Web of the Chozen

 

By Jack L. Chalker

Bar Holliday is a scout for Seiglein Corporation. His job is to look for likely planets for humans to live on. He finds a planet but there is a large spaceship orbiting the planet. It is one of seven colony ships that set out hundreds of years ago looking for new worlds to establish new societies. Holliday enters the ship and finds it deserted and figures the people must be on the planet. 

He lands his ship on the planet but can find no sign of people although there are thousands of large, ugly, kangaroo-like herbivores everywhere. He returns to his ship only to find it encased in a hard, white shell. He tries to melt the shell with his gun but it stops working and then his clothing and equipment crumble away to nothing. He's stranded, nude and locked out of his ship.

He starts to feel really hungry and begins to gorge on the local plants. His hunger overwhelms him and he can only stop when he is gorged. Long story short, he changes into one of the ugly herbivores that infest the planet. 

These creatures are the human colonists, transformed into these strange beasts by a virus that was engineered by the artificial intelligence computer that operated the ship that brought them there. The computer, called Moses, was just doing what he thought was best for them. They are extremely healthy, long-lived, peaceful and self-sufficient. But because of their high reproduction rate, they have filled the planet to capacity. And because their lives are so easy and unchallenging, they are degenerating into the herd "cows" they appear to be.

Bar Holliday refuses to accept his fate and graze and screw and poop and sleep like the herd does. He has a plan, a plan to get back in his ship and warn the folks back home what the computer Moses has done to the humans in its care.

But as the poet says, "The best laid plans o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley." And do Holliday's plans go awry! Instead of rescue, Seiglein Corporation sends destroyers that lay waste to all life on the planet. Bar Holliday has a motto though: "Noboby beats Bar Holliday." Holliday will make Seiglein pay very dearly indeed.

This was a pretty good book. Although the author's idea of an ideal race of beings is more than a little peculiar. He makes them blind and gives them hooves instead of hands and turns them into weird cows. The most exciting part of their day is taking a poop, I'm guessing.

Anyway, this is the last Jack L. Chalker book I will ever read. His ideas just don't appeal to me. 

War of the Maelstrom

 

By Jack L. Chalker

Book Three of the Changewinds series. 

The book opens with Klittichorn and the Storm Princess plotting their attack against Boolean and Sam, the Storm Princess' identical twin. Sam is beginning to understand her power over the storm and is standing up successfully against the Storm Princess.

Crim/Kira is concerned about Sam's state of mind so he/she takes her to see Etanalon, a healer/shrink/sorcerer. She has Sam look into a magic mirror which helps the girl see herself clearly and she comes away more steady in her thinking and purpose. 

Klittichorn is again hunting for Charley and Boday, thinking to use them to against Sam. Halagar, the hunk Charley is smitten by, is supposed to guide them to Boolean, along with the third rank wizard, Dorion, who is in love with Charley. But Charley is with Halagar until her slaps her around one day. Halagar betrays them and joins Klittichorn's side, turning Charley into a camp whore, until Shadowcat tears his throat out, dying in the process but freeing Charley from her enslavement to Halagar. Charley escapes and is found by Dorion.

Sam gets sent to a plantation to do farm work again but then gets sent on to a penal colony to be wife to four convicts. Once again she under a spell than makes her willing and compliant. Klittichorn's agent and his gang is on her trail and Crim/Kira show up in time to warn Sam and fight off the attackers. Boolean finally makes an appearance and reveals the truth of his and Klittichorn's past. They also realize that Klittichorn's goal isn't mere conquest. What he is really after is attaining divinity and Boolean and company may have to die fighting him to prevent the madman from becoming a god.

This was an OK story. Sam and Charley both spend most of time under some kind of potion or spell that makes them meek and compliant. And naked most of the time. Really makes me wonder about the author's feelings about women. Most of the story is about the characters' struggles just to get somewhere. Anyway, happy ending. But Charley sure does get the short end of the stick. I won't say what happens to her, but in my opinion, it sucks. 

 

Vengeance of the Dancing Gods

 

By Jack L. Chalker

Book Three of the Dancing Gods series.

Macore starts out this tale by trying to steal a demon gem which results in the demon placing a spell on him that causes him to attempt to break into Ruddygore's vault and ending up trapped in the Magic Lamp. Meanwhile, Joe and Tiana are bored of being worshipped as gods and want some time off. So Ruddy enlists them and Marge, Macore, and Poquah on a mission to stop the Dark Baron and Dacaro the wizard who are causing problems on Earth. But first they must visit the oracle to receive his prophecy about their mission. Naturally they have lots of strange adventures on the trip to see the oracle and there is a lot of body switching. Joe ends up briefly as a nymph and Tiana becomes a mermaid. 

The Baron was stripped of his magic abilities by Ruddy as punishment before being exiled to Earth but Dacaro is a skilled wizard and is becoming more skilled under the Baron's tutelage. They have established themselves as leaders of a religious cult and have a large congregation of fanatical and murderous followers. 

Ruddygore will not be able to accompany Joe and Marge and the others in their quest to stop the Baron and Dacaro. Macore's task will be to get them past the guards and the guard dogs and the security equipment and into the Baron's stronghold in the forests of northern California. They will be joined on the way by two people from Earth, a New York pixie named Gimlet and a Catholic priest, Father O'Grady, who knows how to perform exorcisms but who has a serious drinking problem.

This was a more interesting story than the first two books in the series. The gang has lots of strange adventures in the first part of the book before they ever get to Earth. There are lots of body changes, so many that I lost track of who looked like what.

But the story bogs down a bit when they get to Earth. Chalker just skips over nearly all of their travels from west Texas to Northern California, a lost opportunity for some fun, in my opinion. But the story picks up again when they take on the two bad guys and their adherents. There is more body switching and Ruddygore makes a surprise entrance at the end.

Demons of the Dancing Gods

 

By Jack L. Chalker

Book Two of the Dancing Gods series finds the Dark Baron routed in his battle with Ruddygore. The Dark Baron's true identity is still unknown. 

The sorcerer's council is having a big meeting and all the council members will be there, including the Dark Baron. Ruddygore wants Joe and Marge to be there as he tries to figure out which member of the council is the Dark Baron.

Joe and Marge have gone through some changes since the first novel. Joe has been bitten by a were and now changes into whatever creature is nearest during the full moon. Marge has totally changed into some kind of fairy creature, lost about six inches in height, grown some wings, turned into a Playboy caricature of woman and goes around totally nude except for a bit of jewelry and is no longer celibate. 

Ruddygore wants them to infiltrate a powerful witch's castle and get him access to the castle. Ruddygore believes the witch is one of the Dark Baron's allies. They do manage to get inside but soon run afoul of the witch who locks them up. Macore, the thief from the first novel who is now working for Ruddygore, manages to get them free, along with another prisoner, Boquillas, a council member who has been missing for several months. 

Oh, and Joe has a love interest, Tiana, a barbarian warrior princess. Tiana was on the run from the man who killed her father and she spent most of her childhood hiding on Earth. But now she is back and looking to take her father's kingdom away from the powerful sorcerer who killed him. 

This was an okay read, although a bit boring at the beginning. But once Joe and Marge leave the sorcerers' convention, it becomes a lot more interesting, with a shocking and touching final battle between Ruddygore and the Dark Baron. 

The River of the Dancing Gods

 

By Jack L. Chalker

One night a trucker picks up a hitchhiker on a Texas highway. The trucker, Joe, and the hitchhiker, Marge, end up lost when Joe takes the wrong turn. They stop at what looks like it might be a rest stop only to be approached by a portly older well-dressed man. The man, Ruddygore, claims that if Joe continues on with his trucking, he will soon die in a fatal crash. If Joe wants to live, he must come with Ruddygore to another place, a different Earth. For some reason, Joe believes Ruddy and he and Marge join him on his magical ferry to cross the Sea of Dreams and come to a land where wizards and witches, demons and fairies, dragons and unicorns are real and where Ruddygore is one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world. 

Ruddygore needs a person from Earth to help him in his battle against the Dark Baron and a prince of Hell who trying to bring about the End Times, Armageddon. As a man from Earth, Joe's soul will be immune to the demon's powers, which will give Ruddygore a sneaky advantage in the coming conflict. Marge too will have that same protection.

Ruddygore uses his powers to change Joe into a muscle-bound barbarian and Marge into a young, sexy nymph. Back on Earth the two were just ordinary people in their thirties, a bit beaten down by life and hard luck, especially Marge who was definitely on the skids. 

There's a certain magic lamp that the Dark Baron and his demon prince are desperate to get their claws on as they want to use the powers of the genie of the lamp to win the coming battle. So this is Joe and Marge's first big task Ruddygore needs them to perform. Get the lamp before the enemy gets it. 

This was an OK read. I had just finished reading a couple of Chalker's Changewind novels and the resemblance is quite apparent. As in that series, two normal people are pulled into a world of magic and stripped of their past and thrust into new, dangerous situations. According to Google, the Dancing Gods series predates the Changewinds series. Maybe Chalker returned to that theme in the Changewinds series because he had more he wanted to say about two normal people in such an different and unnatural setting. The similarities between the two series is quite striking. Especially his tendency to have main female characters naked and tarted up for most of the story.  They can't just be pretty or cute, no, they have to be sex pots or nymphomaniacs and butt naked except for some jewelry or tattoos. Makes me wonder about Chalker. Not that it matters, he's dead now.

Riders of the Winds

 

By Jack L. Chalker

Book Two of the Changewinds series finds the two main characters, Sam and Charley once again in peril and separated. Sam gets found by a winged man and Charley and Boday get captured by raiders and sold off at a slave market. All three women's minds are tampered with using magic and potions, Charley and Boday to be obedient slaves and poor Sam's memory is completely removed and she is brainwashed into believing that being a field hand is a wonderful to life for her.

Eventually Charley and Boday are liberated by Dorion, a third rank sorcerer who is working for the wizard Boolean. The two women are still somewhat controlled by the enslavement magic but at least they are once again on the road to Boolean, facing the adversaries sent against them by Klittichorn, the horned sorcerer. 

Sam is also liberated from her enslavement, although she is so brainwashed she was happy to be a slave. She is rescued by a Navigator, Crim and his alter ego Kira, both of whom were sent by Boolean. 

In the process of their travels, all three women undergo changes. Charley and Boday lose their distinctive body art and tattoos. Charley goes completely blind and acquires a seeing eye cat, Shadowcat. Sam, due to the labor demanded of a field hand, becomes physically fit but remains fat because of the curse put on her in the first book. After all she has gone through, Sam begins to gain confidence in herself and her ability to survive.

The lands the characters travel through are part of a vast confluence of worlds. The author explains it thus: 

 Akahlar intersects with thousands of worlds, but the only common points are the hubs, the points of greatest force and power. The rest are compressed around the hubs and only intersect at certain random intervals. But when they do touch, they are worlds touching round worlds—so that the actual point of overlap is very narrow.

A shadow man also lays out the goals and possible consequences of Klittichorn and his ally the Storm Princess to Sam after she has been freed from her life of hard labor:

"She [the Storm Princess] and all her armies cannot overthrow the Akhbreed sorcerers in their hub citadels or hope to match the great armies of the rulers. She needs the power of true sorcery behind her, and that Klittichorn brings. He has convinced her that he shares her dream, but he does not. For if the power of the Akhbreed sorcerers is somehow halted, and if the Akhbreed themselves are destroyed, there will be no controls. Instead of all hating the Akhbreed, the thousands of races will begin to suspect and hate and then war with one another. And out of this chaos will come the only remaining, untouchable source of great power, which will be Klittichorn. This he believes, but he, too, is wrong. To destroy the Akhbreed and their sorcerers he must loose the terrible changewinds themselves, the only things against which no Akhbreed sorcerer has power. He will loose them by the score and the Storm Princess will guide them."

"Is that—possible?"

