Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!sri-unix!Woods.pa@XEROX.ARPA From: Woods.pa@XEROX.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: Jack Chalker review (still non-spoiler) Message-ID: <1873@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Wed, 11-Jul-84 14:44:58 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.1873 Posted: Wed Jul 11 14:44:58 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Jul-84 02:30:01 EDT Lines: 52 From: Don Woods I'm one of those people who don't really care for Chalker, and River of the Dancing Gods (RotDG) is a typical reason why. In my opinion, he tends to come up with extremely interesting settings upon which he stages extremely poor stories. The Well World series is another example -- the very idea of the Well World is fascinating, and the setting should lend itself to all sorts of interesting stuff. But I found Midnight at the Well of Souls to be too shallow and choppy. (And I'm speaking as one who PREFERS relatively shallow stories; I find most of Gene Wolfe too deep.) RotDG has only one thing going for it, and that's the "set of rules" that govern the magical world. After all, there are godzillions of stories about worlds where magic works, and a heckuvalot of them deal with people from our world going to such places. The set of rules, however, set the story up to be a satire of all those other stories, because the rules purport to be the basis of virtually all of the cliches we know and love. ("Weather and climate permitting, all beautiful young maidens shall be scantily clad.") Some of the rules quoted in the course of the novel even poke fun at fairly specific other novels, such as Lord of the Rings. But there's not enough of it to make RotDG satisfying as a satire (I'm not convinced that satire alone can possibly support an entire novel), and as a story it's mediocre at best. The characterisations, which should be extremely full since they should contrast the cliches against more normal aspects, range from absurd to absent. The plot itself is average, with only a few surprises, and some deus ex machina for good measure. And the surprises were typically where Chalker stepped away from the satire, whereas it would have fit better had he found ways to dust off old cliches and use them where we didn't expect them. That is, my reaction to his twists was usually "Well, that's different" and it should have been "Of course! I should have known!" As the previous review (by Eric Smith) notes, the novel cries out for a sequel. (I don't want to create a spoiler by describing the ending.) Eric found this a plus. I thought it was a cheap trick and found the ending unsatisfying, but then I was bored by the whole novel and was certainly not interested in a sequel. Chalker seems to like producing series. Besides the mediocre Well World and mediocre Dancing Gods series, he's got another one (Four Lords of the Diamond) that I've been told is utterly worthless and have never bothered to read. The one book by Chalker that I've actually enjoyed all the way through was "And the Devil Will Drag You Under". Though it'll never be a classic, it was at least a good read. And it has two features that set it apart from the other Chalker I've read or heard about: (1) It not only has an interesting idea as its basis, he spends some time taking advantage of the idea to generate interesting situations and resolutions. (2) To my knowledge it has never had a sequel. -- Don.