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The Web of the Chozen
NOBODY BEATS BAR HOLLIDAY
He was paid to find Terraformable worlds, new planets for his corporation to plunder. Up until the day he came upon the Peace Victory, an abandoned generation ship hovering ominously above a definitely habitable planet, he believed nobody ever could.
NOBODY BEATS BAR HOLLIDAY
..because he was never satisfied with anything lower than first place, because he was always the oddball, in charge of his own welfare, his own destiny... a man determined to make his mark in the world and win all games at any cost.
NOBODY EVER BEATS BAR HOLLIDAY
...because he only took the wrong chances at the right times. But on the planet Patmos, where everything looked safe, but nothing was, Bar Holliday had at last met his match!
He was paid to find Terraformable worlds, new planets for his corporation to plunder. Up until the day he came upon the Peace Victory, an abandoned generation ship hovering ominously above a definitely habitable planet, he believed nobody ever could.
NOBODY BEATS BAR HOLLIDAY
..because he was never satisfied with anything lower than first place, because he was always the oddball, in charge of his own welfare, his own destiny... a man determined to make his mark in the world and win all games at any cost.
NOBODY EVER BEATS BAR HOLLIDAY
...because he only took the wrong chances at the right times. But on the planet Patmos, where everything looked safe, but nothing was, Bar Holliday had at last met his match!
212 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1978
9 people are currently reading
217 people want to read
About the author
Jack L. Chalker
132 books355 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 30 reviews
January 28, 2015
First off, a special thanks to the anonymous Goodreader who sent me this book. It arrived right before Christmas, and I didn't open the package until Christmas day, thinking that one of my kids had ordered it and had it shipped directly to my place (we had all the kids home for Christmas). But when I opened the envelope on Christmas day and asked who got me the book, I was rewarded by confusion and blank stares. So someone who is not my child or my wife sent this to me. I had a few conversations with a different people about this book, so I can't chase it down *exactly*. But someone was generous, and I thank you!
Now, on to the text.
The Web of the Chozen is, above all, a novel of ideas, like any well-behaved science fiction book is. It was well-written, by and large, and I really enjoyed the narrative voice of Bar Holliday, the narrator. Bar is a star scout, sent to explore new worlds. He's different from most of humanity, who have now become mind-numbed cattle whose only ambition is to return to their Creatovision. The interstellar civilization, sponsored by a group of corporations, is just too boring for Bar Holliday. So he was assigned to be a scout, the one way out of the malaise-stricken utopia of humankind.
But Bar is in for some surprises.
And so are you. I'm not going to give away any spoilers. Suffice it to say that Bar stumbles on a world named Patmos where his entire conception of himself and of humanity is . . . turned inside out, I guess, is the best way to put it. The book is full of transformations and begs the question, what does it really mean to be human? For that matter, what does it really mean to be at all?
The book isn't without its problems, and the primary issue I had with the book, unfortunately, repeated itself several times - Chalker threw me out of my willing suspension of disbelief not once, but several times. Bar Holliday simply knew too much about what was happening to himself and the world around him, and I couldn't make that leap, not in the first-person narrative voice, anyway. This shaking of my walls of unreality happened again and again. I suppose I was inured to it by the end of the book, but I found it quite jarring, which lessened my enjoyment of the book a great deal.
One thing that this discomfort did for me, though, was caused me to think about what is it exactly that allows us to suspend disbelief or prevents us from doing so? And why is it different for each person? I'm certain that other readers might not have been bothered by Holliday's borderline omniscience as I was. But what makes the difference? A more subtle approach would have worked better for me, even if Chalker had interspersed a few pages of transition at key spots in the novel. It would have added a few thousand words to the whole text, but it would have felt much more natural, as a result. Maybe this is the fault of an overly zealous editor or a publisher that wanted to keep the word count under a certain number for production purposes, I don't know. In any case, I need to think about this whole subject a bit more carefully. What would an "acceptable" leap have looked like to me? Would I take an even larger leap and be okay with it if the tone or voice was different? Was it the presentation or the logic itself that I found fault with subconsciously?
So many questions . . .
Now, on to the text.
The Web of the Chozen is, above all, a novel of ideas, like any well-behaved science fiction book is. It was well-written, by and large, and I really enjoyed the narrative voice of Bar Holliday, the narrator. Bar is a star scout, sent to explore new worlds. He's different from most of humanity, who have now become mind-numbed cattle whose only ambition is to return to their Creatovision. The interstellar civilization, sponsored by a group of corporations, is just too boring for Bar Holliday. So he was assigned to be a scout, the one way out of the malaise-stricken utopia of humankind.
But Bar is in for some surprises.
And so are you. I'm not going to give away any spoilers. Suffice it to say that Bar stumbles on a world named Patmos where his entire conception of himself and of humanity is . . . turned inside out, I guess, is the best way to put it. The book is full of transformations and begs the question, what does it really mean to be human? For that matter, what does it really mean to be at all?
The book isn't without its problems, and the primary issue I had with the book, unfortunately, repeated itself several times - Chalker threw me out of my willing suspension of disbelief not once, but several times. Bar Holliday simply knew too much about what was happening to himself and the world around him, and I couldn't make that leap, not in the first-person narrative voice, anyway. This shaking of my walls of unreality happened again and again. I suppose I was inured to it by the end of the book, but I found it quite jarring, which lessened my enjoyment of the book a great deal.
One thing that this discomfort did for me, though, was caused me to think about what is it exactly that allows us to suspend disbelief or prevents us from doing so? And why is it different for each person? I'm certain that other readers might not have been bothered by Holliday's borderline omniscience as I was. But what makes the difference? A more subtle approach would have worked better for me, even if Chalker had interspersed a few pages of transition at key spots in the novel. It would have added a few thousand words to the whole text, but it would have felt much more natural, as a result. Maybe this is the fault of an overly zealous editor or a publisher that wanted to keep the word count under a certain number for production purposes, I don't know. In any case, I need to think about this whole subject a bit more carefully. What would an "acceptable" leap have looked like to me? Would I take an even larger leap and be okay with it if the tone or voice was different? Was it the presentation or the logic itself that I found fault with subconsciously?
So many questions . . .
November 26, 2024
Jack seems to have been fascinated with the idea of bodily transformation or body switching. Well World, the Diamond, and this. Maybe others?
November 30, 2017
Bar Holiday our hero. Or is he? Is this a great piece of literature? Well no. Does it compare to the sci-fi greats? Well no. It was still an enjoyable, squeamish read. Was the science "real", well no. It doesn't matter, there were larger questions about being human or not, what it all means, you know all that jazz. (I think Bar would have liked jazz) . It all just fell apart there at the end for me. It was suddenly rushed, and wrapped up, not neatly even, it was not tied up in a shiny package with a bow, more like a crumpled brown grocery bag. Mr. Chalker, you needed 50 more pages. Or is there a follow up to this novel I am not aware of. If there was I would read it.
September 22, 2022
The calm and casual manner by which the body horror is described makes it so much more freaky and delightful. Chalker goes all-in on the weirdness of the idea, but the second half of the novel becomes a bit more plot-oriented so that the whole thing eventually loses its steam.
September 12, 2021
I think this might be the only FURRY Sci Fi novel I have read. Don’t know if there are others out there. That certainly makes it a unique read.
It is authored by one of the more prolific Sci Fi authors of the 1970s and 80s, Jack Chalker, and takes place in an ever expanding galactic society that most of us recognize from Heinlein and Asimov.
The annoying time capsule in this book is a habit of white male writers of the 1950s through the 1970s to include the ‘ pull yourself up by your own bootstraps’ myth. They all envision a future where most people are ‘ on the dole’ and technology has eliminated the need for most work. (Those who are ambitious go on to work for either government or corporate oligarchs)
While all society needs are taken care of, the overarching message is that no one is happy in this society and they all need to return to the pioneer American ideal of doing things yourself without the help of government or handouts to be happy. ( totally ignoring the white privilege that underlies that myth built on the backs of slaves or indigenous folk or various other systems that literally handed things to them and built generational wealth.)
