Thirteen Orphans

Brenda Morris' father takes her on a father-daughter weekend to San Jose, Calif., to meet his longtime business partner Albert Yu. Upon finding his office in disarray and Albert's personality changed, Brenda's father contacts former child movie star Pearl Bright, and from her Brenda learns she is not just an ordinary college freshman.

Instead, she, like her father before her, is heir to one of the Thirteen Orphans, who fled to our reality from the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice, an alternate reality where magic works, as well as all of the different Chinese mythologies. Twelve of the Orphans were the advisors to an emperor overthrown in a coup, and the thirteenth was the emperor's young heir, from whom Albert Yu is descended, making him the rightful emperor.

Each Orphan embodies one animal from the Chinese zodiac—with Pearl being the Tiger and Brenda's father the Rat—including its traditional magical abilities and attributes, such as cunning or leadership. Because they were subject to assassination attempts from their previous home, they have also made sure their abilities passed to their descendants. They also devised a means of performing magic, including divinations, using mah-jongg tiles. Pearl has performed one and learned that the Orphans are once again under attack; all but four of them, like Albert, have lost all memory of their heritage from the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice.

The three of them devise a plot to fight back, but when Brenda's father is taken in the same way as the rest and Pearl manages to trap the attacker, the stakes change. The remaining Orphans, most of them barely trained to use their heritage, must rally their forces against an unknown enemy who threatens to overwhelm them. Brenda must learn the magic of the Rat so she can defend herself against whatever strikes next. And Pearl must determine the nature of their attacker and his relation to her sign, the Tiger, before it is too late.

Modern world meets Chinese myth

When I began reading Thirteen Orphans I did not expect it to be interesting. It seemed to contain many of the elements common in contemporary fantasies and anime—Chinese magic, threatening beings from an alternate reality, many people who are not aware of their heritage and must learn about it. I found, as I continued reading, that the story pleasantly surprised me. While it does contain these elements, the internal lives of the characters and the interesting magic, centered around the game of mah-jongg, breathe new life into them. For instance, how the characters use the mah-jongg pieces, hands and actions to create spells is fascinating, giving an old game new life and making me curious about the origins of the game and how it will be utilized in future books. The way the characters already act like the members of the Chinese zodiac they are meant to embody is well done too, and this is seamlessly integrated into the plot.

Another interesting element is the underlying theme of father-daughter relationships. Pearl Bright's father, the original Tiger, did not want his daughter to inherit his abilities. Because of this, Pearl never had a child, but, faced with the possibility of a war that will outlast her, she wonders whether she has made the wrong choice, and whether their attacker, also a Tiger, is the heir she will need to acknowledge. Brenda has always been loved and guided by her father; now that he has forgotten himself, she finds herself alone for the first time, which only magnifies her adolescent feelings of inadequacy as she tries to understand her place in this new reality. And a father-daughter relationship among their enemies also plays into this theme, making it clear that even people whom the Orphans may have perceived as evil have hearts.

The action does move slowly; this is not a book for fans of fantasy with large armies and kingdoms at stake. While the stakes are as high here, they are handled in a subdued way, recalling stories by Chinese writers such as Amy Tan. Some things are never explained to my satisfaction. For example, what sort of significance does the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose hold for magical practitioners, and why is it a place where Pearl Bright feels the Orphans are safe? What did the original Orphans intend to do with themselves and the infant emperor? Did they intend to someday return to their homeland and reinstate him on the throne? I assume these questions will be addressed in the second book, which I look forward to.