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A review by trike
Exiles at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker
5.0
Moving on to #2 in the Well World saga, where everything gets epic-er. It’s been 1,100 years since anyone tried to wage war on the Well World, and that was a failure, ultimately, because it was a war of conquest. You can’t have supply lines that cross areas where technology doesn’t work and the air in some places is poisonous to 90% of your multispecies army, half of whom think the other half is delicious.
But now two spaceships have crashed on the planet and a war to retrieve those craft is inevitable.
Back in the day I don’t think I reread this one nearly as much as I did MatWoS, as I didn’t recall quite as much detail, but the overall plot was still all there. A couple bits I thought came in the third book, so now I’m doubting my memory as to the overall timeline. Once again, the sheer scale of the story is impressive, and I still really want to see this thing brought to life.
It’s interesting to me how I never gave a second thought to the fact that the protagonist is a Chinese woman and one of the antagonists is a lapsed Muslim. Nowadays there would be cries of both racism and political correctness, but back in 1978 it wasn’t a big deal at all.
Looking back, we really had a lot more diversity in our entertainment in the 70s. All of us watched shows about black families like Good Times, What’s Happening and The Jeffersons, the latter of which had an interracial couple. I’m sure the racists hated that stuff back then but we didn’t hear about it all the time. And those shows were hits, watched by millions of people.
So having an antihero like Mavra Chang kick ass and take names wasn’t unusual in the slightest. It’s hard to think of a character who has more toughness and guts than Chang. Her backstory, which Chalker relates in two paragraphs, is brutal and would fill two books on its own. An orphan, beggar, thief, and prostitute who becomes a starship pilot and captain, eventually turning herself into the most dangerous woman in the human part of the galaxy is just the warm-up for what the Well World has in store for her. That’s how epic her story is. Even the part where her former john becomes her husband and partner in crime who engages in a Pygmalion/My Fair Lady transformation of the coarse and streetwise Mavra is something she just casually mentions.
Obie the computer is still my second favorite character after Chang, but I was surprised by how little he’s in this book. He has a larger role in the later books, I think, but don’t quote me on that. I am looking forward to the appearance of Gypsy. Although I most identify with Nathan Brazil, Gypsy is the character I always wanted to be.
On to #3.
But now two spaceships have crashed on the planet and a war to retrieve those craft is inevitable.
Back in the day I don’t think I reread this one nearly as much as I did MatWoS, as I didn’t recall quite as much detail, but the overall plot was still all there. A couple bits I thought came in the third book, so now I’m doubting my memory as to the overall timeline. Once again, the sheer scale of the story is impressive, and I still really want to see this thing brought to life.
It’s interesting to me how I never gave a second thought to the fact that the protagonist is a Chinese woman and one of the antagonists is a lapsed Muslim. Nowadays there would be cries of both racism and political correctness, but back in 1978 it wasn’t a big deal at all.
Looking back, we really had a lot more diversity in our entertainment in the 70s. All of us watched shows about black families like Good Times, What’s Happening and The Jeffersons, the latter of which had an interracial couple. I’m sure the racists hated that stuff back then but we didn’t hear about it all the time. And those shows were hits, watched by millions of people.
So having an antihero like Mavra Chang kick ass and take names wasn’t unusual in the slightest. It’s hard to think of a character who has more toughness and guts than Chang. Her backstory, which Chalker relates in two paragraphs, is brutal and would fill two books on its own. An orphan, beggar, thief, and prostitute who becomes a starship pilot and captain, eventually turning herself into the most dangerous woman in the human part of the galaxy is just the warm-up for what the Well World has in store for her. That’s how epic her story is. Even the part where her former john becomes her husband and partner in crime who engages in a Pygmalion/My Fair Lady transformation of the coarse and streetwise Mavra is something she just casually mentions.
Obie the computer is still my second favorite character after Chang, but I was surprised by how little he’s in this book. He has a larger role in the later books, I think, but don’t quote me on that. I am looking forward to the appearance of Gypsy. Although I most identify with Nathan Brazil, Gypsy is the character I always wanted to be.
On to #3.