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Rating: 
Summary: Great Premise: "Everything You Think You Know is Wrong"
Review: Chalker takes a great premise (and acknowledges Philip Dick for the inspiration) and makes a terrific story from it. Along the way, the thoughtful reader finds him/herself questioning their perceived reality and considering things in new and different ways. A fascinating side-door introduction into many mystical principles. I've no idea if Chalker intended it so, but that is how it seemed to me. Easy reading considering the non-normal concepts.
Rating: 
Summary: Good 13th Floory Fun
Review: I know! Thirteenth Floor wasn't based on this novel (or the series, either), but that movie kept coming to mind as I read the first part of Cybernetic Walrus. Chalker is original and creative in this book, though, and it's much more satisfying than the "What Is Real?" movies out there. A thoroughly enjoyable book, stands as an adventure in its own right, but also beckons the reader on to the rest of the trilogy. The protagonist, Cory Maddox undergoes plenty of transformation in this story, running through several life "phases" while trying to sort out who to trust. One of the enjoyable features of this series is that the reader is never quite certain who he should trust, either. Often, I found myself wanting to urge Cory & Riki to trust the wrong (in hindsight) characters. Plenty here for either the SF or fantasy fan. Thoroughly enjoyable--Chalker knows how to entertain while stretching the mind and imagination. Perhaps the worst feature of this book is that the 3rd book of the trilogy is so difficult to obtain. A solid four-star rating: great fun, but not absolute genius.
Rating: 
Summary: Not much like "The Matrix" at all
Review: I tracked down a copy of this book after reading the comments suggesting that "The Matrix" appropriated some of Chalker's ideas. Although "The Matrix" does begin in a way that is superficially similar to Chalker's novel -- a mysterious woman prods a computer programmer to realize his world is a virtual-reality illusion -- it quickly diverges into a wildly different story. I'd be more sympathetic if Chalker wasn't such a mediocre writer. His prose is cliche-ridden and meandering, and his narrative is completely devoid of any tension or momentum; he takes 50 tedious pages just to get the story rolling. Characterization ranges from minimal to nonexistent. It's hard to believe that the Wachowskis would even bother to slog through this. In his self-indulgent introduction, Chalker says this is an homage to Philip K. Dick. Too bad he didn't emulate Dick's crisp, clear prose style.
Rating:
Summary: I Guarantee You Will Love This Book
Review: If you are naturally curious, like interesting plot twists and rich environments, then you are going to love this book.
I tend to agree with other reviewers that this work is the inspiration for the movie "The Matrix" and in many ways is a superior work. The ideas in Chalker's work are much more developed than in The Matrix and does a much better job of keeping it's integrity throughout.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best cyberspace series yet!
Review: Jack Chalker continues his tradition of unique ideas and perspectives in the Wonderland series. What starts out as a classic cyberspace story quickly turns in unexpected directions. This book will definitely get you thinking about the true nature of reality. If you liked the movie, "The Matrix," get this book! The movie stole Chalker's ideas without giving credit, and the book explores the ideas to a greater depth. Too bad Del Rey is so short-sighted and has not reprinted the 3rd book in this series.
Rating:
Summary: Not much like "The Matrix" at all
Review: Jack L. Chalker's theory of existence was spelled out in Book I, P. 223: "... Sometime, somebody, in a world we otherwise know nothing about but which has to be far more advanced than the one we now knew, built a vast computer for some reason and put tremendous knowledge and capability into it. Something went wrong, or so it seemed. A group, a small group, of people from that original place, that true universe, had come into the system and gotten lost, then trapped, in an ever-increasing series of exquisitely detailed virtual universes.. [Brand] was the only hope of getting everybody together again and back to reality. ..."
Chalker wrote, "All reality is programming. We cannot know the real: we are trapped in an endless series of simulations, all of us, and some, like myself, in simulations within simulations. ...." He uses an IT, a thing, a faceless one or a gray ancient to speak these lines, rather than a flesh and blood character. This device implied a para-programmer, one outside the mind of man. This invented God is in control not only of the author outside the story's pages but in control of all the characters within the pages of the book.
Reality now has a counterpart, virtual reality. The characters, en mass, stare into the mirror of their own minds and realize that they had no measuring rod with which to gauge their own realities. The mind is self reflective. The mind has no outer objective way to measure either its input or output. The characters reveal the dead end of human thought. The fact that the tactile nerves register solidity reveals little regarding production or projection of such solidity. There is no way to distinguish whether the neurons fire due to sensory input rather than from say drugs or computer generated inputs. Reality, thus loses its previous foundation.
Chalker posits an Existence Computer with limitless memory able to fill in a separate reality for each and every mind. Everyone gets their own set of individual mental constructs. With this god-like computer unlimited universes to surround each person's set of ideas could be created. (P. 211 BK II). Taking this idea one step further, each person is a circuit on the mother board of the universe. Every solid item that surrounds a person is created within another little circuit. The whole universe is the giant circuitry, the mother board of existence. We are all but chips, powered from this hidden source of energy that we call existence. Chalker names his god character Matthew Brand. Brand understands the circuitry and power of the Existence Computer enough to become part of it. Brand was able to join with the energy reactor in order to control the energy flow into the mother board of the Existence Computer.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best cyberspace series yet!
Review: Mr Chalker takes an ongoing presence in the works of the great Phillip K. Dick, and spins the begginigs of a series that will not let any fans down. the nature of reality, in question for the protagonist, as he shuffles from life to life offers a challenging mystery, as to the mystery of our existence, and its ultimate nature. A must read for fans, and worthy of comparisson to the infamous Well World series of books.
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