Fugitives of Chaos [Hardcover]

After reading the first book in the series (Orphans of Chaos) I wasn't very impressed. It was a good book, but I wasn't sure if the next book would be worth the effort.

Fugitives of Chaos is much better than the book before it. Even if you only kinda liked the first book, I recommend that you read this one. The technobabble is still there (but less of it), and the story goes a little smoother.

Another exciting tale in the Chronicles of Chaos by John C. Wright. This book picks up right where the first volume left off, with the five students losing their memories of all that has happened and that they have discovered about themselves. They've forgotten that they are hostages preventing an interdimensional war between the forces of Chaos (from which the students have come) and an wide assortment of other mythological forces, mostly centered around the Greek gods. They have magical and pseudo-scientific powers that they could use to escape, if they could only remember that they had them and they want to escape. The only exception is Amelia Windrose, who was able to put a bit of a block to the blocking of her memory. She quickly recovers and rallies the troops to flee their English countryside school/prison, beginning a fantastic flight whose only destination is freedom. Can they escape together? Will their flight mean the outbreak of war on an unsuspecting human population?

The plot is fairly intriguing. I found the first book foundered a little under the wide variety of mythology and the pseudo-scientific explanations and arguments between the students. Both of these are somewhat scaled back in this book as the band of schoolmates flees their school on Christmas day. Human drama and exciting action take over. In addition to fleeing the school, they have to regain their memories and their powers, and figure out what their final destination should be. This novel is a bit of a page turner and I look forward to the conclusion of the story in the final volume, Titans of Chaos.

I know I gave the first book 4 stars as well, though I was rounding up from 3.75. This is a full 4 star book. I hope the final volume rates even higher!

ORPHANS OF CHAOS introduced five boarding school students who discovered, beneath a physical and conditional facade, they were far greater beings than the awkward human teenagers they thought themselves. They were actually gods (as in Greek; as in thought to be mythical and thus unreal by twenty-first century earth dwellers; as in not unreal at all in this John C. Wright universe) taken hostage in a Titanic war! Spying on their "elders," the band of five learned of the Machiavellian motives for their forced confinement and amnesia. They fought their captors valiantly but appeared vanquished as Part One cliffhung.

FUGITIVES OF CHAOS portrays the fives' struggle to regain lost memory and powers, escape their god-too jailers, and penetrate the maze of politics and strategy underpinning the cataclysmic struggle between Cosmos and Chaos that holds the key to their fate.

Or perhaps it is the reverse, and the five "young people" hold the true key to the fate of the struggle between Chaos and Cosmos? They may also be mankind's and all life's only hope for survival!

Victor, the "robot" man; Amelia, the dimension-crosser; Vanity, the dream tunneler; Colin, the psychic; and Quentin, the witch (he may really be a she), all risk life and limb to breach the boundaries of the only place they remembered as home -- the old-fashioned school by a fishing village called Abertwyi. Believing themselves freed, they experience bits of the world such as hitchhiking, "Jerry's Fine Cafe" on Christmas, Paris stores, Vanity's magic sea craft, and luxury on "The Queen Elizabeth II" sailing for New York.

As in ORPHANS, FUGITIVES serves up a cornucopia of sci-fi/fantasy ideas. Since all five "teenagers" interpret the world from their own separate paradigms, they describe their perceptions differently. Amelia, for instance, is the geometrician of the group, while Colin reckons through the psychic's angle of personal responsibility. These differences require a great deal of group communication to enable understanding and cooperation.

Indeed, a large component of both CHAOS books published thus far is talk; the old writer's saw about showing rather than explaining isn't always observed. Not only "must" the five engage in long discussions with each other, but the sheer complexity of Wright's theme relegates other gods besides the teens to protracted explications. Although Amelia is the primary first-person narrator throughout the novels (so far anyway), other characters tell of adventures they had away from Amelia. Vanity, for instance, tells her companions about overhearing two Cosmos-camp gods -- Boreas and a Centurion Infantophage -- speculate at length about which Chaos god might try to seize the throne of "the entire sidereal universe." This dialogue means to enlighten the readers, along with the five, about the cast of potential threats in and the direction of the third volume of CHAOS. It does, but keeping track of all those gods (a single entity is often referred to by several monikers) is a bit mind-spinning for readers less conversant than Wright with mythology.

And since the young heroes of this trilogy are ostensibly teenagers, they retain that maturity level by and large. So, there is a lot of adolescent ribald ribbing and sexual innuendo (though serious sexual aggression is left to the "adults" and even then is more threat than act), as well as general silliness and cluelessness. Usually, this banter is welcome, but at certain crises stages where the five waste precious time debating and smart-mouthing, one wonders why their adversaries don't press full advantage to smartly subdue them! One wants to cuff the kids into faster action. At least, I did.

The concluding threat in FUGITIVES OF CHAOS is a beaut! The five do engage in a bit of their usual fumbling and arguing, but they spring to action pretty fast. And what action. Kudos to the author for a riveting springboard into TITANS OF CHAOS. I can't wait. April 2007 isn't that far away.