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The Four Lords of the Diamond #3
Charonas
Žemės Konfederacija atėmė Parko Lakošo kūną ir perkėlė į jį geriausio savo agento sąmonę. Tuomet išsiuntė Lakošą Į Charono planetą, kad šis pagaliau pabandytų surasti keistuosius ateivius, kurie paslapčia šnipinėja žmones...
207 pages, Paperback
First published October 12, 1982
17 people are currently reading
344 people want to read
About the author
Jack L. Chalker
132 books354 followersBesides being a science fiction author, Jack Laurence Chalker was a Baltimore City Schools history teacher in Maryland for a time, a member of the Washington Science Fiction Association, and was involved in the founding of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. Some of his books said that he was born in Norfolk, Virginia although he later claimed that was a mistake.
He attended all but one of the World Science Fiction Conventions from 1965 until 2004. He published an amateur SF journal, Mirage, from 1960 to 1971 (a Hugo nominee in 1963 for Best Fanzine).
Chalker was married in 1978 and had two sons.
His stated hobbies included esoteric audio, travel, and working on science-fiction convention committees. He had a great interest in ferryboats, and, at his wife's suggestion, their marriage was performed on the Roaring Bull Ferry.
Chalker's awards included the Daedalus Award (1983), The Gold Medal of the West Coast Review of Books (1984), Skylark Award (1985), Hamilton-Brackett Memorial Award (1979), as well as others of varying prestige. He was a nominee for the John W. Campbell Award twice and for the Hugo Award twice. He was posthumously awarded the Phoenix Award by the Southern Fandom Confederation on April 9, 2005.
On September 18, 2003, during Hurricane Isabel, Chalker passed out and was rushed to the hospital with a diagnosis of a heart attack. He was later released, but was severely weakened. On December 6, 2004, he was again rushed to hospital with breathing problems and disorientation, and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and a collapsed lung. Chalker was hospitalized in critical condition, then upgraded to stable on December 9, though he didn't regain consciousness until December 15. After several more weeks in deteriorating condition and in a persistent vegetative state, with several transfers to different hospitals, he died on February 11, 2005 of kidney failure and sepsis in Bon Secours of Baltimore, Maryland.
Chalker is perhaps best known for his Well World series of novels, the first of which is Midnight at the Well of Souls (Well World, #1).
He attended all but one of the World Science Fiction Conventions from 1965 until 2004. He published an amateur SF journal, Mirage, from 1960 to 1971 (a Hugo nominee in 1963 for Best Fanzine).
Chalker was married in 1978 and had two sons.
His stated hobbies included esoteric audio, travel, and working on science-fiction convention committees. He had a great interest in ferryboats, and, at his wife's suggestion, their marriage was performed on the Roaring Bull Ferry.
Chalker's awards included the Daedalus Award (1983), The Gold Medal of the West Coast Review of Books (1984), Skylark Award (1985), Hamilton-Brackett Memorial Award (1979), as well as others of varying prestige. He was a nominee for the John W. Campbell Award twice and for the Hugo Award twice. He was posthumously awarded the Phoenix Award by the Southern Fandom Confederation on April 9, 2005.
On September 18, 2003, during Hurricane Isabel, Chalker passed out and was rushed to the hospital with a diagnosis of a heart attack. He was later released, but was severely weakened. On December 6, 2004, he was again rushed to hospital with breathing problems and disorientation, and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and a collapsed lung. Chalker was hospitalized in critical condition, then upgraded to stable on December 9, though he didn't regain consciousness until December 15. After several more weeks in deteriorating condition and in a persistent vegetative state, with several transfers to different hospitals, he died on February 11, 2005 of kidney failure and sepsis in Bon Secours of Baltimore, Maryland.
Chalker is perhaps best known for his Well World series of novels, the first of which is Midnight at the Well of Souls (Well World, #1).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
July 19, 2022
Chalker's third volume in the Four Lords of the Diamond series improves over the last one, and once again immerses us into a bizarre world. The prime agent still resides in his picket ship outside the Diamond system while his mind clones (his mind was copied and inserted into four bodies, one for each planet of the Diamond system) give their reports. The task: assassinate all four of the Lords who rule each system. The rationale: to thwart or slow the aliens that have been infiltrating the Confederacy and hopefully avoid an all out war. To date, the first two missions succeeded, but the agents sent did things that shocked the prime agent. He finds it hard to believe that what is essentially himself could fall in love and try to change the worlds for the better; he is, after all, a born and bred top assassin!
Charon is the planet closest to the sun and very hot and rainy. Our agent, this time in the body of Park Lococh, is sent down like the others and must navigate the bizarre world. The Warden micro biological agents act differently on each planet and here, they allow the 'sorcerers' or 'sorcs' as they are called to transform anything with the Warden agents in them, which is basically everything. As per the previous volumes, Park sets out on his mission; a seemingly impossible task. Chalker is definitely more of an ideas and plot author than one writing character driven prose so do not expect the main protagonists to be more than place holders. Nonetheless, the world building is very fun and the plot has all kinds of twists and turns. Also, as usual, this could use some polish and a better editor, but so it goes. 4 stars!!
