What do you think?
Rate this book
Three Kings #1
Balshazzar's Serpent
With the universe's wormholes collapsed, darkness has fallen across interstellar civilization, and superstition once again holds sway over the masses, until Dr. Karl Woodward, commander of the starship The Mountain, ventures to an uncharted world and into a terrifying confrontation with a ruthless gang of space pirates. Reprint.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
1 person is currently reading
135 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).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 11, 2020
Not Chalker's best series, but I believe the last one he wrote. Humanity has colonized the starts, but the worm hole network for some reason breaks down, stranding hundreds of poorly developed colony worlds. Religion has made a huge comeback, and the story centers on a ship bound group traveling to lost colonies and giving them the Good Word, and trading a little while at it. They arrive at a backwater planet, but something is not quite right...
Over all, this has a rather melancholy feel to it, and the clever plotting and body transformations so characteristic of his work are not really here. Still a fun read, but clearly not his best.
Over all, this has a rather melancholy feel to it, and the clever plotting and body transformations so characteristic of his work are not really here. Still a fun read, but clearly not his best.
February 9, 2025
I miss this brand of Sci-Fi. It hits the sweet spot in-between the old school stuff, much of which hasn't aged super well and the new school of Sci-Fi that is just so stupid 3/4 of the time.
A group of Christians (sort of) travel around evangelizing and find a planet with an eternal secret. They attempt to spread the Gospel (again, sort of) to the planet but things are not what they seem.
Balshazzar's Serpent was a very easy, interesting read that didn't wear out its welcome. It's the first in a trilogy, I believe, and if I'm not mistaken, it was the last series Chalker wrote before his death.
I recommend it if you like the Baen style from the late 90's and early 2000's.
A group of Christians (sort of) travel around evangelizing and find a planet with an eternal secret. They attempt to spread the Gospel (again, sort of) to the planet but things are not what they seem.
Balshazzar's Serpent was a very easy, interesting read that didn't wear out its welcome. It's the first in a trilogy, I believe, and if I'm not mistaken, it was the last series Chalker wrote before his death.
I recommend it if you like the Baen style from the late 90's and early 2000's.
June 20, 2017
If Jack L. Chalker’s vision has any validity, Nietzsche was well ahead of himself when he wrote that “God is dead.” In Chalker’s future, humanity began to colonize and ever major (and even minor) religion wanted their own world. When a catastrophe of unknown origin destroys the intergalactic infrastructure of worm holes and effectively balkanizes known space by culture and religion, one prophetic, messianic missionary builds what is effectively an “ark.” It is not, however, an ark carrying the genetic archives of all nature (as with Noah), but more of an “ark” carrying the message of what prophet and disciples consider to be the gospel. (I wrote “consider to be” because there is an earthy, pragmatic quality to the prophet’s message that seems to minimize “grace” as it is presented in the New Testament.)
The “ark” is called “The Mountain” and the prophet is Dr. Karl Woodward, Ph.D. The prophet is a world-class physicist who felt a greater calling to a pragmatic application of faith than to the deliberations and speculation of the academic practice of physics on an intergalactic scale. Woodward, the messianic figure in Balshazzar’s Serpent, is less the protagonist of the novel than the force majeure in service of the Force Majeure. The protagonists are a team of missionaries on their first planetside mission, a male-female duo who, both together and apart, must discover the meaning and power of faith or figure out how to jettison it without destroying their lives. It is obvious that there are superficial similarities to Battlestar Galactica in my description, but this isn’t about a Cylon threat or even finding Old Earth.
The real action begins when “The Mountain” discovers a cul-de-sac of human civilization which simply should not be where it is. Nothing was close to it before “The Great Silence” (the aforementioned catastrophe) and there was no artifact or energy source to indicate how the indicated inhabitants had arrived in the first place. As described by Chalker, the colonies appear to have a value system equivalent to the Amish of today’s earth. Yet, the missionary team assigned to be the advance personnel for the space exploration equivalent of a tent revival became aware that something isn’t quite as it seems to be. There is a classic bit of obfuscation that is difficult for the missionaries to discern, and this isn’t revealed until the entire mission of “The Mountain” is threatened.
During the revelation of that ultimate threat to the mission, some horrific and inhumane events occur. One antagonist challenged Eve, the female protagonist on the advance team, that “faith” is, “Easy to spout until it’s live or die time or worse, isn’t it?” (p. 129) But Eve recognized that while “evil” was now being described as “wrong,” “bad,” or “psychotic,” it was more than that. “I have the honor by the grace of God to be the first of my generation to face true evil, she thought. And I don’t know if I have the guts for it. Please, God! Tell me what you want me to do?” (p. 129) I always liked the definition of faith as believing God even when it looks bad for God. That seems to be the way faith works in Chalker’s narrative. “The question really was, when was faith truly faith and when was it a synonym for doing something stupid? How many cult types in human history had jumped off cliffs or taken poison because they were convinced it was the act of faith God wanted?” (p. 135) That’s an honest question that any person of faith has to consider at more than one point of her/his life.
