Midnight at the Well of Souls
The Well of Souls series, Book 1
Jack L. Chalker
Del Rey
Fiction, Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: One of the greatest mysteries encountered by humanity as they spread across the stars was the Markovian ruins, great cities atop planet-encompassing technology that bear not a single lingering artifact - not so much as a potsherd - nor any hint as to what happened to a species that had advanced to near-divinity. But a chance discovery puts one archaeologist, Elkinos Skander, on the path to waking a Markovian computer... with which he believes he can become like a god over the known universe and beyond. When his breakthrough is witnessed by ambitious young student Varnett, Skander resorts to desperate measures. The two are locked in life-and-death combat when they suddenly vanish.
Freighter captain Nathan Brazil has spent hundreds of years plying the spaceways. Rejuvenation procedures often extend human life spans to centuries, but Brazil is older than that... old enough he's even forgotten his own age and origins. On his latest run, he carries three passengers from various worlds. But when a distress beacon reaches the ship from a Markovian planet, Brazil diverts to explore, which is how all four of them end up disappearing. Finding themselves in a strange new place, they're met by an old friend of Brazil's, former space pirate Serge Ortega - only the man is not the human he used to be, but a half-snake, half-walrus alien known as an Urik. He explains that they have fallen into a planet known as Well World: a Markovian artifact, which holds over one thousand distinct habitats in hexagonal fields, each with its own biomes and tech (or magic) levels. As for why the man is no longer human, this is what the Well World does to everyone: it transforms all arrivals into new species and sends them to one of the habitats, there to live out their days as best they can. Escape, Ortega informs them, is impossible. But even as they resign themselves to their fate, Ortega holds Brazil back, with a special assignment. Skander and Varnett are on Well World, too... and both believe they've discovered the keys that will let them control Markovian tech, if they can make their ways from their new habitats to the central control room inside the planet. This, of course, would be a disaster in the making, not just for the inhabitants of Well World but for the rest of the universe. Nathan Brazil was always a resourceful one, and Ortega wants him and his companions to do everything in their power to stop the two meddlers.
REVIEW: This story, first published in 1977, is something of a genre classic, and has a wild imagination and ambitious scope that hold up today... better, unfortunately, than some other aspects of the story.
The characters aren't especially deep, but then the primary focus is the exploration of the Well World concept and the legacy of the Markovians, which is much more than the simple ruins that dot the galaxy - and the primary purpose of the Markovians and other aliens is to examine the metaphysical purpose of life itself (especially human life). There's a fair bit of handwaving/"sufficiently advanced technology" that's basically magic to explain how the world and much of what it contains and enables exist, with echoes that resonate in old Earth myths and legends and religions (because of course Earth and humans are the center of the known universe, for all that the species has lost its way terribly on the way to the stars; many are becoming hivelike nests of cloned genderless servants under a small ruling class, while others are greedy and lawless monsters). At its heart, the story is more of an epic quest, with a small band of travelers crossing many strange lands and encountering many strange cultures on their way to the metaphoric citadel to stop the villains from destroying the world/universe and end the evils that have darkened the land - in this case, the way humanity has parted ways with its own heart and conscience in pursuit of illusory perfection and/or material luxuries. Brazil's companions each enter new bodies and new mini-worlds across the Well World, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and quirks... but Nathan Brazil himself, strangely enough, is untouched by Well World's transformations, yet another hint that he is other than he appears to be.
Things move reasonably well, save when things bog down a bit as new habitats and species are introduced and explained... with an odd emphasis on genitalia. Chalker seemed a bit ahead of his time in exploring notions of gender fluidity and how identity was not determined by what one had between the legs, but he also got a bit obsessed with sex and mating elsewhere; he went out of his way to find a way for two of his characters to get it on when they're not even the same species at the time, in ways that constitute potential spoilers. And this was after one of the pair declared that love was not about sex at all but about caring about one another on a deeper level, so it didn't matter to her that they were physically incompatible at the time because they could still love each other. (Sure seemed to be about sex the moment it was remotely feasible... or maybe the author just had some very peculiar fetishes goin' on, because that scene definitely had more than a touch of bestiality - even more so when one learns about the true nature of one of the participants. But I digress...) In any event, the whole story starts bowing under the weight of increasing metaphysical Messages about life, the universe, and God (because this is yet another science fiction classic that not only considers humans to be the obvious pinnacle of any creation, but considers that godhood is the inevitable "goal" of evolution). The climactic final confrontation between Skander, Varnett, and Brazil and company feels flattened by that weight, and the conclusion starts feeling stretched.
There are more novels in the Well World series, but I consider my curiosity about the concept sufficiently satisfied to stop here. As I mentioned at the start, Midnight at the Well of Souls is an imaginative concept, at least.
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