Charon is the planet closest to the sun and very hot and rainy. Our agent, this time in the body of Park Lococh, is sent down like the others and must navigate the bizarre world. The Warden micro biological agents act differently on each planet and here, they allow the 'sorcerers' or 'sorcs' as they are called to transform anything with the Warden agents in them, which is basically everything. As per the previous volumes, Park sets out on his mission; a seemingly impossible task. Chalker is definitely more of an ideas and plot author than one writing character driven prose so do not expect the main protagonists to be more than place holders. Nonetheless, the world building is very fun and the plot has all kinds of twists and turns. Also, as usual, this could use some polish and a better editor, but so it goes. 4 stars!!
May 3, 2018
Третата част се развива на планета, където практическият ефект на вируса си е чиста магия. Непослупковците биват наказвани с преобразяване, което в различна степен ги отдалечава (поне на външен вид) от човешкия род. Тайната опозиционна организация се предвожда от сваления с преврат предишен Владетел.
Авторът явно се е усетил, и е посъкратил началото, което е еднакво във всички части, поради спецификата на сюжета. В повествованието има няколко изненади - приятна промяна. Краят е скоростен, и разбира се - най-изненадващ от всичко! Някои парченца от пъзела се нареждат, но още много липсват. Дано развръзката в последната книга не разочарова.
Най-накрая се оправдаха напъните да се изтърпят малко-над-средняшките начални две части! Третата определено си е първокласна класическа фантастика (или sci-fantasy, за хората, за които конкретният под-жанр има значение).
Авторът явно се е усетил, и е посъкратил началото, което е еднакво във всички части, поради спецификата на сюжета. В повествованието има няколко изненади - приятна промяна. Краят е скоростен, и разбира се - най-изненадващ от всичко! Някои парченца от пъзела се нареждат, но още много липсват. Дано развръзката в последната книга не разочарова.
Най-накрая се оправдаха напъните да се изтърпят малко-над-средняшките начални две части! Третата определено си е първокласна класическа фантастика (или sci-fantasy, за хората, за които конкретният под-жанр има значение).
February 27, 2018
Chalker's story gets better as you go through the series. We get the interesting parallax view of the same character at the same point in his life entering different bodies and going to radically different planets to execute his mission. Chalker gives us a pretty interesting take on personality and character, with some interesting SciFi creative world building to boot. A main criticism is that Chalker is not a great writer, nor great developer of characters. This flaw is sidestepped somewhat by the interesting geometry of the series, which I'll leave mostly unexplored to avoid spoilers. Good 70s SF, but doesn't age well, and gender roles in particular taste a bit sour on the modern palate. That said, Chalker is better than most of his peers on this point, which I think deserves some credit.
January 23, 2016
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
September 21, 2023
Charon is the third book in The Four Lords of the Diamond series. Like the first two, it begins with a prologue which is only once referred to later, a brief summary of the general premise of the series, and a description of the awakening of the agent almost word-for-word the same as in the other books. Charon is the innermost planet of the Diamond, a hot world of rainforest and desert. It is also a planet of illusion. The plot raises more questions than it answers, setting us up for the last book. I should note that the writing in the second and third books is much better than in the first one.
December 30, 2024
These books are totally bat shit crazy.
An agent of The Authority is cloned four times and each clone sent to a different
world in the Diamond System.
The worlds in the Diamond system are ruled over by their Lords with absolute authority.
Each more fucked up than the last.
Each world has it's own weird shit going on.
It's been forty years since I read this so I do not really recall many of the details.
But it was indeed crazy.
Read this in omnibus form. That is a LOT of crazy in one book.
Me aged twelve loved it.
Not sure what that really says........
An agent of The Authority is cloned four times and each clone sent to a different
world in the Diamond System.
The worlds in the Diamond system are ruled over by their Lords with absolute authority.
Each more fucked up than the last.
Each world has it's own weird shit going on.
It's been forty years since I read this so I do not really recall many of the details.
But it was indeed crazy.
Read this in omnibus form. That is a LOT of crazy in one book.
Me aged twelve loved it.
Not sure what that really says........
Read
October 23, 2025They took the body of Park Lacoch and stripped away his mind. Then they stuck him aboard a spaceship and exiled him to Charon, from which no return was possible. And just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, Park found himself transformed into a changeling -- a half-beast, half-man, with the beast rapidly gaining ascendancy . . .
January 1, 2021
Sweet story development through this series. I love the variations between the Warden planets. This pushes even farther and con tines to tie all the rest together. Looking forward to the last book.
