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Three Kings #2
Melchior's Fire
Searching the galaxy for an elusive utopian planet known as the world of the Three Kings, a desperately indebted salvage team tries to recreate the journey of a starfaring evangelist who disappeared after discovering its location. Reprint.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
298 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
100 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 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 12, 2020
The saga of the three kings continues here, with a different set of characters. The three kings are strange planets orbiting a huge gas giant; the system can only be reached via a 'wild' wormhole that tends to destroy ships as they leave. Nonetheless, the smashed ships all contain strange gems that are worth a ton, tempting more and more people to try their luck. The characters here are a salvage team that encounter some strange alien on a planet where they are trying to dismantle an old colonial hydroponic farm. Barely escaping with their lives, they return and are enticed by a wealthy backer to go after the three kings.
Like the first installment in the series, this is rather melancholy for Chalker, but wry snippets like the following kept be going: "One thing the money folks rarely remember: Give the little people some small share of the pie or else one day they're going to come for your neck."
Like the first installment in the series, this is rather melancholy for Chalker, but wry snippets like the following kept be going: "One thing the money folks rarely remember: Give the little people some small share of the pie or else one day they're going to come for your neck."
July 19, 2017
An Li, daughter of a professional “entertainer,” has tried to make her own way in the universe without resorting to one of the world’s oldest professions. In Melchior’s Fire, the second of Jack L. Chalker’s “Three Kings” series, Li is the leader of a salvage expedition to a dangerous planet—so dangerous it threatens to ruin her reputation and that of her crew. I don’t want to spoil this, but even when you value wealth over the lives of your crew, there are consequences. What is strange is that one can read halfway through the novel before seeing its connection as a sequel. I’m not against that; it’s just strange to me.
The threat to the lives of the crew proves to be one of Chalker’s amazingly creative aliens. Naturally, the late author of the marvelous Well World series is incredibly adept at creating aliens that are truly alien. One alien in Melchior’s Fire is quite the opposite of “fire;” it is as fluid as water, can assume any form as a gelatinoid substance, and not only absorbs what it consumes but knows and can use anything from that substance or being.
As with the inaugural novel in the series, Balshazzar’s Serpent, has some things to say about religion—some good, some bad. In Melchior’s Fire, there are more negative statements than positive, but the characters with open minds are willing to take a more objective attitude and base their judgments on what one does in practicing one’s faith rather than tying good or bad to dogma. [Note to other evangelicals: I’m not saying that is totally correct, but it’s a tradition even the great U.S. psychiatrist, William James, came to in his Varieties of Religious Experience.] Following are some thoughts suggested by a character from the first novel as he expresses first the idea of why prayer might not be answered and second, what life might be with no challenges (questioning most people’s view of “heaven” perhaps?).
Thomas Cromwell, the head of security for the “missionaries” in Balshazzar’s Serpent, explains: “Most people never read or gave any thought to religion; it’s the one complex field where everybody is a self-styled expert even though they’ve done not the most basic study of it, …And when God throws a fast one at them, or kills their innocent loved one, something like that, they lose what little faith they had and curse God or ignore Him.” (p. 211) He follows up by suggesting that the prayers of most people are presumptuous. “What did we do that makes us deserve special attention? He’s not a magic genie granting wishes, He’s not Daddy in the Deep Universe, He’s God.” (p. 212)
Cromwell also casts doubt on some people’s idea of Paradise. “You don’t have to work here. There is food everywhere, and water, and fruit for juices, and you can even ferment things. There are no natural predators, virtually no biting things, …It’s quite boring, you see. Kind of a sweet Hell, which is why we think of it as Limbo.” (p. 212)
Encountering survivors from the events of the first novel doesn’t help the crew which took center stage in Melchior’s Fire. They are seeking a cache of stones with amazing power to delve into one’s mind. And here is Chalker’s second interesting alien in the novel! This alien presence seems to be inside the very stones the crew is seeking (pp. 121-124). And what Chalker did with that was both expected and unexpected.
Outside the plot, I found a little serendipity in reading Melchior’s Fire. The week I read this book, there was an article about sex robots and the evolving sex doll technology in the Chicago Tribune. Apparently, it’s supposed to be a growing industry. So, I very much appreciated Chalker’s speculation which was recorded 16 years before the article on this industry was written. “Cybersex could be far more intense than real sex and very, very authentic, but it turned out that you paid a real price physically for doing a lot of it, and it got cold after a while, too, because you knew it was fake and you knew just how it would wind up. Until people became machines they needed other people.” (pp. 113-114)
To be honest, Melchior’s Fire doesn’t have a lot of action after the first plot point, but it offers fascinating speculation about alien encounters, human nature, logistics for space expeditions, and a twist that is mostly unexpected. It is almost like the book is two related novels, but both are worth reading.
