Jack L. Chalker (1944–2005)

I’ve had this series on my bookshelves for several years and I’m not entirely sure why. I think Chalker was an awful writer, slapdash, fixated on a handful of not very original ideas, and content to pad out the thinnest of stories to trilogy, and longer, length. I don’t think he wrote a single good book, but he does have legions of fans. Which, I guess, makes him much like every other science fiction author. Anyway, Midnight at the Well of Souls is the first book in Chalker’s The show more Saga of the Well World series, which had reached seven books by the time Chalker died in 2005. A group of archaeological students studying a Markovian ruin on a dead world are murdered by their instructor after he has figured out how to access the Markovian world-computer. He, and the one surviving student, find themselves transported to the Well World. Some time later, spaceship captain Nathan Brazil is transporting a handful of passengers through space when he receives a distress call. It’s from that same world where the instructor murdered his students. And so Brazil and his passengers find themselves also in the Well World. Which is an artificial planet in another dimension or something, and is divided into 1,560 hexagons, each one 355 by 615 kms and containing a completely different ecosphere and associated alien races. Brazil and his passengers are scattered across different hexes, each transformed into a native of that hex. Well, except Brazil isn’t. Because it turns out he’s some sort of immortal, and he knows how to work the Well World’s controlling computer, which is just as well because the aforementioned instructor wants to use the controlling computer for his own ends (and which will in consequence destroy the real universe). So Brazil and allies must trek across half a dozen hexes, having adventures along the way, in order to reach the equatorial wall and the secret entrance to the control room. It’s science fiction by numbers, light on invention, characterisation, rigour and, er, substance. It has all the originality of a basement RPG session by a group of twentysomething nerds. I doubt I’ll be continuing with the rest of the series. show less

This book and I have a history. My parents were both huge fans of Chalker and this book in particular. To hear my mom tell, I was very nearly named Nathan, after the protagonist Nathan Brazil. Then I actually read this as an impressionable teenage nerd which kinda kicked off a whole science fiction obsession. I was a very popular high schooler. Not. lol

Just re-read. Showing its age in some ways but holds up pretty well. The concept is a genuine mindbender, very imaginative. Story breezes show more along, although I wish there had been one more revision to tighten up the prose. show less

Always a fascinating and thought-provoking read. This must have been the 4th or 5th time I've read 'Midnight..'. And this time through many of the passages revealed ideas and concepts that seemed new (new compared to what I remember from other reads of this), intellectually and culturally fascinating, and philosophically linked to many ideas that I've encountered over the past 40 years since I read it the first time.
On the surface it appears to be 'space opera', but progressing through the show more book that view of the novel changes to an 'examination' of social and psychological and biological and technological differences that might be encountered over the whole of the universe and its denizens.
A fun read... now I need to find where I've sequestered the subsequent four novels of the series. show less

Space freighter captain Nathan Brazil, who is older than he looks and more important than he realizes, receives a distress call from an archeological expedition on a dead planet that was once inhabited by a powerful alien race. He arrives to find the expedition murdered, whereupon he and his passengers are sucked through an ancient alien portal. They arrive on a bizarre artificial world made up of a patchwork of environments, each inhabited by a different intelligent species. Those who enter show more this world find themselves awakening in random environments, transformed into whatever species lives there. And somewhere on this planet is the murderer, who seeks the ultimate power that this godlike technology can provide.

I really should not have liked this book as much as I did. The plot is easy to find fault with, if you're inclined, what science it uses is terrible, and it glosses over a lot of practical and psychological issues that really should have been problematic. Worse, practically the whole novel consists of lecturing: characters lecturing each other, the author lecturing the reader, examples of the dreaded "As you know, Bob..." dialog. Stuff that really annoys me. And yet, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. It was wonderfully imaginative, and as soon as I opened it, it was as if I'd somehow regressed to my teenage years, when I had more capacity for sense of wonder than I did for reading critically. I have absolutely no idea how this book managed to do that for me, but it was fun. show less