WHO WAS NATHAN BRAZIL...
AND WHAT WAS HE
DOING ON THE WELL WORLD?

Entered by a thousand unsuspected gateways - built by a race lost in the clouds of time - the planet its dwellers called the Well World turned beings of every kind into something else. There spacefarer Nathan Brazil found himself companioned by a batman, an amorous female centaur and a mermaid - all once as human as he.

Yet Nathan Brazil's metamorphosis was more terrifying than any of those... and his memory was coming back, bringing with it the secret of the Well World.

For at the heart of the bizarre planet lay the goal of every being that had ever lived - and Nathan Brazil and his comrades were... lucky?... enough to find it!

"A BIG, BOLD BOOK THAT
TAKES TRADITIONAL SCIENCE FICTION
AND TURNS IT UPSIDE DOWN!"
- LEIGH BRACKETT

FIRST TIME IN PRINT

WAR
ON THE
WELL WORLD

Antor Trellig, archvillain and head of the Eponge Syndicate, had captured Obie, a supercomputer that could control all matter and all worlds.  With Obie's help - willing or unwilling - Trellig would become omnipotent... and he was sure nothing could stop him now.

Against him, the Council had only one weapon - Mavra Chang, the amoral female adventurer who had trained herself to be humanity's master criminal.  They offered her any reward if she succeeded.  For failure, there was certain, horrible death.

Neither Trellig nor Mavra had counted on being drawn across space to the Well World, master planet of the ancient Markovians.  There, in new - alien - bodies, they were faced with countless bizarre ecologies.  And there they were caught up in a battle of intrigue where strange races fought for control of the Universe!

THUS BEGINS THE EPIC WAR
OF THE WELL WORLD WHICH WILL BE CONCLUDED
IN THE SOON-TO-BE PUBLISHED NOVEL
QUEST FOR THE WELL OF SOULS
FIRST TIME IN PRINT

MAROONED
ON THE
WELL WORLD

For eleven bitter years, Mavra Chang had been a prisoner on the Well World - the master-world where hundreds of impossible races existed, each in its own strange environment.  Her once-human companions had been mutated into alien forms, and she was isolated and abandoned.  Worse, her body was cruelly changed to a monstrous and useless travesty of what she had been.

Above her circled the planetoid which contained Obie, the supercomputer that could restore her body and her powers.  But the only means of reaching him was by a spaceship that was stranded in the northern hemisphere - where no flesh-and-blood creature could exist.

To make matters worse - if that were possible! - her enemies were plotting to steal the ship and escape from the Well World without her.  Other, even more wicked enemies were coming to kill her.  Her last shred of hope was gone.

But Mavra Chang had never learned to surrender to fate... and this wasn't the time to start!

FIRST TIME IN PRINT

THE SAGA OF THE WELL WORLD
Volume 1: Midnight at the Well of Souls
Volume 2: Exiles at the Well of Souls
Volume 3: Quest for the Well of Souls

COUNTDOWN
FOR THE
WELL WORLD

In a desolate sector of space floats the Well World - the ancient Markovian supercomputer that first created and now maintains the Universe.

While attempting to repel an insidious intergalactic invasion, Mankind resorts to a weapon of such awesome destructive power that it undermines the Well World's control of time and space and threatens the very existence of the Universe.

It was up to Mavra Chang - victim and veteran of the Wars of the Well - and Obie, her colossal computer companion, to find the only being capable of going to the Well World and repairing the damage at its source.

But the infamous and near-mythical Nathan Brazil - sometime freighter captain, often the Wandering Jew, perhaps even God - did not want to be found.

But Mavra and Obie were never two to take no for an answer...

FIRST TIME IN PRINT
THE SAGA OF THE WELL WORLD
Volume 1: Midnight at the Well of Souls
Volume 2: Exiles at the Well of Souls
Volume 3: Quest for the Well of Souls
Volume 4: The Return of Nathan Brazil
Volume 5: The Legacy of Nathan
     Brazil (Coming in late 1980)

The rift in the fabric of space was fast approaching the Well World, and time was running out. Troops all over the planet were gathering for the final battle.

Nathan Brazil and Mavra Chang somehow had to reach the Well of Souls in time to save the universe and before any of the hostile natives managed to kill them.

At best, a difficult mission. At worst, impossible - especially since there was a price on Brazil's head and many would-be claimants! For Brazil, the difficult was but the work of a moment - the impossible would take a little longer!

This exciting, action-packed novel marks Jack Chalker's triumphant return to his celebrated multivolume saga: The Well World.  THE SEA IS FULL OF STARS explores an unknown interstellar civilization, features an all-new cast of characters, and reveals fresh secrets.  But of course, the Well remains...