The threat to the lives of the crew proves to be one of Chalker’s amazingly creative aliens. Naturally, the late author of the marvelous Well World series is incredibly adept at creating aliens that are truly alien. One alien in Melchior’s Fire is quite the opposite of “fire;” it is as fluid as water, can assume any form as a gelatinoid substance, and not only absorbs what it consumes but knows and can use anything from that substance or being.
As with the inaugural novel in the series, Balshazzar’s Serpent, has some things to say about religion—some good, some bad. In Melchior’s Fire, there are more negative statements than positive, but the characters with open minds are willing to take a more objective attitude and base their judgments on what one does in practicing one’s faith rather than tying good or bad to dogma. [Note to other evangelicals: I’m not saying that is totally correct, but it’s a tradition even the great U.S. psychiatrist, William James, came to in his Varieties of Religious Experience.] Following are some thoughts suggested by a character from the first novel as he expresses first the idea of why prayer might not be answered and second, what life might be with no challenges (questioning most people’s view of “heaven” perhaps?).
Thomas Cromwell, the head of security for the “missionaries” in Balshazzar’s Serpent, explains: “Most people never read or gave any thought to religion; it’s the one complex field where everybody is a self-styled expert even though they’ve done not the most basic study of it, …And when God throws a fast one at them, or kills their innocent loved one, something like that, they lose what little faith they had and curse God or ignore Him.” (p. 211) He follows up by suggesting that the prayers of most people are presumptuous. “What did we do that makes us deserve special attention? He’s not a magic genie granting wishes, He’s not Daddy in the Deep Universe, He’s God.” (p. 212)
Cromwell also casts doubt on some people’s idea of Paradise. “You don’t have to work here. There is food everywhere, and water, and fruit for juices, and you can even ferment things. There are no natural predators, virtually no biting things, …It’s quite boring, you see. Kind of a sweet Hell, which is why we think of it as Limbo.” (p. 212)
Encountering survivors from the events of the first novel doesn’t help the crew which took center stage in Melchior’s Fire. They are seeking a cache of stones with amazing power to delve into one’s mind. And here is Chalker’s second interesting alien in the novel! This alien presence seems to be inside the very stones the crew is seeking (pp. 121-124). And what Chalker did with that was both expected and unexpected.
Outside the plot, I found a little serendipity in reading Melchior’s Fire. The week I read this book, there was an article about sex robots and the evolving sex doll technology in the Chicago Tribune. Apparently, it’s supposed to be a growing industry. So, I very much appreciated Chalker’s speculation which was recorded 16 years before the article on this industry was written. “Cybersex could be far more intense than real sex and very, very authentic, but it turned out that you paid a real price physically for doing a lot of it, and it got cold after a while, too, because you knew it was fake and you knew just how it would wind up. Until people became machines they needed other people.” (pp. 113-114)
To be honest, Melchior’s Fire doesn’t have a lot of action after the first plot point, but it offers fascinating speculation about alien encounters, human nature, logistics for space expeditions, and a twist that is mostly unexpected. It is almost like the book is two related novels, but both are worth reading.
August 26, 2007
This wasn't a very good book. I almost gave it 2 stars only because I've read worse. The book didn't really go anywhere, it left unanswered questions (i.e. no big sci-fi ideas), and it wasn't much fun getting there. I'm disappointed because I've enjoyed Jack L. Chalker's books before.
March 3, 2009
I have always enjoyed Jack Chalker, but this trilogy hasn't really been up to par. (book 2 of 3) I haven't finished it as of yet 15 month's later, and I usually can't wait to finish several books in a series.
October 31, 2012
I picked this book up at Goodwill for a fun read... one of those rainy day Sci-Fi books... I started it yesterday and read 115 pages, so far I'm enjoying it. I know it probably won't be one of my favorite books I've ever read, but it's entertaining.
May 3, 2012
An imaginative setting but little character development until very near the end.
August 16, 2012
=) Gostei bastante desta trilogia
October 7, 2012
A bit better than the first book, and more of the mystery revealed.
December 9, 2014
#2 in series Good Read
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January 9, 2010baen ebook
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews