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From: EVAN@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Jack Chalker  (**Little-bit-of-a-Spoiler Warning**)
Message-ID: <2634@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 17:29:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.2634
Posted: Tue Jul  9 17:29:20 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 08:11:39 EDT
Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 38

From: Evan Kirshenbaum 

>> In many of his stories [...]  a previously strong, likable female
>>character is transformed into some weird sort of mutant
>>sex-creature for no adequately explored reason.
>
>As far as I can tell, Chalker uses the *same* two ideas in every
>book he writes: shape change and mind control/tyranny.  He is
>reasonably inventive in coming up with variations on these, but as
>far as I am concerned, enough is enough.

I think that you're both missing the essential device (and repetition) of
Chalker's stories.  Yes, he always has shape changing (and more to the
point, *sex* changing); yes, a strong female character is generally
transformed into a sexual slave (in Web_of_the_Chozen ?...I can't
remember).  The main device which links nearly all of his novels, though,
is that every book has what could be called "magic", and each one has it
"explainable" by some device or other (and in no case does he resort to a
"sufficiently advanced technology").  

These ways include:  The warden organisms in the "Four Lords of the
Diamond";  the Well World in the "Well of Souls" series;  Flux in the "Soul
Rider" books;  the probablity engineering in And_the_Devil_Will_Drag_
You_Under;  the Computer in Web_of_the_Chozen; and, of course (my favorite)
the Rule Books in the "Dancing Gods" series.  The only book of his that
I've read that doesn't really use this as a central theme is Downtiming_
the_Nightside, which still had a computer controling the effects of time
travel.  

This bothered me at first, but lately I've begun to enjoy seeing the new
ways that he can rationalize magic.  And even though he does use so many
recurrent themes, he manages to work them in differently enough in each new
book/series that he is consistantly fun to read.

Evan Kirshenbaum
ARPA: evan@CSLI.ARPA
UUCP: ...ucbvax!shasta!amadeus!evan
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