esmith@uok.UUCP (07/03/84)
#N:uok:7600016:000:1503
uok!esmith Jul 3 15:29:00 1984
(3 bits ASCII, 5 bytes EBCDIC, and uneven parity) - take that.
I've heard that most people out the don't really care for the works of
Jack Chalker, but in my opinion he's written so very good works. His
latest series "________ of the Dancing Gods" I believe are some of better
works in SF out today.
The Dancing god series are relatively new. The first book "The River
of the Dancing Gods", published Feb. '84, was very entertaining and left
the reader waiting for the second of a three part series. The premise of
the books is that there is a planet that when God created Earth this planet
was created also. The only thing is that this planet wasn't governed by
the strict set of rules that God made for Earth, magic works here, there
are wizards and magical creatures, all governed by their own set of rules.
Now take two normal run out of luck americans, headed for disaster,
their own deaths, and transport them to this world to fight for Good.
Good in this cases is saving the earth from Armageddon.
Chalker weaves a tale that rivals some of the best fantasy books around
and still leaves room for humor and great adventure.
The second book, "Demons of the Dancing Gods", Jun. '84, picks up where
the first book stops and carries our hero and herione on to further adventures.
I was very entertained by the books and made for some very good light
reading, with lots of adventure.
- Eric L. Smith
!ctvax!uokvax!uok!esmithWoods.pa@XEROX.ARPA (07/11/84)
From: Don Woods <Woods.pa@XEROX.ARPA>
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.