It is on this backdrop that we get the story of space explorer with a cowboy name, Bar Holliday.
Out there on the frontier, he seeks out new worlds where man has not gone before…and ends up the story by ‘ going native’ in unexpected ways.
What follows is some very interesting twists and turns on the standard alien monster invasion plot… instead we find a virus that actively mutates humans into alien monsters. We have met the enemy and he is us.
Overall a solid 3 star adventure story from one of the more interesting authors of the era. Keeping it from 5 star territory is the preachy ‘ socialism is bad/ pioneers are good’ narrative …
..
and the rather unbelievable prescient leaps of logic the main character makes to plug plot holes and keep the book condensed to one volume. His conclusions as to what ‘ might be going on’ don’t seem to be the most probable..but are almost always revealed to be correct two chapters later.
It is authored by one of the more prolific Sci Fi authors of the 1970s and 80s, Jack Chalker, and takes place in an ever expanding galactic society that most of us recognize from Heinlein and Asimov.
The annoying time capsule in this book is a habit of white male writers of the 1950s through the 1970s to include the ‘ pull yourself up by your own bootstraps’ myth. They all envision a future where most people are ‘ on the dole’ and technology has eliminated the need for most work. (Those who are ambitious go on to work for either government or corporate oligarchs)
While all society needs are taken care of, the overarching message is that no one is happy in this society and they all need to return to the pioneer American ideal of doing things yourself without the help of government or handouts to be happy. ( totally ignoring the white privilege that underlies that myth built on the backs of slaves or indigenous folk or various other systems that literally handed things to them and built generational wealth.)
It is on this backdrop that we get the story of space explorer with a cowboy name, Bar Holliday.
Out there on the frontier, he seeks out new worlds where man has not gone before…and ends up the story by ‘ going native’ in unexpected ways.
What follows is some very interesting twists and turns on the standard alien monster invasion plot… instead we find a virus that actively mutates humans into alien monsters. We have met the enemy and he is us.
Overall a solid 3 star adventure story from one of the more interesting authors of the era. Keeping it from 5 star territory is the preachy ‘ socialism is bad/ pioneers are good’ narrative …
..
and the rather unbelievable prescient leaps of logic the main character makes to plug plot holes and keep the book condensed to one volume. His conclusions as to what ‘ might be going on’ don’t seem to be the most probable..but are almost always revealed to be correct two chapters later.
May 1, 2022
This is one of Chalker's early books. it does have all of the motifs of his later, body changing, mind warping and some introspective thought by the characters on what effects these may cause. They just aren't as well developed as they are in his later works.
The primary character is of gossamer construction, his catchphrase, "Nobody beats Bar Halliday!" is about as much depth as you get with this character. some of the others are a bit deeper, but not much. Also, like much SF of the period, the men are in charge.
The Chozen are an interesting lifeform with some serious, well thought out, shortcomings. On the other hand, the superplot-device/virus can do anything or nothing depending on what the plot needs, though the fast pace and story brevity makes it easy to overlook inconsistencies.
It's still a fast paced, decent read, just don't look too closely...
Also doesn't seem to be in print in any form, used paperbacks may be your only option.
The primary character is of gossamer construction, his catchphrase, "Nobody beats Bar Halliday!" is about as much depth as you get with this character. some of the others are a bit deeper, but not much. Also, like much SF of the period, the men are in charge.
The Chozen are an interesting lifeform with some serious, well thought out, shortcomings. On the other hand, the super
It's still a fast paced, decent read, just don't look too closely...
Also doesn't seem to be in print in any form, used paperbacks may be your only option.
August 29, 2020
While not the most exciting book in a lot of ways, I really enjoyed the shifting perspective. That's not to say that the main character changes, but that his view of the universe is shifted several times in interesting ways. The future world is imaginative and I enjoyed reading the book while knowing nothing more about it than that the cover art was to die for.
January 2, 2023
LMFAO WHAT A TRIP
French review from back when I read this when I was 15;
C’est avec une note d’anticipation que “The web of the chozen” se débarrasse du lecteur après avoir créé un sentiment d’angoisse durable en semant la peur et le doute par rapport à ce que signifie véritablement être “Humain”.