Even the messianic prophet admits, “There is a fine line between faith and common sense in some of this.” (p. 212) And the male protagonist in the book, John Robey, even struggles with the very topical question of whether there is any real difference between Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Baha’I, pagan naturism, and his personal faith. One of his friends suggests that finding answers and support in a guild hall or bar would work as well as institutional religion. The response? “’So, you’re a true believer but you haven’t figured out what you believe in?’ Robey pressed. ‘That sounds about as confused as the First Church of Atheism.” (p. 224) At a later point, Eve tells Robey, “Too often we take things like faith for granted, and we pay lip service to our beliefs. Maybe we have to get slapped or kicked in the rear and then scared silly in order to fully understand and appreciate it all.” (p. 242)
Sometimes, Christians are hesitant to apply difficult biblical solutions to their life situations. They follow “science” or “superstitition” until things go awry and then, turn to faith. The counsel Chalker vicariously gives his readers is: “Then study God’s word as you have studied God’s work. You will found that its logic is sound and that the truth is not what you or most religions think.” (p. 244) Allegedly, this admonition came from an angel. There is an honest and open question, though. The character who receives this revelation has to consider: “Had the angel been a figment of his imagination, a psychological construct to deliver what his mind had already suspected, or was it divine intervention and warning?” (p. 245) Any believer that doesn’t struggle with that question isn’t being honest with herself/himself.
But though this review has focused on the religious aspects of the book, Balshazzar’s Serpent has mystery, combat, desperate gambles, torture, and a bit of romance. Balshazzar’s Serpent is the first of a trilogy named after the traditional names of the magi (not really identified in the Bible, but named in ancient tradition). Once one comes to the conclusion of a tremendous gamble (or act of faith) in the story, the reader will understand the significance of the trilogy. I don’t know if the consideration of faith continues in the other two novels, but the faith discussions in Balshazzar’s Serpent were a delightful aspect of what, even without that consideration, would have been an interesting story. Fortunately for me, Chalker didn’t stop with the unadorned story.
I once thanked Chalker in person for his marvelous insights about temptation as expressed in his comedy/science-fiction novel, And the Devil will Drag You Under (from the song about “rocking the boat” in Guys and Dolls) where the demon who sets off events is essentially part of the devil’s “advertising agency”). If my memory is correct, I thanked him and he said that novels are about humanity and he thought it was impossible to write about humanity without considering religion. It hadn’t registered to me how true this was for him and I wish I would have had time to explore this further before we were interrupted by other fans (this was at a science-fiction/fantasy convention). But that doesn’t mean I can’t and won’t finish this series and then, check out the Soul Rider series.
Satisfying in so many ways, I just couldn’t resist Balshazzar’s Serpent.
The “ark” is called “The Mountain” and the prophet is Dr. Karl Woodward, Ph.D. The prophet is a world-class physicist who felt a greater calling to a pragmatic application of faith than to the deliberations and speculation of the academic practice of physics on an intergalactic scale. Woodward, the messianic figure in Balshazzar’s Serpent, is less the protagonist of the novel than the force majeure in service of the Force Majeure. The protagonists are a team of missionaries on their first planetside mission, a male-female duo who, both together and apart, must discover the meaning and power of faith or figure out how to jettison it without destroying their lives. It is obvious that there are superficial similarities to Battlestar Galactica in my description, but this isn’t about a Cylon threat or even finding Old Earth.
The real action begins when “The Mountain” discovers a cul-de-sac of human civilization which simply should not be where it is. Nothing was close to it before “The Great Silence” (the aforementioned catastrophe) and there was no artifact or energy source to indicate how the indicated inhabitants had arrived in the first place. As described by Chalker, the colonies appear to have a value system equivalent to the Amish of today’s earth. Yet, the missionary team assigned to be the advance personnel for the space exploration equivalent of a tent revival became aware that something isn’t quite as it seems to be. There is a classic bit of obfuscation that is difficult for the missionaries to discern, and this isn’t revealed until the entire mission of “The Mountain” is threatened.
During the revelation of that ultimate threat to the mission, some horrific and inhumane events occur. One antagonist challenged Eve, the female protagonist on the advance team, that “faith” is, “Easy to spout until it’s live or die time or worse, isn’t it?” (p. 129) But Eve recognized that while “evil” was now being described as “wrong,” “bad,” or “psychotic,” it was more than that. “I have the honor by the grace of God to be the first of my generation to face true evil, she thought. And I don’t know if I have the guts for it. Please, God! Tell me what you want me to do?” (p. 129) I always liked the definition of faith as believing God even when it looks bad for God. That seems to be the way faith works in Chalker’s narrative. “The question really was, when was faith truly faith and when was it a synonym for doing something stupid? How many cult types in human history had jumped off cliffs or taken poison because they were convinced it was the act of faith God wanted?” (p. 135) That’s an honest question that any person of faith has to consider at more than one point of her/his life.
