Exiles at the Well of Souls

Rating:
Summary: Sequel to Midnight at the Well of Souls
Review: A continuation of the story started in Midnight at the Well of Souls, Exiles is the first of a two part subset within the five book series, and is paired with its own sequel, Quest for the Well of Souls; together they are called "The War of the Well World".

This story begins with a new character as the focal point of the story. Mavra Chang. Mavra is a sort of freelance thief, and she's been hired to steal something (or so she thinks).

It turns out that a physicist laboring away at his own vision of cosmology rediscovers the basics of the technology of the universe's parent race, the ancients who created The Well World (see my review under Midnight at the Well of Souls). Unfortunately, one of his underlings decides to take the awesome power for his own, and with it, blackmail the interstellar community. The underling invites an assortment of powerful people to a demonstration of the technology, and into this comes Mavra Chang. She's been sent by a third party who does not wish to get too close to what appears to be a trap.

Something goes wrong, though, and the entire experiment (computer and reality generator built into an asteriod) winds up accidentally connecting itself to The Well World computer, and teleports itself and all aboard to The Well. What's worse, it cannot disengage the computer link at all. Faced with eventual starvation, the passengers disembark in a pair of shuttles, bound for the surface of The Well World.

And when they land, suddenly, since the creation of the modern universe, there is now a way for those living on The Well to leave (The Well has a variety of programming built in that prevents the natives from ever building on their own any machine or system that might escape the gravity of The Well itself).

This novel deals with what happens to the passengers after they land, and what happens to them in their intial encounters, and what new races they are transformed into.