Midnight at the Well of Souls [Mass Market Paperback]

Jack L. Chalker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2002

Nathan Brazil, a cargo ship-for-hire owner, detours from his route to answer a distress call. A hidden stargate hurls him and his passengers to the Well World, the master control planet for the cosmos created by the now-gone godlike race who designed the universe. Now someone wants to find the Well of Souls to seize control of all the cosmos--and it's up to Nathan to stop them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A Big, bold book that takes traditional science fiction and turns it upside down!"-- Leigh Brackett --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

Entered by a thousand unsuspected gateways -- built by a race lost in the clouds of time -- the planet its dwellers called the Well World turned beings of every kind into something else. There spacefarer Nathan Brazil found himself companioned by a batman, an amorous female centaur and a mermaid -- all once as human as he.

Yet Nathan Brazil's metamorphosis was more terrifying than any of those...and his memory was coming back, bringing with it the secret of the Well World.

For at the heart of the bizarre planet lay the goal of every being that had ever lived -- and Nathan Brazil and his comrades were...lucky?...enough to find it! --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: A Baen Book; Reprint edition (January 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743435222
• ISBN-13: 978-0743435222
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #967,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Series List, September 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Midnight at the Well of Souls (Mass Market Paperback)

A short while ago, someone emailed me asking for a ordered list of the books in this series (they got my email address from an earlier review).

Here it is for everyone else.

1-Midnight at the Well of Souls

2-Exiles at the Well of Souls

3-Quest for the Well of Souls

4-The Return of Nathan Brazil

5-Twilight at the Well of Souls

Remember, books 2 and 3 originally were one book called The War of the Well World, and are a single story, broken into two novels by the publishing requirements of the time.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A big, bold, colorful sci-fi adventure, November 12, 2002

By 

Michael J. Mazza - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Midnight at the Well of Souls (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Yet another book to answer Big Question, June 26, 2000

By 

Alex (College Park, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Midnight at the Well of Souls (Mass Market Paperback)

I don't know why, but some unfortunate reason Midnight at the Well of Souls seems familiar to Simak's Goblin Reservation. I don't know why. They share very little.

There is a planet in space that was created aeons ago by a long-gone race that achieved the ultimate in technology. Its area is precisely delineated into 1460 hexagonal biomes, each home to a separate intelligent species, half of which (the entire northern hemisphere to be exact) are non-carbon-based and non-humanoid in both mental and physical faculties. It's rather like going to the zoo - as the characters make their way through hex after hex of alien terrain your heart is filled with awe of the next big surprise civilization that Chalker has prepaired for you.

And although in the beginning the book may seem to be the average blood-and-guts-and-sex romance set on another planet, you are soon enveloped in an enourmous mistery (that easily dwarfs that of Card's Speaker for the Dead) of interspecies proportions. Touched upon is the eternal question of what makes us human (and Chalker's human civilization of genderless drug-controlled clones is most certainly not human), and, finally, for the big finale, the characters are allowed to alter anything in the universe and the reader gets a brief glimpse of God.

The plot is original and the characters are quite believable. Even the aliens, although they do seem a bit too human (the White House is filled with the human equivalent of Akkafians). Belive me, it's a worthwhile read.