French review from back when I read this when I was 15;
C’est avec une note d’anticipation que “The web of the chozen” se débarrasse du lecteur après avoir créé un sentiment d’angoisse durable en semant la peur et le doute par rapport à ce que signifie véritablement être “Humain”.
July 20, 2013
My first experience of Jack Chalker, recommended by a friend, and it was enjoyable. Very odd in a way that feels more in tune with the more niche parts of the Internet than a published novel but still a good read.
January 4, 2021
What a strange trip that was!
December 31, 2023
I don’t think I’ve read a book faster than this one. Within the first 10 pages, I was hooked. It got more weird with every chapter and I loved it. If you appreciate the weird older sci-fi pulp books, I would highly recommend it! I received this gem of a book as a Christmas present strictly for having the most amazing 70/80s pulp cover art. After telling my wonderful brother in law, who gifted this to me, that I was actually going to read it, I was met with incredulous laughter via text. He advised “70's pulp doesn't age well. Except for the cover art which gets better with time.“ I laugh at him from 2,454 miles away because this was honestly such a masterpiece.
December 7, 2025
This book sure was...somethin'. It felt like a Twilight Zone movie, or like a classic Star Trek episode but from the aliens' perspective. It was fascinating. By the end of the book I couldn't decide if I thought Bar Holliday was the hero or the bad guy, or both. But I liked that this book kept surprising me, although I had to really suspend my disbelief over some of the scientific and technical stuff. Overall though, for a $2 find at a secondhand book store, it was pretty good.
May 29, 2025
Fun and interesting. Good plot pacing. I really enjoyed this novel which presents ideas about the meaning of a life worth living as a driver of the action. Chalker also sprinkles plenty of religious overtones onto his story of the Chozen.
December 18, 2017
Really enjoyed this!! Old fashioned sci-fi, with a command of words that was a joy to read, many modern writers could learn a thing or two about the use of words from this author.
April 19, 2018
What a weird book. The cover art is strangely accurate.
April 6, 2020
A very odd tale of colonists transformed into a new life form. Not for the better. Naturally, a renegade scout can help matters, or can he? A wild read and very unusual.
September 22, 2020
The author, Jack Chalker, has a very good sci-fi mind. I thoroughly enjoyed this read.
May 3, 2017
A well-written, fast-paced, intellectually stimulating sci-fi novel. But the ideas presented in it are... problematic.
The basic plot: it's centuries in the future, and humanity has colonized over a hundred worlds. A man named Bar Holliday works as a scout, zipping through the galaxy investigating one new world after another. But then he comes to a world where something in the environment causes his body to transform into something non-human; a blue-green, sonar-using, kangaroo-hopping race called the Chozen. The transformation theme is pretty typical of Jack Chalker novels, as is his interest in examining what sex would be like for you once you've transformed into something else.
The main character is a man who believes that humanity has produced a corporation-dominated society of dull, dependent dimwits. There are many comparisons of people to herd animals. The ideas should be familiar; there are an awful lot of people in real life who think they're Bar Holliday... real independent thinkers surrounded by "sheeple". Or "unawoken". And in the end, he makes the decision to spread the agent of his transformation to every human world; sure, hundreds of billions of people die, but he figures those that survive will have much better lives as Chozen than the human society they replace.
Call it "creative destruction"; Chalker doesn't use that term, but real-life people who advocate wrecking everything often do. Of course, they don't usually advocate galactic genocide on the scale presented here. At most, they might be comfortable with something on an "Atlas Shrugged" scale, where the dead might number in the thousands to millions. Maybe Chalker deserves some credit for intellectual honesty, pursuing these ideas to their extremes. But I am unimpressed.
The basic plot: it's centuries in the future, and humanity has colonized over a hundred worlds. A man named Bar Holliday works as a scout, zipping through the galaxy investigating one new world after another. But then he comes to a world where something in the environment causes his body to transform into something non-human; a blue-green, sonar-using, kangaroo-hopping race called the Chozen. The transformation theme is pretty typical of Jack Chalker novels, as is his interest in examining what sex would be like for you once you've transformed into something else.
