A science fiction-fantasy novel set in a post-apocalyptic world, the story follows Elspeth Gordie, an orphan with special mental abilities, who lives a life of fear and danger.
The leaders of Obernewtyn are secretly searching for the old weapons that had sent the world to the brink of despair, and Elspeth finds herself embroiled in a plot that risks more than just her personal safety.
Adapted as a stage play by Caroline Heske, it was performed in Darwin, Australia in 2004 by the Corrugated Iron Youth Arts Theatre.
[4] Obernewtyn is set in a world recently ravaged by a nuclear holocaust, known to the survivors as "the Great White", later said by the Herders (leaders of the new religious order) to have been sent by Lud (God) to punish humanity.
The surviving remote communities attempted to rebuild society, which over time developed into a totalitarian Council, and a religious order, the Herder Faction.
The story is told in the first-person through the protagonist, Elspeth Gordie, a teenage girl who has secret mental powers such as telepathy and the ability to communicate with animals.
The story begins at Kinraide orphan home, where she and her brother Jes live, before moving briefly through Sutrium, the capital, and the countryside.
Elspeth learns from her premonitions, and her cat Maruman's prophecies, that a keeper from Obernewtyn, a feared institution where Misfits are sent to work, will come to take her there.
While working, Elspeth decides to test the range of her telepathic ability, "farseeking", but beyond the boundaries of Obernewtyn, a strange machine, the Zebkrahn, traps her mind.
Asked by Vega to look out for "special" Misfits, her interview reveals the Doctor is a defective simpleton; his "assistant", Alexi, has no interest in Elspeth in his quest to find the "right one" who will lead him to what he desires.
Once she is safely through the drains after a close shave with Ariel's pack of mad, wild wolves, she finds that the path to the farms has been obscured by a blizzard and gets lost.
Inside the cave network she finds a dying Cameo, who tells her the Beforetime weapons Alexi and Vega are searching for caused the Great White, but they do not know this.
In her despair at their threats to kill him, her resistance breaks and Marissa's thoughts reveal the map to be carved into the front doors of Obernewtyn.
A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called it "a promising new series" and stated that Carmody evades stereotyping by imbuing her characters with conflicting interests.
[6] American Young Adult fantasy writer Tamora Pierce expressed that the novel is "a dream date for [her]", given the novel involves a courageous girl of many talents and animals with "minds of their own".
[9] Obernewtyn won the Marcus Clark Literary Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript, which subsequently saw Carmody receive an Australia Council of the Arts Writer's Grant.