Lilith: A Snake in the Grass (The Four Lords of the Diamond, #1) by Jack L. Chalker

Lilith: A Snake in the Grass (The Four Lords of the Diamond, #1) Reviews

• 
  Phil

  Chalker is in good form in Lilith, the first volume of the tetralogy 'The Four Lords of the Diamond'. The key first chapter sets up the story, and each volume takes place on one of the four 'Warden worlds'. The Warden worlds constitute a bizarre solar system with four planets in the 'green zone' and all habitable by humanity. When first discovered and examined, they seemed ideal for colonization, especially Lilith, an 'Eden-like' planet. Yet, the first crew of scientists made a horrible discovery after residing there for six months-- all of the things they brought, including their cloths, just disintegrated one day. Turns out there is a strange microorganism active on Lilith that acts something like white blood cells for the entire planet.
  
  These organisms (deemed 'warden organisms' or 'cells' of course) penetrate everything and seek to return the planet to its original state. On humans, they serve to kill all infections and and promote healing, but as a trade off, if people ever leave the solar system of Lilith, they die horribly. Yet, some people with a certain 'power' can control the warden 'cells' and make them do different things, like stop dissolving foreign objects and maintain objects fashioned from native life for humans, like, say, a chair or a shirt.
  
  Getting back to the broader story, the for Diamond worlds have now become basically prison planets for the Confederacy's undesirables. The Confederacy rules humanity's star empire and enforces a strict egalitarianism on all the planets where it is established. Undoubtedly, this was a dig at the USSR (remember, this was written in 1980), but the result is cultural hom0genization to the utmost degree, and also, stagnation, except for a little on the frontier worlds. People all basically look the same and act the same and are told they live in paradise. Nonetheless, there are trouble makers, and a secret police acts to take them out or deport them to the Diamond worlds.
  
  Lilith starts with a android hacking the utmost secret military computer and then fleeing eventually to the Diamond worlds before being destroyed. The powers that be conclude that aliens must be behind the android as it is much more advanced than their tech. The problem, however, is how to figure out the link between the Diamond worlds and the aliens? Going to these worlds is a one way ticket as you will be infected by the warden cells and can never leave. So they devise a scheme where their best agent's mind is copied and 'pasted' into four criminals who still have links to the original agent so they can report to him. Their mission-- find out the connection between the aliens and the Diamond lords, the rulers of the four worlds.
  
  So much for the sitrep. Lilith is the story of the agent sent to the planet and his trials and tribulations on his quest. They story reminded me some of Jack Vance, especially the world building, but Chalker rows his own boat. Chalker's tales usually have some sort of mind transfer going on, but so far, it is just the agent's mind being transferred to bodies being sent to the planets. His dry humor and snarky dialogue are always fun and Lilith flows at a good pace, with lots of surprises along the way, including the denouement. If you have never read Chalker, this series would be a good place to start. 4 strong stars!
• 
  Jim

  I'm not much of a Chalker fan, but I found these 4 books to be an excellent read. There are 4 worlds of the Diamond & each book addresses life & the peculiarities on a different one. We see each world & the whole story from the perspective of one man in 5 bodies; his original one & 4 others that have had his 'mind' implanted into them. Each gives us a look at some fantastic powers imparted by the planet, along with some odd restrictions. There's a lot of action & adventure.
  
  These really need to be read in order!
• 
  Martin Doychinov

  Първата част от тетралогията ни запознава с една много интересна вселена, в която човечеството е населило достатъчно голяма част от галактиката. В едно привидно демократично, но всъщност тоталитарно общество (което ние си го знаем как е, отчасти), агенти поддържат мира с убийства на неудобни люде и прочие... Топ-агентът е изпратен на мисия до съзвездие с четири планети в обитаемия пояс, която се използва за затвор, и вероятно крие разковничето на извънземна инвазия.
  Много добро "научно фентъзи", което е с леко очаквана развръзка, и антиклимактичен край. Самата структура на четирилогията - всяка част се развива на една от четирите планети, е доста интересна. Четири звезди (заради упоменатия финал), за едно доста качествено произведение, макар и не феноменално! Предпоставките за по-добри следващи части са налице!
  
