapped into the story. One of my favorites.

Fifteen years ago, the four children of the doge of Celebre were taken hostage by the invading army of a foreign bloodlord in order to insure their father's cooperation with the bloodlord's political aims. The children were sent over the edge of the world, into the homeland of the invaders, where they were separated and given into the care of foster families. Now, as the tides of war begin to change, the children - now grown - are reunited, and their aim is to overthrow the dynasty of the bloodlord who invaded their homeland and ripped apart their family.

Overall, the story is engaging and entertaining. The world-building is quite good, and the characters are interesting. And for most of the book there is enough tension and mystery to move the plot along.

However, there also were some parts of this book that were tedious to read, and which the story would have been just as good (or better!) without. For example, Benard's fascination with the Nymph was silly and overly long, and his willingness to use her in a repulsive scheme was troublesome. Also, in the last segment of the book, the movement of the story slows to a crawl as the Celebre children spend more time than necessary discussing their past, their present situation, and so on. I could have done with less of this, and more story action. For this, I'm deducting one star.

But in spite of this, my interest in knowing how the Celebre children would ultimately fare was strong enough for me to want to immediately begin reading the second book in this series.

This book starts slowly. If this is your first Duncan book, set this aside and get one of the other ones and then come back to this book and its followup. If you like Duncan, do not be put off by the slow start. I do not know why, but these characters are not as easy to warm up to as some of his other characters. Maybe that is an interesting characteristic of this book; these people are all scarred by their pasts and all faced with their worlds falling apart. We do not see them in a state of youthful, pastoral bliss, as is often the case in fantasy novels where we see characters comfortable in their little villages.

There are also a lot of characters introduced in this first book and so it takes a while to really get the feel for the book and people. Some of this first book in the series seems a bit off balance, as in the lengthy scenes where Fabia rides around in a chariot with a personal guard, a character who is a large part of a few pages and then disappears. Who knows. Maybe he will reappear in book two?

But eventually the pieces all fall into place and the ending is quite good.

I guess I was hoping for a bit more action. The plot seemed to drag along pretty slowly for almost the entire book. I felt like the book focused so much on developing its world and characters, but failed to development the plot quickly enough. Definitely not my favorite Dave Duncan book. I much prefer some of his other series including "A Man of His Word" or "The Seventh Swordsman." Those are fantastic series of books.