The Obernewtyn Chronicles is a series of science fiction and fantasy novels by Australian author Isobelle Carmody. The series has a post apocalyptic setting and depicts a world long after its destruction by a global nuclear holocaust.

The series' protagonist, Elspeth Gordie, is a young girl with mental powers condemned by the series' main antagonists, the governing body, known as the council, and the religious authority, the Herder Faction. The novels deal with themes of responsibility, duty, prejudice, discrimination, tolerance, and human and animal rights.

The series consists of seven novels published by Penguin Books.

1. Obernewtyn (1987)
2. The Farseekers (1990)
3. Ashling (1995)
4. The Keeping Place (1999)
5. Wavesong (2008)
6. The Stone Key (2008)
7. The Sending (2011)
8. The Red Queen (2015)

In the United States and Canada, the books are published by Random House. Random House split The Stone Key into two books: The Stone Key and Wavesong. The United States and Canada have also split The Sending into two books: The Sending and The Waking Dragon.^[1]

Though initially intended to be the final installment, The Sending was the penultimate book. The final book, The Red Queen, was released in November 2015.^[2][3]

The series is set many years into the future, where the world has been ravaged by a great nuclear holocaust known as the Great White. The few people left have formed a new way of living, led by a body called the Council.

The Council realised that they had not escaped the effects of the Great White completely unscathed, and began burning any humans or animals born with deformities. The Council appointed a fledgling religious order called the Herder Faction to oversee these rituals. The Herders believed that Lud, their name for God, sent the Great White as punishment for a materialistic society. As a result, they destroyed all artifacts of the old world known as the Beforetime.

Those who spoke out against the Herders, or researched the period before the nuclear holocaust or its technology, were declared Seditioners (from the word sedition) and were burnt alive. Council law and the Herder Faction gradually fused, and came to depend on each other. If the two governing bodies did not burn the dissidents, they sent them to work on Councilfarms. Orphan homes were set up to house those children of Seditioners not claimed by relatives.

It later became clear that mutations of the mind could develop which were not visible at birth. The Council and Herder Faction decided that those few people affected by mental mutations, called Misfits, would be sent to the Councilfarms. They sent the more afflicted Misfits to the remote mountain estate of Obernewtyn to be treated, and to be isolated from normal people.

Elspeth Gordie and her brother Jes grow up in an orphanage after their parents are burned as Seditioners. Elspeth has enhanced mental abilities and must conceal them in order to avoid being discovered as a Misfit. At the beginning of the first book in the series, Obernewtyn, Elspeth is named a Misfit and is sent to Obernewtyn, a place run by people who claim to investigate the Misfits and look for a cure to their abilities.

At Obernewtyn, Elspeth discovers what is really happening to all the Misfits that Madam Vega, the co-owner of Obernewtyn, claims she is curing. Together the Misfits form an uprising and take over Obernewtyn, turning it into a secret refuge for both Misfits and animals.

Elspeth is not just a Misfit; she is what the animals call the Innle, or Seeker in English, and she must find and destroy the weaponmachines around the world. The weaponmachines are what caused the Great White, and Elspeth has to seek them out to destroy them before the world is plunged into another Great White.

However, the Misfits can't hide forever and must find a place in The Land as it enters a period of turmoil, as rebels begin to revolt against the Council and the Herder Faction. The elusive Twentyfamilies' Gypsies, and half-blooded gypsies, also play an important role in the political and social struggles of The Land.

Powers of the mind play a significant part in the series, and may manifest themselves in a variety of ways and as a variety of abilities. Minor, weak powers, such as the ability to true dream, or the possession of a knack for guessing correctly, seem to be rather widespread, although mostly these abilities exist only in the unconscious levels of the brain. As such, many individuals with these powers are not aware of their abilities and cannot control them.

Sentient powers are called Talents, and may be used at will by their possessor. The seven most common Talents, as defined and named by the Misfits of Obernewtyn, are farseeking, coercion, empathy, healing, futuretelling, beastspeaking, and teknopathing. A Talented Misfit may possess one or more of these Talents, although one particular power will usually manifest itself more strongly than the others. Some combinations of Talents, such as farseeking and beastspeaking, are quite common, while others, such as coercion and empathy, are rare.

At Obernewtyn, each Misfit belongs to a group, or Guild, consisting of similarly Talented individuals. A Misfit is free to choose which guild he or she wishes to belong to, but usually the guild corresponding to their strongest Talent is chosen. Each guild is led by a leadership group consisting of a Guildmaster or Guildmistress (who is usually, but not necessarily, Obernewtyn's strongest possessor of that Talent), a Guilden, and one or more Wards. Guilds are responsible for nurturing their members' abilities, and also for contributing something to Obernewtyn as a whole; the Farseeker Guild, for example, is responsible for scrying out Talented Misfits. Guild leaders meet to discuss the affairs of Obernewtyn in meetings called Guildmerge.