• 
  Mark

  The setting in brief: A heavily conformist, fascist even, galactic government. Four prison planets from which no one can escape. Yet a threat, somehow arising from the prison planets. A single super agent's mind implanted in four bodies to discover the secrets of the prison planets.
  
  The sf/adventure elements are strong enough, and the ending is exciting and surprising. What really takes these up a notch in my opinion are the parallel constructs. The masterminds running each planet are rebels from the galactic government, yet they wind up recreating an even harsher form of that government on their planets. The secret agent is a stone hard government loyalist, yet his experiences on each planet soften him and turn him into a rebel. (At the same time these symmetries create the obvious weakness of the series, in that at a high level what we get is the same story told four times plus an epilogue.)
• 
  Oleksandr Zholud

  This is the first volume of the tetralogy, The Four Lords of the Diamond.
  
  Far future. Human civilization spread over a quarter of our galaxy, forms the Confederacy. Other intelligent races are either integrated or eliminated. And now, for the first time an unknown alien (?) civilization is on equal footing with the humanity. It has the edge, for while it possesses intimate knowledge of the Confederacy, humans know nothing about it. The only link is to the star system with four habitable worlds, which are used as the United colonies / Australia i.e. the place for criminal prisoners and undesirables. The worlds have submicroscopic organism (what you’d call nanobots, but years before the term came into use) that integrates with humans and both restricts and amplifies them.
  
  On the first planet, Lilith, the organism almost immediately destroys any alien and ‘dead’ matter, making the usual technological civilization impossible. In return, some people are able to manipulate them, which leads to feats indistinguishable from magic. The Confederacy sends its best agent in the body of space pirate to investigate the collusion between aliens and criminal lords.
  I have read the Russian translation of the book about 20 years ago (the first two volumes, gulped in a few days). I was impressed enough with it to think about this setting and deduce correctly (as I was informed by the one, who read the whole series) how the powers will be shaped on the other worlds. The very fact that it caused me to think about what could have been in other volumes I guess is a nice recommendation, not many books do it.
  
  The style of the book is a bit verbose, with some ‘strange’ sentences for the non-native speaker. Current generation of SF authors write more smoothly and succinctly. Taken as a stand-alone novel it can be assumes a Conan-esque clone, with big burly male protagonist, but it is more than that. Some stuff there is notably less politically correct, in line with the Golden age of SF, where most protagonists were white males and women are often not much more than objects. However, this is just a veneer over the deeper and more interesting story.
  
• 
  Mouldy Squid

  I've been revisiting the science fiction of my youth, trying to see how my tastes and attitudes have evolved since then. Jack L. Chalker is near the top of the list.
  
  I remember loving this series as a early teen, although I didn't really remember why. Certainly there is enough action and some interesting ideas.
  
  However, it is clear that either my tastes have changed or this series didn't age well. While they are competently written with a few twists that I didn't remember, this series in particular, reads like an extended male adolescent wish fulfillment.
  
  Some of Chalker's more interesting thoughts on bodily transformation (a theme which runs through at least all of three Chalker I've read) is subsumed by what now reads as teen sexual fantasy. Although it's not quite as prevalent in this series as it is in some of his other works, the pubescent male objectification of women is in full force.
  
  Despite my complaints, this series, and Chalker's other work are worth the time to read. They are an unique example of 1980s mainstream science fiction. They are also written to a level where younger readers (teens) we'll find the concepts and prose challenging but not overwhelming. Competently written with enough action and intrigue to keep the reader engaged, but lacking the qualities that better science fiction writers were producing even in its time.
  
