Book Review: City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright

City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright

Nothing lasts forever, even if you have the ability to travel through time and try to make it stay. John C. Wright's collection of short stories tell various significant and insignificant events near the end of the city of Metachronopolis, where time travelers called "Time Wardens" live and gather various items and people from history for their own amusement. With great power comes great corruption, but not everyone embraces the decadence and manipulations of the Time Wardens.

The stories have somewhat complicated plots that require the reader to pay attention to details, which is something that I like about time travel stories. The city is an interesting place with lots of nooks and crannies where unusual but plausible (granting the possibility of time travel) events take place. Murder mysteries, paranoid thrillers, and romantic dalliances are mixed in different levels in every story, providing dramatic tension. I especially enjoyed "Slayer of Souls" in which a man trys to run away from a horror that can read his mind. The sense of paranoia is strong but it is also well thought out and comes to a very satisfying conclusion.

This collection of stories is intelligent and entertaining and I look forward to revisiting it when my memories have faded a bit (nothing lasts forever!) and it reads like new.

Book Review: Titans of Chaos

Titans of Chaos is the slam-bang finale to John C. Wright's Chronicles of Chaos. Having finally escaped from their English boarding school (which is really their prison), the five orphans from alternate Chaotic dimensions are on the run. After a harrowing attack on the cruiseship QEII, they race across the planet Earth and cross over to other planets in an attempt to find a spot where they can safely and peacefully live out their lives. But will the Greek gods let them?

The story is action-packed. It's a fun ride, especially the middle third or so of the novel, which is an extended fight/chase sequence. Mostly it's the main character, Amelia Windrose, trying to escape from every mythical thing that can be thrown at her. The chase is imaginative and exciting. The final battle for their freedom is also very satisfying.

The storytelling is still chock full of pseudo-science, pseudo-magic, and more mythology than I could keep track of. It's not so important to track every detail, though it might make for more rewarding reading. The book is a wild ride and a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

My reviews of previous novels in the series are here and here.

Now that the year is half over, I thought I'd check on my progress on the 2012 Reading List Challenge. I seem to be doing really well. Of the 15 books I said I wanted to read, I've already read 10. Still to be read are Stephen King's On Writing, three of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books, and Tolkien's The Hobbit.

Book Review: Fugitives of Chaos by John C. Wright

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.

Book Review: Orphans of Chaos by John C. Wright

People often complain about the horrible teacher-to-student ratio in schools these days. Most schools have dozens of students per teacher, which negatively impacts the interaction between individual students and their teachers.  Imagine a school with only five students and a full set of faculty, i.e. a place where the teachers outnumber the students? What would that be like?

If you are Amelia Armstrong Windrose, the number of students isn't the only odd thing about your English countryside school. Her original name was Secunda (as in the second eldest of the bunch) and at eight or ten she got to choose a name. Of course she didn't notice that was strange since everyone (all five of them) went through the same thing and they hardly ever had contact outside of the school. Being raised in sheltered environment makes you think your special, right?

Unless the shelter is actually a prison and both you and your captors are not at all what they seem. That premise is the jumping off point for the Chronicles of Chaos, a trilogy of fantasy novels that begins with Orphans of Chaos. This book sets the stage for what is to come, describing various characters and the parts they play in the larger scheme of things. And by larger, I do mean multi-dimensional and possibly eon-spanning.

As the students discover their powers and their origins, a rich if overwhelming tapestry of mythology and science is woven by the author. So much mythology is thrown in, it can be hard to keep up. There's also a lot of scientific and pseudo-scientific talk describing how their powers and magics work. I found that a bit of a challenge and started giving up on keeping track of everything. I hope I haven't glossed over anything that will be important in the next two books.

The other challenging thing about this book is that it is definitely the first act of a larger ongoing story. Much like the three books that make up The Lord of the Rings, it seems as if this book is just the first third of the story and not so much a complete story in itself. The ending leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. Even though my paperback includes the first four pages of the next book at the end, the addition hardly provides the sort of closure that would allow the reader to skip the other two books.

Fortunately I do own the subsequent novels and will start reading Fugitives of Chaos right away.