Orphans of Chaos (Hardcover)

by John C. Wright (Author)
Key Phrases: headless man, Miss Daw, Miss Windrose, Headmaster Boggin (more...)

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.

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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (October 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765311313
• ISBN-13: 978-0765311313
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #362,402 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent writing with a minor annoyance, February 11, 2007

By	Mike Reeves-McMillan (Auckland, New Zealand) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

I agree with other reviewers that this is excellently written. John Wright gives a (to me) very convincing impression of a teenage girl who is also an ancient four-dimensional Greek goddess (or demigoddess, or something). However, I must mention how annoying I find it that the dialogue of these teenagers, raised in Britain, given a very old-fashioned classical education and almost completely isolated from popular culture, is colloquial American (up to and including the phrase "go figure"). This is also interfering with my otherwise great enjoyment of the sequel, which I'm reading at the moment.

As a disclaimer, I'm a New Zealander with a master's degree in English language and literature who reads a lot of British and American fiction, and is married to an American, so I am much more aware of this than most readers will be. Your mileage, as they say in the US, may vary.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Well Written but Disappointing, June 12, 2008

By	R. Singh - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

On the one hand, I found the author's writing style to be very mature and easy to read. The story was narrated by the main character, a teenage girl, and she lent a very charming voice to the novel.

On the other hand, every character was one-dimensional, there was no character development or maturity, the plot didn't develop much (in 300-some pages!), and the almost constant dominant/submissive sexual play with our youthful heroine was both annoying and off-putting.

The cast of characters was another disappointment. It began as a small, intimate group of friends, which I rather liked, but then quite suddenly grew into a huge gaggle of oddballs with multiple names, intertwining relationships, and even flatter personalities than our main characters.

The magic system was an interesting concept -- It used hyperspace physics as a form of magic -- but I don't feel that it worked very well in practice. The lengthy explanations in the middle of the action sequences were a little annoying. It was also silly because the physics babble was really just a thin veneer for whatever struck the author's fancy.

The ending was abrupt and unresolved, but I wouldn't exactly call it a cliffhanger. Generally a cliffhanger leaves you in suspense, excited to read on. This book just left me shrugging and thinking, "Well... that went absolutely nowhere."

So there you have it. This review is one part praise and four parts criticism, and that seems like just the right ratio for this book. Not without its charm, but I certainly won't be reading the rest of the series.

Your mileage may vary.

3 of 3 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 (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.