ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.
Killed for sport
Chris Flynn’s Orpheus Nine takes as its title the name given to the grisly mass death event that provides the novel’s premise and animates its plot. The event afflicts people across the globe at an identical moment and in an identical way, and its ill-fated victims are all children, specifically nine-year-olds. Curious already, owing to its scale and arbitrary application, this phenomenon proves all the stranger for what occurs immediately before these children finally succumb to its brutal consequences. Before their bodies swell and distort, before their organs fail due to an overload of sodium chloride, they sing, in angelic chorus, a Latin translation of a verse from King Lear: ‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; / They kill us for their sport.’
Continue reading for only $10 per month. Subscribe and gain full access to Australian Book Review. Already a subscriber? Sign in. If you need assistance, feel free to contact us.
ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.
Leave a comment
If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.
If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.
Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.