(tears) Midnight at the Well of Souls (Saga of the Well of Souls, volume 1) by Jack Chalker

James Nicoll

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Feb 26, 2023, 9:14:30 AM2/26/23

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Midnight at the Well of Souls (Saga of the Well of Souls, volume 1) by Jack Chalker

Transported to a planet-sized alien artifact, travellers are
compelled to walk from one end to the other in a bid to save
the universe from a megalomaniac.

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/nobody-callin-on-the-phone
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Jack Bohn

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Feb 26, 2023, 4:36:03 PM2/26/23

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James Nicoll wrote:
> Midnight at the Well of Souls (Saga of the Well of Souls, volume 1) by Jack Chalker
>

> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/nobody-callin-on-the-phone

I read the first book, which came to a satisfactory enough conclusion. I may have read the second. Did it not quite conclude enough to be self-contained? Nevertheless, despite my brother owning the first five, and testifying that the fifth brought the series to a satisfactory enough conclusion, I did not continue.

Nathan Brazil's mind got embodied in a deer? In 1977? In the early months of 1976, (as I found out later) in a Marvel Comics series, a supervillain had his brain surgically implanted in a hero's body. Other heroes magically transplanted a civilian's mind into the hero's body, displacing the villain into a deer. The deer escaped, complicating the plan to have the civilian impersonate the villain impersonating the hero and recover the original brain of the hero. I will posit a coincidence, if granting a somewhat large number of mind-transfer stories for details to repeat. Something in the air back then? (Or, given the times, something in the water?)

--
-Jack

Robert Carnegie

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Feb 26, 2023, 6:20:50 PM2/26/23

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Well. <https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Defenders_Vol_1_31>
Marvel's deer is a juvenile - when the story starts, anyway.
"The fate of Bambi is unknown." But as of 2023, Marvel is a
Disney company. And they already brought back Hellcow...

Default User

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Mar 17, 2023, 11:41:41 PM3/17/23

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James Nicoll wrote:

>Midnight at the Well of Souls (Saga of the Well of Souls, volume 1)
>by Jack Chalker
>
>Transported to a planet-sized alien artifact, travellers are
>compelled to walk from one end to the other in a bid to save
>the universe from a megalomaniac.

I read all of them. It had of course many the trademark Chalker tropes.
Once some of us on rec.arts.comics.strips were kind of joking about
some those, not realizing that regular newsgroup participant Eva
Whitley was Jack's wife. She wasn't happy about that. The discussion I
mean.

Brian

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

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Mar 18, 2023, 12:04:18 AM3/18/23

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In article <tv3bth$2b6pb$1...@dont-email.me>,

I liked WOS, there was enough going on there that Chalker being Chalker
was just one aspect of the story. I'd call it his best work.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Scott Lurndal

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Mar 18, 2023, 10:53:41 AM3/18/23

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I also liked it, although the only two that I tend to re-read are
WOS and TRoNB. I really wish he'd done an entire novel about
Mavra and Obie bouncing around the universe - extending the first
part of TRoNB before the fools started the process of destroying
the universe.