CHALKER, Jack L(aurence)

(1944-)

   US writer and editor, though now very much better known for his fiction. He was active as a fan from an early age, and producer of a successful FANZINE, Mirage. As editor, he founded and edited the MIRAGE PRESS, which specialized in sf scholarship. His own work in that area began with The New H.P. Lovecraft Bibliography (1962 chap; rev vt The Revised H. P. Lovecraft Bibliography 1974 chap with Mark OWINGS) and In Memoriam: Clark Ashton Smith (anth 1963 chap), continuing with some studies and guides with Owings, who is sometimes listed as a pseudonym of JLC, a confusion arising from his sole crediting for The Necronomicon: A Study (1967 chap), which was in fact collaborative. They also worked together on Mirage on Lovecraft (1965 chap) and The Index to the Science Fantasy Publishers (1966 chap; rev vt Index to the SF Publishers 1979 chap). After the solo An Informal Biography of $crooge McDuck (1971 Markings; 1974 chap), JLC moved his attention to fiction, only returning to his earlier interest 20 years later with a new edition of his 1979 Index, which though technically a revision of the earlier work was in fact 10 times its length, and can logically be treated as either a vt or a new title: The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Critical and Bibliographic History (1991; with subsequent various unascribed revs), still with Owings; the similarly identified The Science-Fantasy Publishers: Supplement One, July 1991-June 1992 (1992) and the Science-Fantasy Publishers: Supplement One: July 1991- June 1993 (1993) continue the coverage (see also BIBLIOGRAPHIES).His first novel, an ambitious singleton SPACE OPERA, A Jungle of Stars (1976), proved typical in that its opposing aliens (who are both ex-gods) represent in their conflict a form of populist argument about alternative utopian worldviews, and in that its plot concentrates on members of mortal races who have been recruited to do the superbeings' fighting for them in a kind of world-arena. This underlying articulacy and the plot-device of recruitment also mark his most successful single novel, Dancers in the Afterglow (1978), a complex and melancholy tale of oppression and enforced metamorphosis on a conquered colony planet, in which questions of power and morality are again asked with some ease, and the human need for freedom is answered (and at the same time deeply assaulted) by transformation tropes out of SCIENCE FANTASY and nightmare. Dancers contains in embryo almost all of the next decade or so of JLC's prolific career, most of which has been given over to the construction of large series. The first, the Well World sequence, begins with his second fiction title, Midnight at the Well of Souls (1977), and continues with The Wars of the Well - in 2 vols: Exiles at the Well of Souls (1978) and Quest for the Well of Souls (1978)-The Return of Nathan Brazil (1980), Twilight at the Well of Souls: The Legacy of Nathan Brazil (1980), , Echoes of the Well of Souls (1993), Shadow of the Well of Souls (1994) and Gods of the Well of Souls (1994). In this series the dominant pattern of the JLC multi-volume tale can be seen. Into a world which reveals itself in the shape of a game-board disguised as a DYSTOPIA, recruited and metamorphosed mortals are introduced to find their way, usually stark-naked, to the heart of the labyrinth, where wait the godlings, and, perhaps, as a reward, the true form they have always secretly wished to assume (the 1990s volumes of the sequence replicate this pattern). It is a pattern open to facile abuse (several of JLC's fantasy series, as listed below, exhibit a strange monotony) but which remains exhilarating and innovative in his other major sf series, The Four Lords of the Diamond (omni 1983), which assembles Lilith: A Snake in the Grass (1981), Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold (1982), Charon: A Dragon at the Gate (1982) and Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail (1983). The Quintara Marathon sf series - Demons at Rainbow Bridge (1989), The Run to Chaos Keep (1991) and The Ninety Trillion Fausts (1991) - further rehearses this material. Of JLC's infrequent singletons, The Identity Matrix (1982) and Downtiming the Night Side (1985) perhaps stand out; his short fiction, also infrequent, is represented by Dance Band on the Titanic (coll 1988). JLC is a novelist of considerable flair, with an ear acutely attuned to the secret dreams of freedom mortals tend to dream, but is prone to gross and compulsively repetitive overproduction. He will not be remembered for his second thoughts.

   JC

   Other works: The Soul Rider science-fantasy sequence, comprising Spirits of Flux and Anchor (1984), Empires of Flux and Anchor (1984), Masters of Flux and Anchor (1985), The Birth of Flux and Anchor (1985) - an sf prequel - and Children of Flux and Anchor (1986); the Dancing Gods sequence, comprising The River of Dancing Gods (1984), Demons of the Dancing Gods (1984), Vengeance of the Dancing Gods (1985) and Songs of the Dancing Gods (1990); the Rings of the Master sequence, comprising Lords of the Middle Dark (1986), Pirates of the Thunder (1987), Warriors of the Storm (1987) and Masks of the Martyrs (1988); the Changewinds fantasy sequence, comprising When the Changewinds Blow (1987), Riders of the Winds (1988) and War of the Maelstrom (1988), which JLC claims make up a single long novel; an ALTERNATE-WORLDS detective series, G.O.D. Inc, comprising The Labyrinth of Dreams (1987), The Shadow Dancers (1987) and The Maze in the Mirror (1989).Singletons: The Web of the Chozen (1978); A War of Shadows (1979); And the Devil Will Drag You Under (1979); The Devil's Voyage (1981), mainly about the ship that carried the A-bomb used on Hiroshima to its rendezvous and which was subsequently sunk and its crew eaten by sharks, but also about the security scare caused by Cleve CARTMILL's "Deadline", published in 1944 in John W. CAMPBELL's ASF; The Messiah Choice (1985); The Red Tape War: A Round-Robin Science Fiction Novel (1991) with Michael RESNICK and George Alec EFFINGER; Hotel Andromeda (anth 1994), as editor.

   See also: GODS AND DEMONS; INVASION; PARANOIA; POCKET UNIVERSE; SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS; TIME TRAVEL; VIRTUAL REALITY.