An outline of the seven Talents, examples of powerful possessors, and each guild's master are as follows.

Outside of these seven Talents, other powers have emerged or have been expressed in different ways in the series.

Elspeth possesses a mysterious power known as the killing power, related to her coercion Talent, something she has described as a "dark snake" coiled at the base of her mind. It has the power to kill individuals as shown in the novel Obernewtyn, when she used this power to kill Madam Vega. The killing power can also be used to augment her other powers to increased levels, as shown in Ashling when Elspeth uses it to break through Dragon's mental defences, and in The Keeping Place in order to break through the demonband static.

Other powers to have emerged include Dragon's illusion-generating abilities, which have been described as the result of a critical mass of coercion mental power (other coercers display this power but not to the same degree). Freya's empathy also displays abilities outside of the normal range. Her power is described as "enhancing"; allowing people under its effect to perform better than they otherwise would. Ariel's rare empathy and coercion combination allows him to feed his victims ghastly visions of torture while using empathy to make the victim think they're enjoying the experience. He is described by Domick, a victim of this torture, as an "empath turned inside out".

Two children described in the series, Lidgebaby (first seen in The Farseekers) and Gavyn (The Keeping Place), also have strange abilities. Lidgebaby's coercion powers allowed her to link other Talents to her, effectively binding them to her to the effect that they were compelled to protect and love her above all else. A side-effect of this never before seen merging was the generation of mental static that cancelled out all other powers, as experienced by Elspeth in The Farseekers and later in The Red Queen. Gavyn is described as "adantar", beastspeak for "link". He has an unusual amount of control and effect over animals even though he isn't a beastspeaker. Elspeth and the beasts believed he is some sort of enthraller, whose powers only affect beasts.

In addition, the animals of Obernewtyn have formed the Beast Guild. Their leader is the mare Avra. The Beast guild have equal rights to participate in Guildmerge. It seems that most, if not all, beasts can communicate with each other mentally. Most species of beast are also able to communicate with any human beastspeaker, although some, such as cats, dogs and horses, are more able to do so than others, such as cows and wolves. As humans cannot beastspeak birds (besides the Agyllians), it is not known if birds can beastspeak each other, or if other animals can beastspeak with birds.

The animals of the Obernewtyn world are described as sentient beings capable of speech. However their form of communication is not oral but mental in nature. This form of mental communication has been described as a blending of word and mental images, with empathised emotions. The beast language also uses different words, such as funaga (human), equine (horse), barud (home), gehdra (the invisible ones), jahran (the cold ones), vlar-rei (children of the waves/dolphins), coldwhite (snow), galta (nothing), shortsleep (sleep), longsleep (death), Innle (seeker), and H'rayka (bringer of death). The beast language also runs words together to form a single word, examples include freerunning, strongminded, gladshield, moonwatcher, daywatcher, and fireheart.

The Obernewtyn Chronicles are populated by a large cast of characters. Only the most important of these are listed here.

• Sutrium: Sutrium is the largest city of the Land, located in the lowlands, and often thought of as the capital. It was formerly the seat of the council, and became the seat of the governing of the Land by the citizens and rebels. The Misfits make many trips to Sutrium as it is a very important centre in the Land. The Sugreedoon River flows through the western part of the city.
• Aborium: Aborium is a large city on the West Coast. It was the main Herder centre of the Land, and the way to access Herder Isle. Aborium is a bayside city and is where Elspeth initially met Brydda.
• Murmroth: Murmroth is a large city on the West Coast, and the hardest to access city from Obernewtyn. Murmroth is quite isolated from other cities, apart from those on the West Coast, due to the Blacklands.
• Saithwold: Saithwold is a small city with a beach very near to Sutrium, and is often thought of as a suburb of Sutrium, which experiences many troubles. Saithwold is the sister city of Sawlney.
• Sawlney: Sawlney is northeast of Sutrium city. Sawlney is often described as a "humble city", though it has become increasingly dangerous for the Misfits. Sawlney is the sister city of Saithwold.
• Kinraide: Kinraide is a city north of Sutrium in the lowlands in a forested region. It is near to the town of Berrioc, and contains the orphan home where Elspeth grew up.
• Morganna: Morganna is a city on the West Coast.
• Herder Isle: Herder Isle is where the Herders go when they want to leave the cities, and is the home of "The One".
• Sador: Sador is where the battlegames were held to judge if whether the Misfits were the best allies. It is also the place where the Misfits went when they broke the curse on Rushton's mind that separated him from Elspeth.