  The Jack L. Chalker re-read continues with Spirits of Flux and Anchor, book 1 of The Soul Rider series also by Jack Chalker.
• 
  Scott Nash

  Read it way back as a kid, and just reread it. Fantastic book in a fantastic series. This is what sf is supposed to be: a long intellectual exploration of a situation. Thoroughly fleshed out, vividly drawn. The science (basically a natural version of nanotechnology) is a bit dated, but following its own internal rules strictly so the story holds up.
• 
  Santova

  Lilith: A snake in the grass; now, I'm not an expert, but I'd hazard a guess and say most books don't ave a qualifier in the title. Then again, most books aren't as good as volume one of Jack Chalker's Four Lords of the Diamond series. The book starts us off with an alien robot of superior technology than the human race infiltrating and stealing critical information from a Confederacy military base. The Confederacy, man's interstellar government, won't stand for it, and put together a plan of action. Realizing the aliens must have inside help, they turn to the only place the aliens could go for help: the Warden worlds. The Warden worlds are a system of four prison planets from which no one can escape. A microscopic organism begins to invade your cells the moment you enter the planet's atmosphere. It creates a symbiotic relationship with every cell in the body, and actually prevents sickness and promotes fast recoveries over many injuries. The only catch; once you get a certain distance from the system the organism dies, taking its host with it. So a master plan is devised to infiltrate the world, find the alien presence, and take out the Lord of the word through whom the aliens are dealing, all without compromising any agents. The Confederacy just takes their best assassin and imprint his mind into a new body. He can complete the mission without every leaving the safety of home. In his new body, their agent, who becomes know as Cal Tremon, quickly ascended through the ranks of the feudal government system that dictates the world. He begins his final assault on his enemy's fortress when he discovers his allies aren't on his side at all! He had been used and played for a fool, and he thought all was lost as he watched the Lord of Lilith take off in his private shuttle. However, the ending may catch even the most acclaimed plot guessers off guard. Full of twists, turns, and a struggle one might not expect, as well as an ending that I certainly didn't, Lilith: A Snake in the Grass is a fine start to the series, and well worth a read.
• 
  Jan

  There are not many books that I give a 5-star rating to, but this one, most definitely, belongs to that group.
  
  It was a gem for me; the story was gripping and I was hooked on from page 1, or rather from the first couple of sounds, as I was enjoying the audiobook, which was masterfully narrated by Kirby Heyborne.
  Anyway, the plot was interesting and I could not wait to see how the story developed.
  
  If I was to summarise this “Lilith” in one adjective, I’d say that it was a real page-turner and it is the highest form of praise coming from me. I was truly happy to have found this book and I can’t wait to start Book 2.
  
  We are living in the age of information overload and my thinking is simple; we’re surrounded by all these “New York Times’ bestsellers” and such to the point that, practically, every book is a “bestseller” or a critically acclaimed discovery of a century. Then you open them up and, just after a couple of pages you can sense that it’s just a tragic disappointment. When it happens to me, I just put the book down and move on to the next one hoping to find an unputdownable one, which I know is there waiting to be found. This is what Lilith was for me.
• 
  Chris Catania

  Rereading, read originally 20+ yrs ago. Excellent book. The story flows very well, well paced and is imo very original concept. It has several areas that make you think, equally important even though it is a scifi book written over 30 yrs ago it doesn't feel dated as many old scifi books do.
• 
  Timothy Boyd

  Excellent SiFi series. Humans colonize 4 worlds around a new star and discover they can't ever leave due to microbes that can only live there that have invaded their bodies. Then the fun begins on each world the microbes alter the humans in different ways. Very recommended
• 
  Dinofly

  Fist book of 4. The world Chalker introduces is new, brilliant a believable. The story takes you on a journey you are biting your nails trough and holding your breath for the characters to survive.
• 
  Nessa

  I got about 32% into this book and the sheer amount of straight exposition from the main character was bad enough, but then it really lost me when he started remarking on how enormous his new body's "endowment" was and how young and sweet the girl he liked was (and how attracted she was to his new body because of the size of his endowments). Gross. The exposition didn't stop because then he had to explain everything about how the new powers worked. None of it was interesting enough to hold my attention. DNF.
• 
  Lijadora del Prado