July 7, 2024
good story. It continues. How will it end? Only one way to know!
November 29, 2024
3,75 ⭐
December 9, 2024
Enjoyed this. Chalker keeps us in suspense by giving us more clues, but I still can't figure out the final reveal. The final book in the series is a must read.
December 6, 2025
Weakest of the first 3 in the series.
January 26, 2017
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.
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.
October 2, 2021
[update 10/1/2021 - read on the flights back from Juneau to Ohio - staved off a Reader’s Block coming on last week with Lilith and have to finish to series, right? Something noticed this time around: many several times, Chalker overused an adjective (“enormous”) or verb, three, four, five times in a paragraph. Probably more sensitized to style differences as I’ve gotten older (and proofed more than a few books)]
[Update 1.24.16 - reread for fun, and bumping up a star...eventually, this entire series may get five because I keep coming back to it. Anyway, I must have been in a mood when I wrote the snippet below. While it is the least of the series, it has its merits. I still like it.]
The least of the tetralogy, Chalker's must have been in a preachy mood when he wrote the beginning. It almost seems as if he thought, "Well, I'm committed to four..." Still, it continues a creative series in an entertaining narrative.
[Update 1.24.16 - reread for fun, and bumping up a star...eventually, this entire series may get five because I keep coming back to it. Anyway, I must have been in a mood when I wrote the snippet below. While it is the least of the series, it has its merits. I still like it.]
The least of the tetralogy, Chalker's must have been in a preachy mood when he wrote the beginning. It almost seems as if he thought, "Well, I'm committed to four..." Still, it continues a creative series in an entertaining narrative.
July 15, 2014
Jack L. Chalker's "Charon: A Dragon at the Gate" is the third in his "Four Lords of the Diamond" series. For the most part, if you've read the previous two books in the series, there will be no surprises here. About the only two differences I noticed are that the book has more of a "Chalkerish" feel to it than the previous books (more physical transformation) and the protagonist is presented with an additional enigma as he starts out on the planet. So, just like the previous two books, I rate this 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)
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)
December 23, 2017
The third book in the four-volume series. The start is a bit tiresome due to the repetitions – once again we should follow the split of thoughts of another mind starting almost word-by-word from the previous books. Then we move to Charon, Looks like hell as their explorer said. On this world the warden organism gives people a kind of psionics masquerading as magic.
Interesting and original even if a bit old-fashioned SF novel.
Interesting and original even if a bit old-fashioned SF novel.
November 10, 2007
Third book of 4. What happens, when woodoo and witchcraft actually work in a society where science is the only measure? The hero and his girl are turned into dinosaurs (or something similar) and then something else. All while being hunted and trying to solve the situation that will bring war to the known universe. YES! Read it :)
December 1, 2010
Book 3 of 4... Not as good as book 1, but much better than book 2. An intersting twist at the end, and the introduction of a new and unexpected character who, while he was discussed and even made one dramatic appearance early in the book, was only revealed as a major character in the last few pages of the book. Very nice. Actually made me want to hurry and start the last book. Which I did.
March 21, 2013
Well, this was odd. So far this was the weirdest book in the mini-serie of them. Lots of "there's no hurry" and just post-lunch "we need to hurry" things going on, too much explaining of things that didn't need that much explaining and so on. Once again women are perfectly attached to the Mr. Agent and his loved one is practically a slave of his, pleased to please him.
March 1, 2025
They took the body of Park Lacoch and stripped away his mind. Then they stuck him aboard a spaceship and exiled him to Charon, from which no return was possible. And just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, Park found himself transformed into a changeling -- a half-beast, half-man, with the beast rapidly gaining ascendancy . . .
February 27, 2013
I enjoyed The Four Lords of the Diamond books. I thought it was a different approach to "clone" the main character and have a book for each of the clones, each taking place on a different world with a different set of "unique" rules.
May 9, 2016
Another pure Chalker, with morphing characters and identity issues. This book is great specially because of the way the story starts and ends, because some revelations in the ending make you reevaluate what you considered truth in the beginning.
September 20, 2016
Read in order! See first book's review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
October 5, 2014
Great series.
Read them when I was younger.
Time to read them again and see if they hold up.
Read them when I was younger.
Time to read them again and see if they hold up.
March 28, 2011
It would have been better to publish the four books in one volume - but I guess they had to make money.
Read
February 24, 2012SF/Adventure. Third in the Four Lords of the Diamond series. Mindless action but fun.
April 28, 2020
Enjoyable, a bit odder than the previous ones. Still a fast read, a couple of good characters.
December 5, 2013
Not the best or smartest of the series, but probably the most fun of them all. Enjoyed this very much.
November 6, 2014
1983 grade B-
2009 grade B
Series book W3
2009 grade B
Series book W3
July 21, 2009
ho-hum.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews