The Demons at Rainbow Bridge

How come people don't rave about Jack Chalker?
I loved this book.
I loved the way it has set things up for the next 2 books in the series.
3 empires with different philosophies, but similar mixes of human and alien members.
This book covers the previous mission of each team of talents from each of the empires before they converge on the demon planet. 3 stories with different casts, each generally with a different dilemna and a bit of a twist in the solution, sort of who-dunnits.
Actually having trouble deciding which team I'm barracking for or who my favourite character is.

Hope I don't get disappointed with the next book.

I found this book hard to get into at first, but it really picked up as it went along. A good part of this book is spent describing Chalker's view of the universe. 3 competing empires control the universe - one an ultimate capitalist society, one an ultimate religious society and the third is a communist/fascist (evil) society. This book feels like Chalker's version of The Foundation Trilogy, where he tries out competing government types to see which is 'best', but with a twist. Ultimately the plot revolves around the discovery of a world where 2 devils have been found - creatures which appear in the mythology of nearly every race and culture and are always evil. I just discovered this series and I'm looking forward to getting the show more remaining 2 books. show less

We are introduced to three stellar empires with three novellas so to speak. We have the "good" empire, the "evil" empire, and the secular empire. Good, religous empire. Evil, dog eat dog empire. Secular, libertine empire. Each has its own group of humans.

The author has fun with these types of empires comparing and contrasting. How these very different empires solve problems and function is interesting.

This is the first of a series. This book does not really put the overall series story forward, but just introduces us to the protagonists.

One common thing of these cultures, is the knowledge of a race of beings that have not been known, but remembered, for eons. Demons!

A team from each empire race in answer to a distress beacon. Two Demons show more have been discovered at Rainbow Bridge. show less

A space opera where three rival empires: the Exchange, Mycohlians, and Mizlaplan. vie for control over mysterious, ancient horned creatures found in suspended animation on the planet Rainbow Bridge.

This was a good fun book but it is obviously part of a series. The book just stops. I haven't yet run across the other books in the series so I can't tell if the good start he had in this, was put to good use. The quick overview of the book is sometime in the future humanity has spread out into the Galaxy and found 3 competing civilizations fighting over it, each one an extreme to the others and yet they are all similar. Humanity had spread out into all three territories and as such was split along the lines designated by these "Superior" civilizations. The book follows a human from each one and shows the differences then goes into the story that brings the charactors together.

I read the whole trilogy so it must have been okay!

Sample Chapters: http://webscriptions.net/chapters/0671878875/0671878875.htm