Even the messianic prophet admits, “There is a fine line between faith and common sense in some of this.” (p. 212) And the male protagonist in the book, John Robey, even struggles with the very topical question of whether there is any real difference between Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Baha’I, pagan naturism, and his personal faith. One of his friends suggests that finding answers and support in a guild hall or bar would work as well as institutional religion. The response? “’So, you’re a true believer but you haven’t figured out what you believe in?’ Robey pressed. ‘That sounds about as confused as the First Church of Atheism.” (p. 224) At a later point, Eve tells Robey, “Too often we take things like faith for granted, and we pay lip service to our beliefs. Maybe we have to get slapped or kicked in the rear and then scared silly in order to fully understand and appreciate it all.” (p. 242)
Sometimes, Christians are hesitant to apply difficult biblical solutions to their life situations. They follow “science” or “superstitition” until things go awry and then, turn to faith. The counsel Chalker vicariously gives his readers is: “Then study God’s word as you have studied God’s work. You will found that its logic is sound and that the truth is not what you or most religions think.” (p. 244) Allegedly, this admonition came from an angel. There is an honest and open question, though. The character who receives this revelation has to consider: “Had the angel been a figment of his imagination, a psychological construct to deliver what his mind had already suspected, or was it divine intervention and warning?” (p. 245) Any believer that doesn’t struggle with that question isn’t being honest with herself/himself.
But though this review has focused on the religious aspects of the book, Balshazzar’s Serpent has mystery, combat, desperate gambles, torture, and a bit of romance. Balshazzar’s Serpent is the first of a trilogy named after the traditional names of the magi (not really identified in the Bible, but named in ancient tradition). Once one comes to the conclusion of a tremendous gamble (or act of faith) in the story, the reader will understand the significance of the trilogy. I don’t know if the consideration of faith continues in the other two novels, but the faith discussions in Balshazzar’s Serpent were a delightful aspect of what, even without that consideration, would have been an interesting story. Fortunately for me, Chalker didn’t stop with the unadorned story.
I once thanked Chalker in person for his marvelous insights about temptation as expressed in his comedy/science-fiction novel, And the Devil will Drag You Under (from the song about “rocking the boat” in Guys and Dolls) where the demon who sets off events is essentially part of the devil’s “advertising agency”). If my memory is correct, I thanked him and he said that novels are about humanity and he thought it was impossible to write about humanity without considering religion. It hadn’t registered to me how true this was for him and I wish I would have had time to explore this further before we were interrupted by other fans (this was at a science-fiction/fantasy convention). But that doesn’t mean I can’t and won’t finish this series and then, check out the Soul Rider series.
Satisfying in so many ways, I just couldn’t resist Balshazzar’s Serpent.
May 1, 2012
2.4 stars that don't quite round up to three. There simply are no likeable characters in this book. There is no one I found admirable or even very interesting, so despite the 'action' and mystery, I really didn't care what happened to any of the characters. On one side there is a group of star-hopping religious fanatics, one of thousands of cults that have sprung up after the outlying star colonies have lost contact with Earth. This group means well, they aren't crusaders or witch hunters, but they are insufferably self-righteous. Then there is a group of marooned space pirates. Their leader might be considered a charming rogue -- if they weren't a bunch of murdering rapists. A few characters come out as not being quite as bad as their associates, and some exhibit some positive personality traits, but none rise above them far enough for me to care much.
September 22, 2012
Exactly what's expected from a medium-good sci-fi story.
Left me with intentions of reading the next one from the trilogy.
Left me with intentions of reading the next one from the trilogy.
October 7, 2012
Interesting idea, but not well implemented. Chalker's health problems definitely show in this later series.
August 22, 2023
I love science fiction because there's always something new to imagine with every story. That leads me to the positives of this book- interesting to see how humanity's future plays out, how we separate among the stars, how tech develops, and what we do with it.
The religious aspects were also something new to me, as I haven't read another space exploration story where it played such a large part. Religion being such a personal thing and contentious topic I worried it would go one way or the other too much, but I have to say it held the line fairly to me.
I didn't find the story or action overly gripping, nor were the main characters especially interesting to me. Overall, glad I read it for some interesting perspectives and world-building, but I do not feel motivated to continue with the series.
The religious aspects were also something new to me, as I haven't read another space exploration story where it played such a large part. Religion being such a personal thing and contentious topic I worried it would go one way or the other too much, but I have to say it held the line fairly to me.
I didn't find the story or action overly gripping, nor were the main characters especially interesting to me. Overall, glad I read it for some interesting perspectives and world-building, but I do not feel motivated to continue with the series.
Read
September 6, 2022DNF 45%
November 26, 2007
For now it looks very similar to Chalker's Diamond with too much religion mixed into it. Hopefully it will get better.
August 16, 2012
Gostei desta trilogia.
January 11, 2013
Good story but lost me a little at the end. It seemed to wrap up to quickly.
January 25, 2016
Jack Chalker is always a good read. Looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews