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Marlee Jane Ward

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WELCOME TO ORPHANCORP Kindle Edition

by Marlee Jane Ward (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 40 ratings

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Winner of the 2015 Seizure Viva La Novella Prize

‘Takes all of your dystopian nightmares and connects them to a mother lode of pure emotional intensity. There’s so much keen detail here about the cruel logic of oppressive institutions, you’ll feel Mirii’s yearning for freedom in your bones – and you’ll rejoice at every tiny moment of escape that she achieves. Welcome to Orphancorp is harrowing, scarily real, and ultimately super moving.’ – Charlie Jane Anders (i09)

‘Punchy, crunchy, sexy and smart, Welcome to Orphancorp is a short, sharp shock of a story with bruised-but-not-broken characters and a bonsai dystopia you can actually believe in. Marlee Jane Ward is a writer of heart and passion, muscle and slow-burning anger.’ – Ian McDonald

‘Welcome to Orphancorp is an intimate, heartfelt story set in the darkest of places. I can’t stop thinking about these characters.’ – Kij Johnson

‘An object lesson in how to dehumanise young people by locking them up and depriving them of all warmth and care – has never been more timely. This gritty, greasy story is peppered with violence and lit with the slenderest shafts of affection and hope. It will make your jaw clench with fear for the indomitable Mirii Mahoney, and your fist punch the air at her every tiny victory.’ – Margo Lanagan

Print length

75 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

August 24, 2015
File size

4597 KB
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Enabled
Word Wise

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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B014FPSOVM
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Seizure (August 24, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 24, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4597 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 75 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,006,639 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #8,754 in Two-Hour Literature & Fiction Short Reads
- #25,394 in Literary Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #61,461 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 40 ratings

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About the author

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Marlee Jane Ward

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I’m a writer from Melbourne, Australia.

I grew up on the Central Coast of New South Wales and studied creative writing at the University of Wollongong. I attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 2014.

You can find my short stories at Interfictions, Terraform, Apex, The Sockdolager, Aurealis, Mad Scientist Journal, Slink Chunk Press, Feminartsy and the In Your Face, Hear Me Roar, Kindred and Best Summer Stories anthologies.

My debut novella, Welcome To Orphancorp, won Seizure’s Viva La Novella 3 and the 2016 Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction. It was shortlisted for The NSW Premiers Award, an Aurealis Award, and the Norma K Hemming Award. The sequel, Psynode, was released in May of 2017 and was shortlisted for best YA novel in the 2018 Aurealis Awards. The third and final book in the series Prisoncorp was released in 2019.

My non-fiction can be found at Overland, Kill Your Darlings, Writers Bloc, Going Down Swinging and more.

In 2017 I won the Ditmar Award for Best New Talent.

I like dreaming of the future, cats, and making a spectacle of myself.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

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Kindle Customer

Stunning

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is a great book. I picked it up because I am going to WorldCon in a few days and she is going to be there. Very happy I did so. This is a great book by an up and coming author. I've already joined her Patreon.

Helpful

Ian Wienert

Unsettling Vision of a Near Future That is all too real

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2019

This was a great novella. Ward has a confident voice knows how to use to tell a good story. There is a lot of unpleasantness in this novel, though not in the form of gore or over the top nastiness. Rather, it's the world world of the book that is unpleasant, and OrphanCorp itself is unnerving. This is a world where orphans are made to work, and are overseen by Aunties and Uncles. It's private orphanages standing in for private prisons, though those exist, too.
It's chock full of good characters and has an intriguing premise that is more relevant than it should be to today's world. Looking at the state of affairs today, it is not difficult to imagine the world presented here coming to pass. And soon, too. A great read, well worth checking out.

Helpful

C. White

Between Tenderness and Pain

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2015

From its opening pages, Welcome To Orphancorp is inventive and evocative, and Mirii’s voice drips off the page with adolescent attitude and a very niche wisdom. See, she's spent just about her entire life in the Orphancorp system and despite all odds, she's figured out how to turn the place into something resembling a home.

