Welcome, Chaos [Import] [Paperback]

Kate Wilhelm (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 297 pages
• Publisher: Arrow Books; New Ed edition (1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099500809
• ISBN-13: 978-0099500803
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Born in 1928, Kate Wilhelm the author of more than thirty novels including Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang and The Unbidden Truth. Her work has been adapted for TV and film and translated into twenty languages. She has been awarded the Prix Apollo, Kurd Lasswitz, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. In 2003, she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Her short fiction appeared in landmark anthologies such as Again Dangerous Visions, Orbit, The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women, and The Norton Book of Science Fiction. A cofounder of the Clarion Writers' Workhops, she continues to host monthly writing workshops in Eugene, Oregon.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the world as we know it, July 21, 2008

By 

Linda Pagliuco "katknit" (CT, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Welcome Chaos (Paperback)

Kate Wilhelm's Welcome Chaos, originally published in 1983, is currently published only in audio version, ably narrated by Johanna Ward (who is also Kate Redding). This scientific thriller centers upon Lyle Taney, a 40-ish history prof who sets off to Oregon to do research on eagles. Before she leaves, she is visited by a sinister, demanding government official who wants her to obtain fingerprints from a suspect living near the cabin she is renting.

When Lyle meets the suspect in Oregon, she discovers Sol, a charming, learned older man, and his hunky young male assistant, Carmen. And steps off the edge of the world she has so long studied into a veritable doomsday scenario.

Wilhelm has done a masterful job at setting up her plot and filling the reader in, quite painlessly, with the complicated but necessary scientific background essential for understanding the terrible possibilities and repercussions that will follow the dissemination of Sol's work. She has populated the novel with vibrant, substantial characters and lovely descriptive images. In a genre prone to hyperbole, Wilhelm employs commendable restraint in passages in which fear, anger, and panic run high. Welcome Chaos is a thought provoking novel that prompts the reader to examine the way in which the world as we know it could become something else entirely in the blink of an eye. And there are no easy answers to the questions it proposes.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful classic, February 5, 2004

By 

Charles H. Albrecht "albrecht548" (Pittsford, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Welcome Chaos (Paperback)

This book is long overdue for reissue, or at least an e-book release. It includes intrigues,romance, and speculation about mortality and immortality. The relationship between characters is well realized, and the description of the Oregon Coast is wonderful.

5.0 out of 5 stars to be re-read time and again, July 16, 2011

By 

Pamela Davis (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Welcome Chaos (Paperback)

I're read this book numerous times over the years, and replaced my copy several times. Whenever I've loaned it out to friends, I never get the book back. I think the writer does an amazing job of tackling big issues and making them readable and understandable. Her description of the Oregon coast is a thing of beauty. This is one of the books I recommend most to people. It's one of the those books that makes you think, long after reading it.