The Orphanarium - Paperback

by S. T. Cartledge (Author)

Here is us. We are here in the Orphanarium. Think: a city in a massive box, vacuum-sealed tight. No one is allowed outside. Here, people are born out of the air or made like computers and put together. Daff is me and Dil is you and together we are twins pulled from the same vacuum of space. Cyberia is our friend android and she has a window in her head, a sphere like a crystal mind monitor. Our pet is called Killy, a cyborg dog who was born out of the air like you and me, but has since been built up with robot parts so she can live longer.

This is the way things are. And the way things are right now is all about the situation with the Elementals. Some people are calling it a war. For others, it's more of a slaughter. Us or them, it's never specified. We try so hard to stay alive but the chaos spills through the walls onto us. There is no control. But there's always talk of what's going on outside the Orphanarium. Whispers of what's happening out there, while we're over here surrounded by candylions grazing on their holographic grass. Truth is we don't know until we find out.

The Orphanarium is a surreal dystopian novel reminiscent of early bizarro works like Lost in Cat Brain Land by Cameron Pierce and Sea of the Patchwork Cats by Carlton Mellick III, as well as the poetic dreamscapes of Richard Brautigan and Hayao Miyazaki.