  Typical Jack Chalker. Entertaining. He's laid off on the shape shifting in this one. Also some mild philosophy about the nature of society (aren't most of us groveling pawns who hate their lives and a small elite that enjoys? Also "the path not taken" - would the man in the chair have acted the same as his clones?).
• 
  Tom

  Enjoyable. I thought the world and its uniqueness was original and nicely written. It wasn't too complex and wordy. The underage sex left me uncomfortable, though. The other books in this series have been added to my wishlist.
• 
  Tomáš Fiurášek

  Od chvílí, co jsem se přestal naplno věnovat fantastice (výjimkou S. Eriksona), jsem hledal uspokojivou Sci-Fi, která se bude držet modelu praotců tohoto žánru. V něčem potěšilo, v něčem ne... nejedná se o zázrak, ale neurazí.
• 
  Colleen

  This series I have read and re-read since I was a teenager. It was the first books that ever resonated with me. I still have my 4-in-1 hard cover (bound with duct tape). It holds a special place in my heart.
• 
  John Massey

  GREAT SCI FI BOOKS 1 TO 4
• 
  Kevin Driskill

  Always inventive and well-planned. Chalker thinks so far outside that you forget there is a box.
• 
  Jacob Guy Segalov

  Switch off your brain and enjoy.
• 
  Mike Franklin

  An enjoyable piece of ‘80s pulp science fiction. Actually I think it would be more accurately described as science fantasy, not only because most of the book takes place on a planet where technology can’t exist, but also because the science that is actually discussed is far closer to magic than science. However, so long as you don’t examine that science too closely this is an enjoyable adventure that owes much to Edgar Rice Burroughs. The story is well placed and has plenty of twists and turns, though the big reveal was pretty obvious very early on in the book and I suspect I already know the essence of how the series will end. However I do have quite a few complaints about the writing.
  
  Despite being rather pulpy this was still an interesting idea that could have made an excellent story but it was let down by thin characterisations – only the main character was really fleshed out and he was pretty two dimensional – and some very sloppy writing. I don’t know if I’m particularly fussy when it comes to inconsistencies in a book, maybe I am, but I am always noticing them (particularly in older sf including most ‘golden age’ sf) and they always wrench me out of the story with a “hang on a minute, didn’t he say … a few pages/chapters back?” This book suffered from some very bad examples of this. Here’s one of the worst that doesn’t even go back a page the inconsistency is within the one paragraph: “…a young woman emerged. She was tall and thin and had an almost aristocratic bearing about her. Years ago she’d probably been a really pretty woman, but she was now well into middle age…” Later in the book the same woman is referred to as an “elderly matron!” Elsewhere a particular kind of death is referred to as “causing an ugly and painful, although mercifully swift, death.” And then just a few pages later the same death is described as “…you died, too—painfully and slowly, in horrible agony.” I’m sorry but these things just bug me!
  
  The author also seems to be struggling with an understanding of the size of particles. One of the main topics of the book is an organism (this is the word used in the book) called the Warden organism: “ …an alien organism, microscopic beyond belief and acting in colonies within the cells.” So just how small is this organism? Surely it must be made up from molecules of some sort? And yet we have this description later: “Consider the number of molecules that go into its [the planet’s] composition. A colony of Wardens for every molecule.” So it seems we have multiple Warden organisms for every molecule of solid matter on the planet. So either these organisms are somehow smaller than molecules or we have an infinite recursion in describing them. Maybe I’m being picky but if you’re going to include technical details in your book then you really need to get them right or at least logical. Or instead just leave them vague. Make them precise and wrong and it’s just clumsy.
  
  My most serious complaint however was with the relationship between Cal, the main protagonist, and a girl who has been manipulated so that she has the face and mind of an “eleven- or twelve-year-old” child on top of an adult body, and with whom, despite initial reservations, Cal proceeds to have a sex and eventually falls in love. ‘80s or not, I found this very disturbing.
  
