The Return of Nathan Brazil (Saga of the Well World, #4) by Jack L. Chalker

The Return of Nathan Brazil (Saga of the Well World, #4) Reviews

• 
  Phil

  Like the second and third volumes in Chalker's Saga of the Well World, volume four and five are really one book split into two; as such, The Return of Nathan Brazil is really a set up for the events to transpire in the next volume. This takes place around a 1000 years after the last installment, and the 'Com' has grown dramatically, and actually now incorporates several other species. Mavra and Obie, the supercomputer AI, have been wandering around galaxies doing this and that; the 'rescued' women qua superwomen from the last volume have started their own planet and are now called Olympians with a religion to find Nathan Brazil. Brazil, however, has been laying very low for hundreds of years...
  
  Things are not all quiet, however. A strange 'virus like' hive species has arrived in our galaxy and started doing what they always do-- infect and control any intelligent life. After this was discerned, a nasty war ensued, with the com losing. As a last resort, they invented a weapon that destroys just about everything, including space itself. This unwittingly created a rip in the space/time matrix that is expanding, and in fact, represents the end of the universe. The only way to stop it/fix it is to find Nathan Brazil, take him to the Well World, and fix it. Unfortunately, Brazil is nowhere to be found and time is running out...
  
  Again, this is more of a prelude to the upcoming events on Well World than a stand alone story. The invading aliens are a pretty cool idea, as are the Olympians, and Chalder introduces some new characters that are also fun-- a mini T-rex lizard and his travelling companion the Gypsy (as mysterious figure indeed)-- who team up with Mavra to find Brazil. All in all, a fun, but rather shallow installment in the series. 3.5 stars!!
• 
  Patrick

  I came into this reading experience knowing only the cover of this book. It shows a (top-nude) female centaur and a scaly green lizard in a tight-fitting red vest smoking a cigar acting shocked to see what looks like a haggard Robert-Redford circa late-80s type sitting in a chair with divine light glowing from behind him. This scene is definitely in the book, so points there, right off the bat. As this is Vol. 4 in a series there are some serious narrative problems I, a newby to the Well World Saga, encountered over the course of the text. Certain scenes, particularly in the last third, were basically incomprehensible.
  The first 100 pages or so are spent introducing this big bad menace to Galactic Civility As We Know It called the Dreel, who are basically a Borg/Pod type collective intelligence that take over and assimilate other lifeforms by virally invading through nasal cavities. You don't want to get close to someone exhibiting Dreel-like behavior. Super-efficient, they can take over whole planets this way in, like, weeks.
  The cigar-smoking lizard creature is named Markoz, a high level undercover investigator/enforcer whose species (officially referred to as the Chugach (Mountain range reference???)) is immune to the Dreel and is chasing them across the galaxy trying to contain and exterminate. He seems to serve the same role in this series as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones: comic relief, treated like an outsider by his peers (because of shallow judgements based on physical appearance) yet with an insider's sway and connections that allow him to move anywhere in the story, Markoz is also remarkably difficult to kill off.
  But then the Dreel just get completely dropped from the story for mostly centaur-related reasons, which is understandable. An entire planet, Olympus, of 2 million Centaurs (or Olympians as they are known galaxy-wide) is introduced in satisfyingly anthropological detail. There are secretary-centaurs, police centaurs, snipers, frat-boy sex slave centaurs, it's rich stuff. Although he doesn't just come out and say it, Chalker clearly thinks of the Centaur as the highest possible form of intelligent life in the universe. And he may be right. Centaur Platonism would be a good album title.
  All this ends up being the dressing for introducing Nathan Brazil, title character and entity with a serious identity complex. Honestly, having read the book I still cannot adequately explain who/what Brazil IS. Quantum superposition is invoked. Revisionist Judaeo-Christian theology (the most unnecessary and embarrassingly written passages of the entire novel, for sure). Captain Horatio Hornblower. Chalker just can't seem to make up his mind. It reminds me, typing this now, of Starbuck in the Battlestar Galactica remake. A bunch of hand-wavy stuff just get thrown out there and is left unexplained.
  The novel ends on a Matrix Reloaded-style cliffhanger as a body is discovered, presumably setting up the action for the fifth and concluding volume in the series. I cannot say I am intrigued enough to read this volume, but if, in a few years time say, I found myself browsing the crusty bookshelfs of some youth hostel around South America or Thailand and came across another of Jack Chalker's tomes, preferably something written later than 1979 allowing for him to develop his craft and knowledge of technology more, I would probably pick it up. Which is way more than I can say for Piers Anthony. I'll probably make another attempt to finish Centaur Aisle later this month but I need a break...
  
• 
  Dale Rosso

  This was the 1st book I read in Chalker's "Well World" Saga. Even with reading it out of order, I quite enjoyed the book. I thought it was a interesting concept to have a whole world in hexagonal sections where different species-races developed in eco-spheres of their own. Finding out who Nathan is was like watching the mother ship come over Devils Tower in "Close Encounter of the Third Kind" for me. I have read it several times over the years and will again.
• 
  Bracicot

  This one is interesting in a number of ways. Right off the bat it postulates a hive-mind micro-organismal spacefaring culture, the Dreel, attempting to subjugate all other intelligences. Previous books in the series addressed the anxiety America was feeling about communism in the 1970s by the more direct depiction of the spread of totalitarian "Com" worlds that subjugated their population using genetic manipultion, cultural training, and drug addiction. 750 years later, in this one, the Com has mellowed out, and this new thread has emerged.
  
  Next, it approaches the fear of uncontrolled technology destroying the ecology, another major stream of 70s anxiety, when Zinder's principles are rediscovered and used to fight the Dreel, causing a permanent rift in space-time that will eventually destroy the universe. Not subtle, but still very interesting given the period, and weirdly relevant again in the face of climate change.
  
  I have been warning friends who read Chalker that he was writing as an older guy in the 70s and 80s and that they should not expect a feminist outlook. I still wouldn't say these books are exactly progressive, but I think there's scholarly work to be done assessing the nuances of the power and prominence of Mavra Chang and the Olymian culture, and the different extents to which those represent warnings about the growing power of women as a threat to male power, versus recognition of the VALUE of that growing power and the roadblocks that patriarchy have thrown in its path. In short, I think I may have overstated that warning, not least because when Brazil, the Man Who Will Save Us All, finally reappears, he's deeply flawed and squeamish about the whole thing.
  
  A final point of interest - this book takes place almost entirely NOT on the Well World, instead focusing on the evolution of societies that began from seeds the Well World sowed. When the eventual crisis appears, we have had the opportunity to really see what's at stake. This was a bold bold choice for Chalker to make, given the likelihood that what most readers really love about the series was the Well World itself and the wild variety of ecologies and species there, and the detailed interactions of interhex politics, and of non-tech, tech, limited tech, and magical hexes.
  
  I think people will be tempted to dismiss this book as a transitional distraction simply setting up for "Twilight at the Well of Souls" - but doing so would be a mistake.
• 
  J'aime Wells

  I still can't put this series down, no matter what I find in it to criticize.
  
  Mavra's pretty quick to use Obie to reprogram other people's minds, when you'd think she would remember what it was like to have her own mind and body changed against her wishes. It creeps me out to have the good guys steal moves from the villains...
• 
  Jim3e8

  Weakest book of the series so far, it rehashes a bunch of events and background info from previous books, and it's all labored setup for what is hopefully a return to action in the next book. Could probably be safely skipped.
• 
  Jacob Guy Segalov

  "Still, we saves a lot of lives, a few planets, maybe a civilization or two."
  She nodded and smiled. "It's a record to be proud of. And, most of all, it was fun, too."
  
  Part one of two - read twilight in the well of souls right after.
• 
  Ben Brommell

  Well I absolutely blasted through this one! So much was I absorbed that when the book so abruptly ended on a hell of a cliffhanger that I stared at the completion percentage on my Kindle in disbelief, amazed that I had already reached the end. And then- immediately into the next one!
• 
  Lijadora del Prado

  The first part of this story; had hoped this would have been a complete story. Ah well, on to the next part...
  
  Guilty pleasure SF - as expected.
• 
  Brandi Vawter

  Out of the series, this one was slower. It took time to build. I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first three. However, this book is just setting the stage for the next one.
• 
  Beth Chaisson

  Mavra Chang is an amazing character for this book. She is a natural leader.
• 
  Jennifer

  My least favorite of the series
• 
  Jim Razinha

  [Update, 2020 reread]
  Sometimes I reach into the “comfort books” stash for a diversion. I have a review to write, a few other books to finish - one being an ARC of tremendous length and depth - and more in the wings...always. But thought I know what happens next, I’ll have to reread Midnight now!
  
  
  ———-
  Excellent. Chalker told some great stories.
  
  The was my first realization that some authors don't track their work well, particularly the serials. All the more strange as only two years had passed since the publication of the previous novel. Well. At least he was consistent in his error here.
• 
  Robert MacGillivary

  This book is the first half of the a story that takes place 700 years after the previous book. Characters are interesting. It does build suspense, albeit quite slowly.
  
  It continues the tradition of a good classic sci-fi book, which is my opinion, even though a bit dark, has an optimistic spin and energy about it. A good read. Jack L. Chalker has some dark world changing subjects a lot, but they do not have the feel of the dark dystopian horror that some, maybe even many, sci-fi books tend to have.
• 
  Roxanne

  I read this at the hotel in Boston and at the airport. In this volume, humanity rediscovers Gil Zinder's theories, and, in trying to fight off a deadly foe, pretty much blows a hole into the space-time continuum. Obie and Mavra need to find Nathan Brazil and make him return to the Well World to try to fix the hole... but can it even be fixed, or is this the end of life in the universe as we know it?
  
  Not necessarily my favorite, but I'm still really interested by the series.
• 
  Debra Harrison

  This is one of 7 books in the Well World series by Jack Chalker. Some books move us forward in the story a bit more/better than this one but it seems important to the progression of the story. I find the characters both amazing constructs and very interesting personalities. All in all, the series is a very good read...
• 
  David

  This is only half a book and is all frustrating set up for the climax in #5. In addition, the amount of exposition is inexcusable! The are some redeeming qualities: a miniature talking dinosaur, a few good old fashioned science fiction meditations on the human condition and all of the other Well World goodies.
• 
  Mike

  I always liked Jack Chalker's science fiction. It is not the space opera kind. The Return of Nathan Brazil was the first well of souls I read and I liked it the best. It kind of fits the information/Google Age well even if it predates it. We are all just a computer program and Nathan Brazil is ...
• 
  Kevin Driskill

  This series embodies the struggle for freedom against despotism at the expense of great destruction. The world at the time of its writing was in the same place. Iconoclastic but relevant and entertaining.
• 
  Scott Andrews

  A great read overall. was a little bit disappointed it took so long to get back to the Well world itself however I fell that perhaps the next book could almost have been joined to this. Looking forward to the next one.
• 
  Dark Ape

  I would stop with book #3, the one before this. For me, this is all a bit too much and only serves to continue into the next book, but I was well ready for this one to end before it did and it only leaves you open for the next one like #2 in the series did.
• 
  Brian

  Well of Souls
• 
  Allison

  great book loved it.
• 
  Jon Mountjoy

  I thought I'd enjoy this more. Love the concept of the Dreel. The first book in the series was rather better - this one had an unsatisfying end.
• 
  Benjamin Plume

  This series gets more and more complex as it continues.