Wright's new fantasy, which began with Orphans of Chaos, and continues in Fugitives of Chaos, 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 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.
The five have made 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 children must experiment with and learn to control their strange abilities in order to escape their captors. Something very important must be at stake in their imprisonment.
"Wright's Orphans of Chaos is a stylish roller-coaster ride through the best loops and swerves of science fiction and fantasy. Zelazny lovers in particular ought to love this book as much as I did."
Sherwood Smith
"A bit like C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia updated by half a century, but with more gusto."