The main character is a man who believes that humanity has produced a corporation-dominated society of dull, dependent dimwits. There are many comparisons of people to herd animals. The ideas should be familiar; there are an awful lot of people in real life who think they're Bar Holliday... real independent thinkers surrounded by "sheeple". Or "unawoken". And in the end, he makes the decision to spread the agent of his transformation to every human world; sure, hundreds of billions of people die, but he figures those that survive will have much better lives as Chozen than the human society they replace.
Call it "creative destruction"; Chalker doesn't use that term, but real-life people who advocate wrecking everything often do. Of course, they don't usually advocate galactic genocide on the scale presented here. At most, they might be comfortable with something on an "Atlas Shrugged" scale, where the dead might number in the thousands to millions. Maybe Chalker deserves some credit for intellectual honesty, pursuing these ideas to their extremes. But I am unimpressed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 8, 2012
Denne boka er lett sci-fi. Den er morsom og fullstendig urealistisk på ett vis. Sett fra et større perspektiv ikke så umulig som man først skulle tro. Dersom man tror på at det kan finnes liv på andre planeter, om enn ikke direkte mennesker.. Historien er tankeutfordrende, selv om dette er lett sci-fi.
Hva om jorda blir så overbefolket at vi må flytte ut i verdensrommet? Hvordan håndterer vi så andre levenede vesener? Hvordan tolker vi deres eventuelle intelligens? Og ikke minst, hvor tilpasningsdyktige kan VI gjøre oss for å overleve? Og - det evige spørsmålet - hvor flinke vil vi være å akseptere fremmede kulturer?
Dette er igjen ei bok for dem som ønsker å angripe sci-fi sjangeren, men som ikke ønsker å dykke ned i en komplett space opera på 1100+ sider. Personkarakteristikkene er ikke dype, men likevel troverdige nok gitt settingen. Verdenen Chalker bygger er ikke detaljrik, men effektiv. Dette er absolutt ei lesbar bok, faktisk over gjennomsnittet alderen på boka og coveret til tross :-)
Hva om jorda blir så overbefolket at vi må flytte ut i verdensrommet? Hvordan håndterer vi så andre levenede vesener? Hvordan tolker vi deres eventuelle intelligens? Og ikke minst, hvor tilpasningsdyktige kan VI gjøre oss for å overleve? Og - det evige spørsmålet - hvor flinke vil vi være å akseptere fremmede kulturer?
Dette er igjen ei bok for dem som ønsker å angripe sci-fi sjangeren, men som ikke ønsker å dykke ned i en komplett space opera på 1100+ sider. Personkarakteristikkene er ikke dype, men likevel troverdige nok gitt settingen. Verdenen Chalker bygger er ikke detaljrik, men effektiv. Dette er absolutt ei lesbar bok, faktisk over gjennomsnittet alderen på boka og coveret til tross :-)
June 6, 2019
Weaving together a plot that questions what truly makes us human, and if everything about us changes, do our allegiances to humanity remain. Not one of the greatest but a very good standalone read that is quick and good fun.
Read
March 6, 2012SF/adventure. This time the alien (well converted humans) win over the regular humans. Fun but the plot is all there is.
Read
September 26, 201210
February 15, 2013
I'd read several of Chalker's books, but was told that this was not one of his better ones. I enjoyed it immensely.
March 4, 2013
Picked this up for $1 at a library book sale. I wasn't expecting much, but ended up really liking it.
May 16, 2013
One of the weirdest books I've read. I liked it though.
July 5, 2013
Enjoyable old-fashioned sci-fi. Ends a little abruptly.
November 6, 2014
1981 grade A
2002 grade A-
2002 grade A-
June 28, 2021
Delightfully wacky. The cover represents the flavor of this book to a T.
January 25, 2025
Ghosts are almost always malevolent and should be given a clear berth.
December 23, 2012
Eh, not bad but pretty weird. Goodbye and say hello to eBay. =)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews