Midnight At The Well Of Souls (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
This mid-70s science fiction work is a rather ambitious effort, which succeeds in places and fails in others, resulting in a somewhat mixed, but generally enjoyable, reading experience. In some ways it never rises much above the level of a standard boys’ adventure story, but within those rules it is both surprisingly complex and cosmic in vision. In the hands of a lesser writer than Chalker this would have been dreck, although in the hands of a better one it would have been a masterpiece. Instead, it walks a line just this side of pretentious mediocrity, with enough at least to intrigue me for a single reading.The premise of the novel is that an ancient race of beings called “Markovians” (who bear more than a passing resemblance to the “Krell” of “Forbidden Planet”) have created all sentient life in the Universe, as an outcome of their godlike technology and whimsy. Some human archaeologists, investigating their artifacts on a world known to have been a Markovian colony, stumble onto a portal to the “Well World,” which is a kind of cosmic menagerie in which each of the created species has its own preserve. After the initial party disappears, the first on the scene to investigate is Nathan Brazil, a rugged long-lived space pirate in the vein of Han Solo, and a motley crew of passengers from his craft. They all get sucked into the Well World as well.Now, here’s where things start getting weird (and I don’t think this constitutes “spoilers,” because I’m still dealing with the first 1/10th of the story here). Apparently, when folks manage to enter the Well World, they get a brief orientation in “Zone” (a neutral administrative area), then they get shoved through a transportation device that turns them into some other species from what they started as and teleports them to the sector of the Well World where those critters live. Apparently it makes them into something that fits their personality, but doesn’t worry too much about issues of gender or social standing in terms of the end result. Our various parties turn into tree-like genderless Czill, or giant insects, or mermaids, or centaurs (yep), more or less at random and are scattered all over the planet. Then, of course, they discover that they need to get back to Zone and, well… accomplish something or other, or prevent someone else from doing so at least. Unfortunately, with such a complex premise and so many moving parts, a lot of the more interesting concepts don’t get as fully developed as I’d have liked. The aliens are distinctly disappointing – after relatively cursory descriptions, we get almost no insight into their cultures or biological peculiarities, except when such directly impacts the plot. There is a reasonable attempt at a sci fi explanation for how fantasy creatures wound up on this world, and even for why magic works on some planets but not others, but little detail about the mechanics or specifics of it. There are some interesting allusions to an increasingly Communistic galactic human society, but this also remains mostly a kind of shadow, apparently intended to frighten good little individualist (not to say Objectivist) readers and let them see how badly things might go.The final problem I had was that it doesn’t seem to work well as the opening book of a series, but the ending fails to provide the closure of a stand-alone novel. The problem here is that the basic premise of the book deals with the fundamental question of the meaning of existence, which doesn't really work for an opener. I have no certain knowledge of this, but I suspect that it was originally envisioned as a much longer text which would give the complete story, but due to publishing standards of the day, wound up cut apart into multiple novels in revision. This would explain why the plot is so hard to track – a lot of it is deliberately being held back for future episodes. Today, publishers seem to prefer publishing overlong novels, and might well have left it alone. Or, I could be utterly wrong about all of this, and Chalker simply didn’t know how to kick off a series very well. As I keep saying, however, in spite of all this criticism the story moves along well under its own momentum and the very diversity of all the aliens and environments we encounter serves to hold interest from one chapter to the next. “I wonder what we’re going to find here?” is the recurring theme of the quest, and in that it reminds me of the better examples of classic Ray Harryhausen adventure movies. A film version of this would probably be equally baffling, but visually fascinating.
I'm not feeling particularly charitable to this book. It has some rather interesting ideas that keep the first half fairly intriguing and entertaining, but the writing and ham-fistedness of the morality play ruins it pretty thoroughly come the second half.The whole Well World concept is pretty unique for a plot device, and I would have been pretty satisfied if the book had stayed focused on the interplay between the people of the world and their surrounding environs. The questing portion of the first two thirds or so was actually pretty engaging, writing issues aside, mostly because of the different aspects of the world itself. Unfortunately, this best part of the book is left pretty badly unexplored, and also suffers from a great deal of out of the blue, far too perfect exposition that really takes you out of the experience.The writing is...well, vintage sci-fi seems to sum it up. Were people so starved for unusual stories that they didn't care about purple prose and bland exposition and poorly-developed characters? I guess it never was too jarring, but I often paused over certain passages and sighed/chuckled at the poor/strange wording.I think what got my goat most was the last, say, fifth of the book or so. That's when the heavy-handed morality story comes in, delivered in over-the-top sermon form by the central character (also involved in a deus ex machina plot twist that is god-awful). I won't touch on spoilers, but it was so divorced from the main events of the story up to that point - the journey across the world, the intrigue between the two main groups of characters - that it just killed the story for me. Just killed it dead.If you have nothing better to do, it's at least interesting for the underlying concepts. Just don't expect to be dazzled by the quality of its writing.
What do You think about Midnight At The Well Of Souls (2002)?
Imagine walking through a dark gate on an abandoned planet and waking up on a different planet as a walking pumpkin-headed plant-creature. Or a centaur. Or an enormous bug. Or even a six-armed snake-man. This is the premise of Chalker’s excellent Well of Souls series, one of my favorite set of SF books from my formative years. ‘Midnight at the Well of Souls’ is the first book of the series, and follows a familiar pattern: a group of characters – some likable, some not – are taken to a strange place, have some amazing experiences and finally arrive at a somewhat happy ending. The strange place is the mysterious ‘Well-World’ which was used as a testing ground for new races by a long-vanished elder race. Over 1,500 races remain, each in their own separate area on the planet. Here you will find all of the mythical beasts from legend - centaurs, mermaids, fairies – and some stranger things: flying bat-men, fast-running carnivorous vegetable-creatures, four-foot tall sand-swimming tyrannosaurs, and immobile hive-minded flowers. My personal favorite (in this book) is a symbiotic creature composed of flashing lights and floating crystals which eats silicon (what else?).The story is easily read, and the characters are enjoyable, if very shallow. I love really bad villains, and there aren’t any in this book. Chalker has a chance to build a really twisted mad-genius type in his character Elkinos Skander, but then removes him from the storyline, highlighting him only at the end when we are reminded of the murders that he committed at the beginning of the book.Similarly, Datham Hain is a powerful drug-kingpin bent on political control of whatever. He has so much potential to be a shining force of evil, but is brainwashed early in the story and directed like a robot, rather than freed to wreak his depredations on the world. And as a giant cockroach, no less. So close, so close.But the weakness of the villains is balanced (I guess) by the absence of heroes. There are none in this book. The main protagonist, Nathan Brazil, is an unassuming anti-hero, more like a latter-day truck-driver/beatnik. In fact, Chalker takes great pains to point out that Brazil isn’t a hero and is almost apologetic in his handling of him. There is one heroic act where the boy mathematician Varnett (as a giant winged gorilla) risks his life to save Brazil, but for the most part every one is a pawn. The real players and movers in the story (like Serge Ortega) don’t appear much and seem to fill the role of a faceless establishment.But forget the characters. The strength of this book is experiencing the amazing well-world, and ‘Midnight’ is a great introduction to the other books. It will leave you wondering what creature you would become if you were taken to the Well-World. Please, not the giant cockroach.
—Russ Moore
A bit of a trip down memory lane here. In my college days, I was drawn into Chalker's trips into physical transformation, beginning with the Four Lords of the Diamond series. I still find Well World to be a good read and a surprising comment on some of the trends in society today, some 30 years after I first read the book.I'm a certainly a more well read than I was years ago, but I still found it an enjoyable trip with some old friends, particularly Nathan and Serge. Understanding a bit more these days and also realizing this is the first book of a series which, as I recall, ends up being about 8 or so books total, I find myself a bit surprised at how quickly things were wrapped up at the end. Nathan's sudden change in demeanor in the last fifth of the book or so, is now a bit of a let down. I more clearly see the author's desire to wrap things up quickly instead of exploring the characters a bit more. Still, I feel Chalker exonerates himself somewhat in subsequent novels. I just feel the end is more the result of a publication deadline than a completion of an idea.
—Steven Schaefer
Once upon a time, this was an incredible story for an awkward, introverted kid who didn't fit into any society that he knew. The vision of flying off to another world in which you could start again as any of a thousand possible different races was incredibly compelling. And the adventures and scope were captivating. For years, this series was clearly among my favorites, if not my favorite.After setting it aside for more than a decade, I came back and reread this book a few months ago. I expected it to have aged poorly, like so many fond childhood stories. I was rather pleasantly surprised to find that it did not fall apart completely. It actually held up rather well. The story was, of course, not nearly as deep as the teenage me thought it was, but it was tighter than I expected it to be from this vantage. It didn't compel me the way it did once upon a time, but it was still a lot of fun. I was glad that it hadn't lost all luster over the years.That said, it's still basically an adventure romp, with a neat world building and some pathos. My five stars are mostly in honor of a treasured place in my memory, more than because it is a towering monument to the field of SF. I would still recommend it, but don't expect to be picking up a monument like Tolkien.
—Terran