  So it’s an enjoyable ‘80s pulp science fantasy read that doesn’t bear close examination very well. There are three other books in the series which I may read for a bit of light entertainment but my concern is that I suspect they are largely the same story just set on different planets.
  
• 
  Morgan Eckstein

  Lilith: A Snake in the Grass (by Jack L. Chalker) is the first book in the Four Lords of the Diamond series. The series takes place in the future where a galactic Confederation has expanded to cover a third of the galaxy. The population is breed to be legally average, and only on the expanding frontier is random genetics and culture allowed to flourish. The reason that the frontier is allowed an element of chaos is to prevent the human race from ceasing to develop its advances. Interestingly enough, this does not completely eliminate crime; and given the fact that criminals are often the brightest of humanity, the Confederacy needs a secure place to imprison those criminals that might still make a brilliant advancement without having to worry about them escaping.
  
  This secure place is the Warden Diamond, a solar system with four habitable planets and a rather nasty problem. Once you set foot on one of the planets in the Warden Diamond, you cannot ever leave the solar system, thanks to an organism that infects all matter in the Diamond system. But with the bad comes the good, for the organism allows for the development of special powers--the abilities dependent upon what planet you first set foot on.
  
  Into this perfect prison system enters an unknown alien race with advanced technology, a definite danger to the Confederacy. To send an agent into the Warden Diamond is condemning them to a life sentence of imprisonment in the Diamond solar system. But the Confederacy has developed the ability to record the personality and experiences of a person, and imprint this set of memories into another's mind. Furthermore, it allows the Confederacy not only the ability to send an agent into the Diamond, the technology allows them to send the same master agent to all four Warden worlds inside four different bodies.
  
  In Lilith: A Snake in the Grass, we are introduced to the first world of the Warden Diamond system, Lilith, and to the nameless agent that is imprinted onto four bodies condemned to be imprisoned in the Diamond system. Much of the book is about the agent overcoming the shock of being sent into the Diamond (in a new body), learning to control the Warden organism which on Lilith does not allow items that are not natural to survive unless a powerful mind overrides nature's model, and realizing that the new body changes the mind of the agent. In the end, the agent is shaken by the recorded experiences of his mind-cloned counterpart, and we are not given many clues about the alien menace (or so, we think at this point in the series).
  
  I have read this book several times over the years. And it is a series that I have grown to admire more and more over the years as my skill as a writer and literary critic has grown. For instance, this reading I found myself admiring the first sentence of the novel: "The little man in the synthetic tweed jacket didn't look like a bomb." It is an accurate description of the first few paragraphs of the novel, and our first encounter with the technology of the alien menace. And honestly, I wish that I could come up with opening sentences for my own writing that was as good as this sentence.
• 
  Caroline

  I heard about this series via a science fiction blog I follow and someone praised all four books highly. Because I love science fiction but also find it hard to find sci-fi titles that I actually really love and would re-read, I thought I'd give it a shot.
  
  The best thing about this book is that it doesn't feel dated - the technology is amorphous enough and the allusions to Earth society are vague enough that there is a timeless quality to the book. It doesn't necessarily feel as if it were written 30ish years ago. However, the main sci-fi premise of the world is that gifted people can "read" the "pattern" of the Warden Organism and then rewrite it; this parallels the 80s technological craze of "cracking the code" of DNA. It's a thin line separating the Warden Organism from Magic. The premise seems kind of silly.
  
  Another way to gauge when a book was written is to look at the portrayal of women. In advanced societies, are they still no better than concubines or furniture?
  
  Women are given equal footing in this book - when the main character lands on the planet Lilith, the first person he meets is a woman. cool! As the novel progresses, Ti and Sumiko O'Higgins (wtf is up with her name?) are the most important female characters but neither feels particularly fleshed out (also, Ti is portrayed as ditzy and spends most of the novel in a semi-coma.); however, it's not misogyny that keeps the females from being nuanced, none of the male characters feel fleshed out either - including the main character, Cal Tremon.
  