After three passengers - Ming, Ari, and Angel - embark on an elite starship journey into the Realm, they unwittingly become ensnared in one man's bloodthirsty vendetta that will alter their very beings.  That man is Jeremiah Wong Kincaid.  He vows to destroy Josich Conqueror Hadun, the evil genius who has wreaked unspeakable havoc throughout the universe.  It is an obsession that will take him to the lands of demons and strange races - and into a deadly new cyberworld where humans are mere pawns of the godlike computers they have created.

But it is only after Kincaid and his unwitting fellow travelers enter Well World and discover the water hexes that he confronts the mad tyrant - and learns their universe is threatened b something far, far worse...

Jack Chalker's Well World epic occupies an honored place among the classics of science fiction.  Now this boldly imagined, intricately plotted new novel takes us deeper into the Well World than ever before...

On the mysterious Well World, the evil tyrant Josich and his dark agents search desperately for the eight scattered pieces of the fabled Straight Gate.  Whoever possesses the Gate will wield enormous power, travelling between universes at the speed of light and wreaking havoc across galaxies.

Opposing Josich is a small band of travelers new to the Well World.  There is Core, once a machine, now flesh and blood; Ming and Ari, two minds sharing a single body; Jaysu, an angel; and Genghis O'Leary, a lizard being.  Unbeknownst to them, they have an unlikely ally: a vengeful entity who is able to clone any person or object with a single touch - and mete out death just as swift...

The Call of the Well

For uncounted eons, the Well World had regulated and given order to the universe, and throughout that eternity, Nathan Brazil had been the guardian of the Well of Souls, where the universe’s master control lay. Forever wandering and alone, returning to the Well in times of danger, Brazil had destroyed and re-created the cosmos several times over. But even he wearied of his endless watch, and had enlisted the aid of space pilot and high-tech thief Mavra Chang the last time the universal order required resetting.

But now the universe faced a threat more grave than mere destruction. An unnamed and utterly alien entity had somehow been released from its ancient prison and was bent on the corruption of the Well World itself. If successful, it would cause chaos beyond mortal understanding.

The Well World needed Brazil and Chang. But when it found them, would they once again answer the call? And though Brazil was immortal, could even he fight the force threatening the Well? For the force was not of this universe - and it had plans for Nathan Brazil…

FIRST TIME IN PRINT

Changing of the Guard

Immortal, unchanging, the external survivor, Nathan Brazil had tired of his long duty as the guardian of the Well World and had enlisted Mavra Chang, space pilot and adventurer, as his companion and equal, sharing with her some of his power to control the universe's destiny.

But over the millennia, Brazil and Chang had become estranged, and when they were once again called to the Well, each went alone.  What they found was a Well World changed in ways it should not have been. It was not just that the local inhabitants had put a price on their heads or that Brazil and Chang were constantly symied in their separate journeys to the Well of Souls.  Evolution itself had diverged from its preset course - and that was impossible.

Brail sensed that some force beyond local animosity was at work, thwarting him from reaching his goal, and he was determined to find out just what that force was and how it could have changed the elaborate programming of the Well.  But the changes that had so affected the Well World were beginning to change the unchangeable Nathan Brazil - and if the watchman himself could altered, the universe might be left without any guardian at all...

FIRST TIME IN PRINT

Feet of Clay

In its hour of need, the Well World's guardians had been neutralized.  Nathan Brazil was shipwrecked on a desert island with a seemingly harmless girl - but his contact with her had allowed his mind to be invaded, his will sapped, and his mission forgotten.  Mavra Chang had been abducted by a vicious gang of inter-hex drug smugglers, and was now held prisoner by a revenge-mad creature who had surgically and genetically altered her into a bizarre form and made her a slave to powerful narcotics.  But the Well could allow nothing to stop the guardians' journey for long.  For the Well of Souls was only a machine; it needed the Watchers to handle events and circumstances beyond its sophisticated programming. And so it set plans in motion to jolt its champions back into the game.

The only other help Brazil and Chang could expect was from the companions who had been swept along to the Well World - by accident or design.  But the newcomers had been caught in a web of intrigue and deceit spun by the ruling council, a group desperate to stop both Brazil and Chang.

What none of them could know was that all of them, even the great Well computer, were being manipulated by the Kraang, an entity more ancient than the universe itself, a being that would use the guardians to give it powers far beyond even those of the Well of Souls - a being that would become a living god...

FIRST TIME IN PRINT