Orphans of Chaos [Library Binding]

John C. Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 9, 2008

John C. Wright burst onto the SF scene with the Golden Age trilogy. His next project was the ambitious fantasy sequence, The Last Guardians of Everness.
Wright’s new fantasy is a tale about five orphans raised in a strict British boarding school who begin to discover that they may not be human beings. The students at the school do not age, while the world around them does.
The children begin to make sinister discoveries about themselves. Amelia is apparently a fourth-dimensional being; Victor is a synthetic man who can control the molecular arrangement of matter around him; Vanity can find secret passageways through solid walls where none had previously been; Colin is a psychic; Quentin is a warlock. Each power comes from a different paradigm or view of the inexplicable universe: and they should not be able to co-exist under the same laws of nature. Why is it that they can?
The orphans have been kidnapped from their true parents, robbed of their powers, and raised in ignorance by super-beings no more human than they are: pagan gods or fairy-queens, Cyclopes, sea-monsters, witches, or things even stranger than this. The children must experiment with, and learn to control, their strange abilities in order to escape their captors.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At first glance, Wright's myth-infused fantasy looks like something older Harry Potter fans might enjoy with its creaky British boarding school setting and its five ageless orphans—Colin, Quentin, Victor, Vanity and Amelia—each with a supernatural gift. But the underlying theme of dominance and submission plus a fair amount of physics and theology make this definitely a book for adults. A spanking scene involving the precocious Amelia Armstrong Windrose, who can travel into the fourth dimension, may offend some readers, but others will find it playful. Wright (Mists of Everness) doesn't fully develop the intriguing premise of these unusual students trapped in a school run by Greek gods as hostages in a bizarre war, but presumably he'll do so in later installments. Those who like sophisticated fantasy with a mild erotic charge will be most rewarded.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In the first installment of the Chronicles of Chaos series, common associations of high school with prison prove spectacularly well founded. The five teen protagonists are hostages in a British boarding school run by pagan gods. Sustaining themes of lost identity from Wright's respected Golden Age trilogy and heavily borrowing from the work of Roger Zelazny, the narrative charts the teens' discovery of their true identities--they're shape-shifters who hail from Chaos--then pits their budding powers against school authorities who have proceeded from acting in loco parentis to being ominous and occasionally lascivious oppressors. Phaethusa, who goes by Amelia after her aviatrix role model, narrates the rich and frequently comic intrigue, which takes full advantage of the alluring juxtapositions that arise when the soul of a "montrosity from beyond the edge of space and time" is trapped in a nubile teen's heaving breast. Mythological references and discursions on the nature of reality may prove substantial barriers for some; Wright's growing fandom will revel in his overlapping frames of reference. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Library Binding: 320 pages
• Publisher: Paw Prints 2008-05-09 (May 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1435270088
• ISBN-13: 978-1435270084
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oddly Entertaining, November 15, 2006

By 

N. Burt "nikkles" (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Orphans of Chaos (Mass Market Paperback)

I found this book to be intriguing. I did not necessarily love the characters, if fact I dislike most of their personalities, but I still feeled concerred for them. I still wanted to know what was going to happen to them. The very uniqueness of the story makes it slightly difficult to read, but more enjoyable to get through. What do I mean by that? Well if you don't have at least a cursory knowledge of greek myths and their pantheon of gods and godesses your going to have problems and get lost. You'll probably still enjoy the story, but you can start figuring out where things are going if you know a little background. Also, all of the characters have quite a few names that you must keep straight to figure out who is doing what to whom. I feel the complexity is a plus to the story, but if you don't want to have to think about character relationships you probably wont like this book. There is also a great deal of physics involved in this book . . . I assume accurate physics, but I really wouldn't know. I found it fun to try to work theses section out, but if you didn't want to you could easily skim over them. If you actually know a lot about physics they would probably be really fun sections to read. So, you see this is a complicated book, I liked that and I think it leads to a lot of interest and fun. However, if you don't want to think while you read I wouldn't try this book. Take a chance on something different and read this book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderfully entertaining, December 28, 2005

By 

Donna Royston (VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Orphans of Chaos (Hardcover)

The preceding customer review and the Booklist review summarize the plot very well, so I won't repeat what they've said. I'll just comment on what excellent adventure and mystery the novel offers. Who are these children? Why are they being held prisoner in a boarding school? WHAT are they?

Highly imaginative and suspenseful, this novel is what a fantasy should be (and very few are): an intriguing situation, a dangerous threat, and wonders of the impossible that are made real. I enjoyed every minute of it and am waiting for the conclusion with great anticipation.

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another weird and excellent story from John C. Wright, November 19, 2005

By 

Elisabeth Carey (Lawrence, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Orphans of Chaos (Hardcover)

Wright continues to amaze. This book is not really anything like any of his previous ones, except that it's wonderfully written.

Somewhere in rural England, there's an orphage. The orphanage houses only five children-Victor, Amelia, Vanity, Colin, and Quentin. They're significantly outnumbered by the staff, and despite receiving an excellent education, they're kept in almost prison-like conditions of discipline and restriction of movements. They've never made even an unsupervised visit to the nearby village.

Oh, and they all have unusual powers-different and apparently incompatible powers. Quentin's a warlock, Victor can change the molecular arrangement of matter, Amelia can see in four dimensions. If the physical laws of the universe are such that Quentin's powers can work, how can Victor's also work under the same set of laws?

There's also some mystery about their exact ages, and the larger mystery of where they come from. And now that they're approximately in their late teens, or perhaps early teens, or, just possibly, early twenties, curiosity and determination are overcoming deference to the adults they increasing regard as jailers. When Amelia and Quentin manage to eavesdrop on a midnight meeting of the Governors and Visitors of the school, all bets are off and they're in active rebellion against their captors.

But they still know only tiny pieces of what's going on.

This is truly excellent, although I need to mention that it's the first half, or possibly the first third, of the novel, not the whole thing. This volume doesn't end; it stops at a crucial point. Part Two will apparently be entitled Fugitives of Chaos. (That's less of a spoiler for this book than it might seem.) Nevertheless, Wright has delivered before, and I do highly recommend this one.