Much of the story happens in the place between tenderness and pain – pain deliberately dealt on the orphans by each other and by the system, and pain that lingers from their short lives of hardship. But it's the tenderness that's the book's focus, and where its beating heart lies, as the kids and teenagers forge quasi-familial bonds and romantic, or simply sexual, attachments in an effort to retain their humanity in the face systemic degradation.

It's a confident and powerful debut, and a sequel can't come soon enough.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Sommer Tothill

This is an excellent story. Beautifully real characters bring warmth to a ...

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2016

This is an excellent story. Beautifully real characters bring warmth to a comprehensively developed speculative world. Orphancorp is an institution which feels all too possible, thanks to an exquisitely thoughtful and realistic depiction of an orphan industrial complex. But despite the bleakness of these kids' futures and their undeserved convict-like upbringings, they find meaning, connection, mischief, and above all hope. The story closes with such tense promise I'm thrilled to hear there's going to be a sequel!

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

R.M.Selg

A captivating read

Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2017

If you loved 'The Natural Way of Things' by Charlotte Wood I think you'll love this Novella too. It is dark and thought provoking and hopeful and warm all at the same time. Great characters and an engaging story.

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2016

Such a great read!

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Skywatcher

Good Read

Reviewed in Australia on July 6, 2020

Verified Purchase

The characters are well drawn without any false notes to behaviour and attitudes. The situations are believable. I hope to see more by this author in the future

MisterHobgoblin

Underdeveloped

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2016

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Welcome to Orphancorp is a novella set in a dystopian Australia where orphanages have been commodified, the young people in their care being little more than child labourers working for the enrichment of persons unseen. The staff are mostly unthinking automata, but at worst they are sadistic jailers.

We meet Mirii, a sassy 17 year old who is due to be released into the open in just a week. She has to keep her nose clean to avoid missing her release and being packed off to Prisoncorp – which in any case seems to be the fate of former orphans who don’t quickly find employment and accommodation on the outside. Mirii has just been transferred to the Sydney Orphancorp having spent her entire life in a series of identical institutions dotted across Australia.

The novella works in parts. Mirii’s voice is mostly engaging, speaking in the kind of argot that typifies petty rebellion against a much more powerful force. Hence, oaths are minced, common concepts are given new names, and common words are loaded with horrific meaning. “Consequences” in particular.

What doesn’t work quite so well is that the story is just not plausible. That a whole industry could have grown up so neglectful of its assets; that despite the severe Consequences of transgression, the orphans would transgress as soon as the staff’s backs were turned; that there were no whistleblowers, snitches, saintly do-gooders; awkward relatives… There was no depth of characterisation – people who had barely met were willing to trust their lives to one another. It felt too much like some set scenes loosely stitched together with, being honest, a fair bit of passing in the middle. The pacing also didn’t quite seem right with way too much scene setting and then the crucial plot stuff being breezed through.

Overall this just felt too underdeveloped – a couple of good ideas but not set in context and not carried through effectively.

Natasha Gream

A scathing look at where our society is heading

Reviewed in Australia on September 12, 2019

Verified Purchase

In Ward's Orphancorp, the reader should expect nothing but a scathing review of where our wasteful society is headed.

Centred around a teen about to age out of the foster care system, this novella shows the gritty underground which is the monetisation of human services. Always looking out for herself against the screws and nannies of the system, the main character is destined for one of two things, employment at a massive corporation working for a pittance or migration into the countries overpopulated penal system.

This story takes place over a number of days but draws the reader in from the first violent page. Definitely worth a read for those who love dystopian/postapocalyptic fiction

Kindle Customer

Breathtaking

Reviewed in Australia on March 20, 2018

Verified Purchase

Tense and anxious and full of life and hope. Mirii is vulnerable and hurt, amazing and strong; the reader wants her to be happy, and all the other kids too.

J Smith

Well-written and full of heart

Reviewed in Australia on August 27, 2020

Verified Purchase

Emotionally, this wasn't an easy read, but the quality of the writing and the warmth of the characters drew me in.
Mirii is a ball of trauma and scar tissue, but underneath that is a big-hearted human who is ready to love and accept. She has a very strong voice in the novella, and through her we experience the crushing weight of Orphancorp's system, and the pockets of tenderness and care that the children create for themselves in order to survive.
Lovely, heart-wrenching read.