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Orphans Of Chaos by John C. Wright
01/03/2007 . Source: Joules Taylor 
pub: TOR/Forge. 317 page hardback. Price: $24.95 (US), $33.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-765-31331-3. Buy Orphans Of Chaos in the USA - or Buy Orphans Of Chaos in the UK  check out website: www.tor-forge.com www.tor-forge.com
Well, you don't actually have to have a degree in quantum mechanics and another in comparative mythology to understand the book, but it would probably help...
Five orphaned children live in a 'school' - a castle - supposedly in the South-West of England. 'The estate is 'bound to the North by Barrows, to the West by the sea cliff, to the East by the low, gray hills of the Downs,' (p 13) with a dark and mysterious forest to the South. The children have been told it would be hazardous to their health if they try to leave the estate. Their carer-teachers are an odd bunch and their schooling very advanced for their age or so it seems.
Except that no-one really knows how old they are and every time they ask one of the staff, they are told, '16'. The narrator is, at any rate. Their names were originally Primus, Secunda, Tertia, Quartinus and Quentin. At some point, when they were considered old enough, they were allowed to name themselves. Primus chose Victor Invictus Triumph. Secunda - the narrator - Amelia Armstrong Windrose. Tertia picked Vanity Fair. Quartinus chose Colin Iblis mac Fir-Bolg. Quentin Nemo kept his original forename.
Each of the five children has a special 'scientific' power. Victor knows physics intimately and instinctively and is telekinetic. Amelia can see and access hyperspace. Vanity is a solipsist - a genuine one, who can warp reality simply by believing a thing will be or not be. Colin deals in energies. Quentin's power is the control of 'immaterial essences' and can fly. They each experience reality in a different way, and debate its nature between them: 'There are different versions of the universe. Different paradigms. Different states of mind. Each paradigm, each model, has something it can't explain...' (p 164) and this on-going dialogue is one of the more interesting facets of the book.
SPOILER WARNING!!!
SPOILER WARNING!!! Normally I try hard not to give any spoilers for the books I'm reviewing: it's unfair to potential readers to give away the plot. However, I found this book so objectionable I'm making an exception. So if you're planning to read it and don't want to know anything, STOP READING NOW.
However, as gradually becomes clear as the story continues, they aren't human at all.
Amelia eavesdrops on, then reports back to the others, a very strange meeting of the 'school teachers' and the school 'governors'...
'The Greek Gods run the school. We're hostages in a war. They're afraid to kill us, because our families will attack... They're going to send us to Hell for safekeeping. Except Vanity is being sent to Atlantis. Zeus is dead and Mars and Vulcan both want the throne.' (p 151)
They're Uranians. The children of the four Houses of Chaos except for Vanity, who is really Nausicaa, princess of the Phaeacians who 'rescued' Odysseus when he washed ashore on the island. Amelia is really Phaethusa, personification of the blinding rays of the sun. Victor's mothers were the Graeae, apparently. I forget who Colin and Quentin really are. They are all shape-shifters and all immensely powerful. So powerful they have to be kept subdued by drugs which keep them from remembering who they are and also distort their time sense.
'Orphans Of Chaos' doesn't just concern the Greek Gods but deities from all ages, all countries and all belief systems also drift in and out of the story (a cast list or glossary would have been a good idea). More immediately, however, there is one member of the school staff who can nullify each of the Orphans' powers (wasn't there a 'Star Trek' episode with that as the basic plot?). Add to that the fact that the headmaster has been grooming all of them as a 'weapon for his own use' (p 203) and the plot seems thick enough to wallpaper the cracks in reality.
So far so good. The notion is fascinating and the details intriguing. But as far as I'm concerned the work has a number of major flaws.
Firstly, the sheer number of unfamiliar names and characters is a stumbling block for anyone who really wants to grasp the story. They add colour, but the average reader either has to look them up or wait until one of the other characters explains in passing who and what they are.
There's the writing style. The author is a man writing as a woman. An American man writing as a supposedly British woman at that. It simply does not work. Many of the terms used are American not British and I have yet to read a male author who can convincingly write a female narrator.
Then there's Amelia herself. In her short plaid skirt, knee socks and shiny black shoes, dressed as a schoolgirl despite the fact she's at least 18. I did try to make allowances for the oddness of her origins and upbringing and for the fact that her character has been twisted by the caretaker, Grendel, the monster of the Beowulf myth. Miss Daw, the music teacher, who is really an exiled Siren, a daughter of Achelous, explains: 'Desires that are constantly frustrated are stronger...men who have unnatural desires, or who dream sad, unfulfilled and unfulfillable dreams, their impossible desires bloat up beyond all bounds... See sadistic Grendel, who desires a wife, but only if she is forced with whips and chains to love him; and he dreams only of having a woman he knows he is never worthy of, and to beat her gives him the pleasure other men have from caressing her...His greatest desire is to see you...beautiful and enchained, a fair prisoner...His belief will make it so that you are unable to escape.' (p 271-2)
His will also makes her submissive. We see evidence of that all through the book, despite the fact that she's immensely powerful. But was it really necessary to have her enjoy the humiliation of being groped, kidnapped and spanked in fairly graphic detail, too?
But I think the part that finally made me lose patience with the whole book was Amelia's diatribe about ancient British methods of torture! It's out of the blue and completely pointless, not to mention it comes from a character who had a few chapters back sworn fealty to Britain and to Bran, the soul of Britain. The first thing that came to mind was that it was some bizarre kind of misdirection. An attempt to draw attention away from the fact of the current US administration sending its victims away to be tortured by pointing out how much worse it was in the UK. Except that there was no mention of the USA in the book, except for the erroneous American linguistic terms. The tools and the culture that used the instruments of torture are now centuries past...
No, I still don't understand why it was included. Any tiny smidgen of credibility the tale still had with me, and at that point I was still just prepared to be surprised, dribbled away through one of the un-papered cracks.
So no, I didn't enjoy the book at all. In my opinion it's soft-core porn masquerading as science-fantasy. There's a sequel, apparently, but I won't be reading it. None of the characters are even particularly likeable. I found the book hugely disappointing and very irritating. No doubt his fans will love it. I, however, am not one of them.
Joules Taylor
http://www.wavewrights.com
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