Midnight at the Well of Souls

Rating:
Summary: Wow what an adventure
Review: If you like sci-fi this is the one

Rating:
Summary: A big, bold, colorful sci-fi adventure
Review: Jack Chalker's "Midnight at the Well of Souls" is a science fiction adventure tale that one could describe as an ambitious epic, yet written with an often whimsical sense of fun. The novel is full of colorful characters, weird locales, and imaginatively conceived alien species.

The story's hero is freighter captain Nathan Brazil, a human male who is noted to be a maverick and a loner in "an age of extreme conformity." While carrying a motley collection of passengers on his ship, Brazil answers a distress call. Soon he finds himself on the Well World, a bizarre planet divided up into hundreds of biospheres and home to hundreds of different civilizations. Oh, and each newcomer to the planet can expect to find him- or herself transformed into a different species! "Midnight" charts the odyssey of Brazil, his allies, and his enemies across this strange and wondrous world as they seek the answer to an ancient mystery.

"Midnight" is a novel of ideas as well as a fun and exciting adventure; Chalker deals with such issues as history, drug addiction, crime, social organization, literacy, and more as the story unfolds. Chalker cleverly delves into the life cycles and sexual behaviors of the various Well World species, which include intelligent plants, a centaur-like race, and many more. The motif of transformation, including gender-changing, is intriguingly handled throughout the story.

Chalker makes reference to "Alice in Wonderland" at one point in the book, but the book, curiously, reminds me more of L. Frank Baum's classic Oz tales. And Chalker's vision of science, civilization, and history reminds me a bit of a less horrific, more light-hearted H.P. Lovecraft. Overall, a lot of fun, and written in a very engaging prose style. If you like this book, try "Lord Valentine's Castle," by Robert Silverberg.

Rating:
Summary: This is the book that really launched Chalker
Review: Jack Chalker, through this book, and the other books, tells one of the great classics in modern soft science fiction. The beginning of a five book series, Midnight tells of a man named Nathan Brazil, and how he and his strange life fit into the center of the universe and its history.

Nathan is a typically tough-as-nails starship captain who is carried through events set off by his own interference with a criminal syndicate, but it's where he goes that defines the entire series: The Well World.

The Well World is the generator of all modern reality. Billions of years in the past, a race of beings developed the ultimate in technology, computers that could read their minds, and then with matter/energy transforming systems would translate those thoughts, whatever they were, into reality. After a long time, they did everything, and became bored. They wondered if that could really be all there was to life, but could envision no more than they had, and decided that somehow they had reached an evolutionary dead end because to them it was obvious that there _had_ to be more to life. Any other decision would have meant that their lives had been meaningless. They took their computer-reality technology and built a computer the size of a planet, one so large that it could generate an entire universe. Upon its surface were hexagonal zones of a few thousand square kilometers [I can't remember the exact size], each one an enviromental enclousure where the ancient race designed and tested for viability every possible intelligent race they could think of. The designs of those that proved suitable were stored away, and the enclosure would be used again and again. Eventually they used the planet to create an entirely new universe, overlaying the original one (which had far fewer worlds and stars). The early evolution of the universe was forced through at incredible speed until most of the intelligent species emerged, and then, well, it's not exactly clear. The race that did all of it vanished, and althoug! h a variety of ideas about what happened to them were put forward in the book, none of them were convincing.

Meanwhile, in current time on The Well World, the last set of races to be tested out in the enclosures were left to their own devices. They formed odd societies and inter-society relations, given that each enclosure was often radically different from its neighbors.

Onto The Well World comes Nathan Brazil, and the passengers of his tramp freighter. Strange things begin to happen on The Well (short for The Well World). They are all told that they will be put through another gate, this one teleporting them to one of the enclosures, where they will be transformed into one of the native intelligent species.

And with that simple act, Chaos breaks out across The Well.

That sounded like the whole story, didn't it? Trust me, that's just the backfill, and spoils very little that isn't told right at the beginning of the book. And _then_ there are the next four books.

Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite book of my favorite series.
Review: My favorite book in my favorite series. His character development and vivid descriptions are awesome! The entire "Well of Souls" series would make great sci-fi film! I highly recommend this even if you have never heard of Jack L. Chalker (which I doubt!)!

Rating:
Summary: This could describe the true origin of man.
Review: The caricature of Nathan Brazil is one that will stand the strength of time. He is a person, not a hero. I have read these books multiple times, and will read them again. I think that this story would make a tremendous movie.

Rating:
Summary: The best science fiction you will ever read.
Review: There are not many books I read more than once. This is one that over the years I have read at least five times. Jack L. Chalker created a not so well known masterpiece. Read it. You will be glad that you did.

Rating:
Summary: WOW!!!
Review: This book has it all!!!! The greatness of it is in the mixup of si-fi and fantasy. for too long did si-fi fans have to deal with the same style plot,the same characters and for some reason always the same humanlike shape!!! Bewarned!! All this is about to change in this book!!! What you think you know, will prove wrong. what you don't know will be infront of your eyes... What more can i say?? READ THIS BOOK!!!! :)
I started out as a si-fi reader and switched to fantasy for lack of imagination... this book proved that si-fi is still here!!!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant imagination. A classic book.
Review: This is the book that launched Jack Chalker as an SF heavyweight and it's easy to see why. Full of fun characters, a brilliantly realised world and a fascinating plot it's a terrific adventure from a master story.

Other reviews will give you the plot in more detail. I simply want to recommend Chalker the writer. I've read pretty much everything he's published and I always look forward to his new books. This, though, is certainly one of his greatest. It's a great shame that mainstream SF critics have ignored or impugned his work because it's as good or better than a lot of the dross that's out there (and I include some of the so-called masterworks that have been swathed in awards). Thankfully he has a loyal legion of fans that have followed his career.

And this is also a great prequel to the War of the Well which is told the four volumes that followed this one. You don't have to read them all, as this a stand alone novel, but if you enjoy this one as much as so many others have then you'll certainly want to read more about Well World and the War of the Well novels are also superior entertainment on a large scale.

Basically, try anything of Jack Chalker's. He's an underrated master of the fantasy/sf genre.

Look also for The Four Lords of the Diamond series, The Rings of the Master series, the Dancing Gods novels and his lone short story collection, Dance Band on the Titanic.

The War of the Well is told in Exiles at the Well of Souls, Quest for the Well of Souls, The Return of Nathan Brazil and Twilight at the Well of Souls.

Dont wait. Go seek them out. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome to the world of the well :)
Review: While reading this book, something strikes you - you just have to read on! This (these?) books are simply just great. You are slowly getting sucked deeper and deeper into the plot. As another one said, Chalker is great at alien sociology - this book deals with a huge number of totally different races, and he manages to keep them different, to make them fit into the plot, and then makes the book end with you wanting more (which there fortunately is!) - if you're into sci-fi, and you haven't read this yet, you'd better get started!!!