Tuesday - September 25, 2007

Is reading The Chronicles of Chaos in order an irony? 

Thanks to two consecutive rainy afternoons and a snoring Lucien, I finished John C. Wright's trilogy. Oh, and I would not have managed without the Lumos book light. 

The Chronicles of Chaos is what happens when you combine a classic British education with the Teen Titans. Seriously. In a British boarding school, five orphans grow up with superpowers and raging hormones, seemingly in equal quantities. 

The first book, Orphans of Chaos (a Nebula Award nominee for best novel), introduces us to the orphans  and gives us a crash course in incompatible paradigms. Each orphan comes from a different paradigm-slash-universe. They are not actually human, but monster hostages from another dimension. To keep the balance between Cosmos and Chaos from tilting either way, Chaos' monsters, the Titans, have agreed to give up their children to the other side, the gods of Mount Olympos, the gods of the Cosmos. 

We meet Amelia Armstrong Windrose, Victor Invictus Triumph, Vanity Fair, Colin Iblis mac FirBolg and Quentin Nemo. (They chose their own names.) To Amelia, the universe is one dimension after another. She gets a lot of nerd moments, during which she talks in equations, and her friends go ewww. Victor is a teenage Spock, all impulse drive and no warp speed. Colin just wants something and there it is. Vanity always knows when someone's looking at her. Quentin is a warlock and has a magic staff. They always argue about how their powers work. They always have a different explanation why something happens the way it does. This can be either intriguing or tiring, so make sure to read on a full stomach.

The second, Fugitives of Chaos, shows us that even monster hostages have to get their kicks in. Fighting their way out of the boarding school, striking bargains with their guardians and discovering how to stretch their powers, the teenage Titans also indulge in shopping and furtive kissing.

The conclusion, Titans of Chaos, shows Wright heaving the story from one paradigm to another. What could have been a confusing narration becomes a can't-wait-to-turn-the-page whizz-bang-kapow adventure. By this time the characters and their paradigms are familiar, and the explanations do not get in the way of the story, unless you want them to. The orphans are stronger, sometimes even a little wiser, and they can kick Olympian butt. Aha, but is there a resolution to the raging hormones? 

The first two novels are already here in paperback. Titans of Chaos appeared in hardcover early 2007; I bought my copy at Borders in Wheelock Place. Here's a peek.

I also finished Prospero's Children by Jan Siegel. We'll do that review another time. Or in the fifth dimension, where time is a point.