  Thus, the biggest issue I had with the book was that all of the characters felt like plot devices, only there to hit the beats of the already plotted action. None of the characters were compelling which made the whole story feel very impersonal. All in all, it's not a particularly engaging book because of the lack of connection with the characters and the rushed, clunky storytelling. As a reader, I never felt as if I were inhabiting the world or that I knew any of the characters particularly well. They were like props in a weird faux science fiction universe that could have just used magic and cardboard cutouts to achieve the same ending.
• 
  astaliegurec

  Jack L. Chalker's 1981 novel "Lilith: A Snake in the Grass" is the first of his "Four Lords of the Diamond" books. It's a nicely written, fast-paced, easily read book but comes with only a small amount of Chalker's typical "physical transformation" motif. The only fault I have with the book is that he's got some of his technical facts wrong in the description of the planets. Specifically, for Lilith, he says it has "an axial tilt of 84 degrees -- almost a world on its side, which meant little seasonal variation." That's exactly backwards. Plus, with that tilt, every place past 6 degrees from the equator (in either direction) would be beyond that world's polar circle and thus have at least on day per year where the sun doesn't set. The odd day/night cycle isn't reflected in the book. But, still, I rate the book at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5.
  
  The books in Jack L. Chalker's "Four Lords of the Diamond" series are:
  
  1. Lilith: A Snake in the Grass (The Four Lords of the Diamond Book 1)
  2. Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold (The Four Lord of the Diamond Book 2)
  3. Charon: A Dragon at the Gate (The Four Lord of the Diamond Book 3)
  4. Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail (The Four Lord of the Diamond Book 4)
  
• 
  Jeff Goodman

  So, what is this thing in classic science fiction about people being naked? It's like some theme that pops up (sorry) amongst the alien landscapes and ray guns for no reason at all. Anyone who has read The Martian Chronicles knows what I mean. In Princes of Mars, Boroughs actually says something like, "...and they were all naked, because, why not?" Challenges of the Martian landscape not withstanding I guess. I don't get it.
  Chalker comes up with a much more inventive excuse. It's actually central to the plot, the reason people are running around naked. It also makes it much more convenient to have recreational sex with an over-developed, under-aged girl. But that's another of those themes. Anyone who has read Belinda knows what I mean.
  I really freaking loved this book. It's a fun ride, you can sense the 80's cultural cloud around if if you try and know what to look for and care. If you don't, it might as well have been written yesterday. It has a respectable relation to old pulp too if I'm not mistaken, as well as a good shot of literary testosterone.
  
• 
  Jim Razinha

  [update September 2021 - I have four good books in progress and was feeling the start of “reader’s block” coming on. I have my go-to books to break that l, which are all packed away until we find/build our final house but I did find this series so… preemptive strike and I’m hitting the other books again. And I’ll continue this reread because I like it that much.]
  
  
  [Update...Dec 2015 - even though I read these just 3.5 years ago, I wanted to end the Year of Nostalgic Re-reads ... well, the calendar year - I expect more of such re-reads next year ... with Chalker. Still great. Still entertaining. Still creative. Still a favorite.]
  
  
  After slogging through 18 Heinlein novels in the first four months of 2012 (I was stubborn), it was good to get back to decent science fiction. Still imaginative and entertaining after 30 years.
  
  One of my favorite Chalker series. With the Well World sagas and this, he really hit it.
• 
  Jesse

  So I haven't read this book in a while and . . . it's a bit problematic. Either I hadn't realized some of the issues, or didn't remember. The main plot is fun, there's some good action, and a few interesting concepts. However, all of the female characters are pretty one note (though to be fair, so are a lot of the male characters) and overly sexualized, and it often feels like the characters are simply being carried through the plot, rather than causing it to happen. I enjoyed it, and it's a fast read, but I'm not sure I would recommend it to someone who doesn't have at least a bit of nostalgia associated with the series.