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 ...
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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.
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Seller's Description:
Fair. An acceptable and readable copy. All pages are intact, and the spine and cover are also intact. This item may have light highlighting, writing or underlining through out the book, curled corners, missing dust jacket and or stickers. This is a ex library book, stickers and markings accordingly.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
This book is in good condition with very minimal damage. Pages may have minimal notes or highlighting. Cover image on the book may vary from photo. Ships out quickly in a secure plastic mailer.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
I read this for a book club so it was highly recommended by one of the members. At it's core Orphans of Chaos is a coming of age story except the children are not really children and the society/world is not really terrestrial. I was able to get through it because I like mythology but I am not interested enough to continue reading the series.
Orphans of Chaos is a fast read because the language is simple and there are no major uses of literacy devices (e.g., foreshadowing) that requires the reader to really pay attention to details. Unfortunately, this also contributes to an overall lack of excitement in the storytelling. There are actors and a lot of action but very little character development. A four-year-old child has more depth than the narrator, one of the female "orphans". The author may have had better results if he chose to tell the story from another perspective but there are ways in which a more sophisticated writer could've made even a reluctant first-person narrator more alive.
The most complex passages in the book are the mathematical and scientific explorations into 4th + dimensions and how one would perceive and think about those spaces. Sure it's interesting but it's a waste of the reader's time. That discussion could be another entire story. There are so many other interesting things that the author could have expanded on, at the expense of, that speculation. Most disappointing, for me, is that the mythology is not used for more than a convenient prop.
The single mythic aspect Wright consistently focuses on is sex: in a physical (e.g., lust, violence) and a cultural (e.g., gender roles, ageism) sense. The sexulization of the characters appeared gratuitous. Although Wright might have intended to use sex as metaphor, it is applied far too heavily and much too intensely, to add to the plot. Again the author takes an interesting idea and goes overboard with it. The sex may also be disturbing for many readers given the initial impression that these orphans are really children.
