Melchior's Fire (Hardcover)

by Jack L. Chalker (Author) "In twenty years of exploring strange worlds and seeking out some kind of indication that possibly humanity wasn't alone, Randi Queson had never found any..." (more)
Key Phrases: Randi Queson, Jerry Nagel, Lucky Cross (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This serviceable action-SF novel of far-future starfaring opens with a useful prologue, bringing the reader up to speed on the planets called the Three Kings Balshazzar, Melchior and Kaspar, satellites of a gas giant and the source of incredibly valuable alien artifacts and the events of the first book in the series, Balshazzar's Serpent (2000). To set up the journey to volcanic, overheated and alien-inhabited Melchior, the author spends nearly half the novel driving his characters, a piratical interstellar salvage crew, to the verge of bankruptcy or worse. They suffer this fate on a deserted colony planet, through the agency of an alien entity who has ingested the previous colonists and is considerably more interesting than anything they later encounter. Thanks to a media mogul, the salvagers embark on a perilous journey through "wild wormholes" to the Three Kings. Once in the system, they discover that Balshazzar holds colonies from several races under a benign but total alien despotism. Reaching Melchior, the spacefarers find it positively swarming with alien races at which point the action slams to a cliffhanger ending as the crew barely survives a telepathic attack. The author has apparently tried to cram two comparatively self-contained tales into a book so short that neither story is really developed adequately. One can only hope Chalker will devote more attention to narrative technique in the inevitable saga of ice-bound Kaspar, last of the Three Kings.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

ON THE RUN FROM THE INTERSTELLAR MOB!

For centuries, interstellar prospectors had searched for the fabled worlds of the Three Kings, the lost El Dorado of the galaxy. But none had succeeded. Only the mad cyborg Prophet, Ishmael Hand, had ever seen the mysterious system, and he had refused to reveal its location before vanishing forever into history. Then, with the help of his flock, a starfaring evangelist -- Doctor Karl Woodward, preacher and leader of the starship The Mountain -- found it, only to disappear in turn.

Now a new group of explorers must follow the trail that Woodward blazed. A spacegoing salvage team, desperately in debt after a violent alien menace ruins a lucrative assignment and decimates the group, is hired to follow the clues Woodward left behind. But the team's shady creditors won't want to wait...and they won't much care how they get their investments back.

Fearing pursuit by their former backers, the group heads off for the ultimate salvage operation. By hook or by crook, they will find the Three Kings -- if the galactic underworld's repo men don't get them first!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Baen (May 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671319914
• ISBN-13: 978-0671319915
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,725,315 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 2 in The Tales of the Three Kings Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Read, July 4, 2001

By	Peter Dykhuis (Grandville, MI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Jack Chalker is not one of the authors who I usually follow and read. I read Melchior's Fire before I realized that it was a sequel to Balshazzar's Serpent. This is probably a good thing, as I never finished Bashazzar's Serpent. I thought it was a bit dry. All this being said, Melchiors Fire is a good read.

The story very much seems like two stories tied together by common characters. The first half of the book deals with the first human contact with an intelligent alien species. This seems a significant event and rightly so. It soon becomes apparent that this first story is included merely to set the tone and events necessary to tell the second story. In the second half the surviving members of the first story are financed by a wealthy businessman to find the mystical Space System of the Three Kings.

I don't want to give away too much of the plot but it is enough to say that their adventures are both amazing and exotic. The story was well written and engaging. I would have to agree with at least one of the previous reviewers that the characters are not incredibly developed but then again that is not the strength of this tale. A very action oriented yarn with some original ideas thrown into the mix.

I found two things in the way the story was written that were weaknesses in my opinion. The first issue was the fact that two distinct tales were combined into one. This was only negative in the sense that both stories seemed under developed. Not horribly so but noticeably so. The second negative was the ending. I know this is a preference issue but I thought the ending was unsatisfactory, at least compared to the rest of the tale.

Overall a very good read with very minor flaws.

4.0 out of 5 stars Return to the Three Kings, April 29, 2006

By	Joshua Koppel (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Melchior's Fire (Mass Market Paperback)

In the first book of the series we followed a religious group as they journeyed to the legendary world of the Three Kings. Possible location of untold riches and paradise it has been near impossible to find.

Now we meet a salvage team. On a routine salvage job they encounter something deadly and must utilize their toughness and convictions to survive. This ordeal, while leaving them penniless, makes them the target of a wealthy benefactor who claims to know the way to the Three Kings. With nothing left to lose they accept the new job.

While we don't learn what the three kings really are we do see them more closely than we did in the first book. Some of the mystery is solved but not all. What is the significance of the Great Silence? Do the Three Kings have a purpose? How can their riches be claimed?

Although the Three Kings aren't really mentioned until the midpoint of the book they quickly become the focus. Unlike in the first volume, much time is actually spent in the Kings' system. Some questions are answered and others are asked. All of it combines to keep the reader going to the end and into the next book. An if you made it this far you will just have to read the next one.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nonstop action--much better, July 20, 2001

By	booksforabuck "BooksForABuck.com" (Dallas) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The crew of the salvage ship Stanley is in trouble. They lose their salvage in an alien attack and ripe for a tycoon's offer. He knows the coordinates to the fabulous Three Kings, a system with three human-inhabitable planets, and a treasure-trove of alien and quasi-natural marvels. The Stanley crew is game and the human race could use the help--it is slowly dying after the loss of contact with Earth and the other advanced worlds.

What follows is an action-packed adventure as the small crew of salvage experts trigger what just might be the biggest trap in the universe.

MELCHIOR'S FIRE is a sequel to the much inferior BALSHAZZAR'S SERPENT (reading the earlier novel is not essential to enjoying MELCHIOR'S FIRE). Author Jack L. Chalker's universe is fascinating and this, together with the non-stop action makes up for a variety of authorly sins (the characters could be better developed, the dialogue is sometimes a little clunky, and the author intrusion is, uh, intrusive).

I approached MELCHIOR'S FIRE with some trepidation after my experience with BALSHAZZAR'S SERPENT, but found myself quickly hooked, reading the entire (short) novel in a single sitting.