"Kittichorn thinks so. She thinks so. He has somehow managed to summon many small changewinds to the places he commands, although how this is done is a mystery, and she has managed to shape and turn them. But those were small, and one at a time. To control great ones, all at once, and all over Akahlar—that is something reason says cannot be done. Reason and experience also tell that such an event, done all at once, would create such an instability that the worlds themselves would collapse upon each other, that the changewinds would roam unchecked and over vast areas, and none would be safe. Such weight alone might draw all of creation down to the Seat of Probability and to oblivion. All that has ever existed, all that exists, and all that can or will exist will be no longer."

 

 War of the Maelstrom is the next book in the series. I liked Riders of the Winds more than I did the first one, which gives me hope that the third book will be worth reading.

 

When the Changewinds Blow

 

By Jack L. Chalker

Sam and Charley are two normal teenage girls, living their lives, not outstanding in any way. Except Sam has lately been experiencing terrifying nightmares that only occur when a thunderstorm strikes.
Turns out Sam is the target of two competing wizards, one of whom is trying to take over everything, including our time and place. Although Sam is the target of their plans, both she and Charley end up in an alien place where all things are possible and where, when the changewinds blow, anything can happen, but usually bad.
Initially met by a fellow human, Zenchur, sent by the wizard Boolean (you may recognize the term boolean as having to do with computers and math) to lead the two girls to safety and away from Boolean's rival, Klittichorn. But Sam overhears Zenchur plotting against the girls, and when they arrive at a city, the girls manage to thwart his plot.
But Sam ends up the pampered pet of a local Madame and Charley ends up as one of her drugged whores. It's a comfy trap but eventually Klittichorn will track them down and kill them. Their only recourse is to set out on their own on a dangerous journey, braving bandits, rogues, Klittichorn's thugs and the cruel changewinds in an iffy attempt to reach Boolean and possible safety.

Book was kind of boring. Not a lot happens until the very end when the caravan the girls are traveling on runs into Klittichorn's thugs and a flash flood that wipes out most of the travelers. 
There were some things that I really disliked about the story: the drugged, brainwashed girls forced into prostitution and Charley's willing acceptance of being a prostitute. The author tries to dress it up by labeling her a call girl, but he glosses over the fact that she and Sam are only 17 years old. Also later on in the story two little girls, 9 and 13 are gang raped. Makes me wonder about his proclivities.

The Labyrinth of Dreams

By Jack L. Chalker

Brandy and Sam Horowitz are private investigators but they aren't doing very well. In fact, they have pretty much admitted that it's over. Sam has even looked into getting a job. So when a small time hood hires them to track down a man who stole several million dollars of mob money, they think twice about it, but end up taking the job, since it comes with a hefty advance and two credit cards to use for their expenses.
It isn't too far into the investigation before it becomes clear that something hinky is going on. Because it seems that there are way too many Martin Whitlocks, the man they have been hired to trace. And that maybe Martin Whitlock isn't even a man or he is possibly a cross-dresser. Just when it looks like they are on to something, their client calls and cancels the deal. Tells them to back completely off the case. But Brandy and Sam have had their curiosity peaked and they follow the investigation on their own time out to Oregon where G.O.D., Inc has their distribution center.
G.O.D., Inc. stands for General Ordering and Distribution and they specialize in selling gimmicky stuff on TV like table top ovens, over-priced juicers, and blankets with sleeves. Whitlock's trail leads to the small Oregon where the company's plant is located. The Horowitz's follow along and Brandy shoots and kills one Whitlock when that Whitlock tries to kill the two Whitlocks that the Horowitzes trailed to Oregon. The Horowitzes find themselves legally trapped in the small Oregon town, but despite that they inflitrate the G.O.D. plant and that's where it really gets weird.

This is another entry in the alternate universe stories that have become so common in science fiction now. Turns out that all but one of the various Whitlocks are from different versions of our Earth, with similar but slightly different histories and that the G.O.D. plant is a station with connections to these alternates. This book is basically a murder mystery with an organized crime slant with a little science fiction thrown in just to complicate things. What with various doubles popping in and out of the story and with double agents and turncoats behind every door, things get a little convoluted.
So basically, this is a mystery story with a sci-fi twist and I didn't really care that much for it, finding it pretty slow-going. Too many doubles, too many traitors, too hard too follow, I can only rate it fair.