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The Identity Matrix
"Like many of Jack Chalker's earlier books, this one is almost totally unpredictable and will keep you guessing to the last page".--The Milwaukee Journal.
Victor Gonser finds himself trapped in one body after another as he unwillingly becomes part of a skirmish over Earth by two alien races.
Victor Gonser finds himself trapped in one body after another as he unwillingly becomes part of a skirmish over Earth by two alien races.
Mass Market Paperback
First published July 1, 1982
3 people are currently reading
220 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 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 31, 2020
I became a Chalker fan during the golden age of science fiction--when I was 13 or 14--and his books remain a source of comfort reading. Well, what with the onset of coronavirus quarantine, hey, I went for the comfort, and once again I'm left thinking wildly divergent thoughts about this book I first read over 35 years ago.
The basic plot is Chalker's standby: people getting transformed into other things and dealing with the consequences. We see it on the Well World, in the Warden Diamond, in Flux and Anchor, etc., but here it's a narrower kind of transformation: people getting turned into other people through mind-swapping. We also get a few other standard Chalker tropes, including Love Doesn't Care What You Look Like, Religious Absolutism Is Bad, Fanatical Aliens Are Invading, and Hot Women Make The Best Spies. Still, the plot zips along, the twists are engaging, and the what-if concepts at the heart of the story are thought-provoking. You can (and almost certainly will) be nonplussed by a lot of the sexual politics here, but you can still be intrigued by the questions Victor Gonser's various transformations raise.
(One thing I did notice on this re-read, though: this text badly needed an editor. Mostly that need is shown by sloppy little errors. For example, one character is introduced as "Eizenstadt" for a couple of pages, and then suddenly he's "Eisenstadt" for the rest of the book.)
All in all, then, this was exactly what I'd been looking for: a prose style that's unchallenging if not elegant, a series of well-constructed if familiar plot twists, and a chance to mull over thoughts about identity, sexuality, memory, and surveillance. That it's also a book about a dweebish male professor who gets turned into a hot blonde hooker is undeniable, but if you can tolerate that, you can expect entertainment.
The basic plot is Chalker's standby: people getting transformed into other things and dealing with the consequences. We see it on the Well World, in the Warden Diamond, in Flux and Anchor, etc., but here it's a narrower kind of transformation: people getting turned into other people through mind-swapping. We also get a few other standard Chalker tropes, including Love Doesn't Care What You Look Like, Religious Absolutism Is Bad, Fanatical Aliens Are Invading, and Hot Women Make The Best Spies. Still, the plot zips along, the twists are engaging, and the what-if concepts at the heart of the story are thought-provoking. You can (and almost certainly will) be nonplussed by a lot of the sexual politics here, but you can still be intrigued by the questions Victor Gonser's various transformations raise.
(One thing I did notice on this re-read, though: this text badly needed an editor. Mostly that need is shown by sloppy little errors. For example, one character is introduced as "Eizenstadt" for a couple of pages, and then suddenly he's "Eisenstadt" for the rest of the book.)
All in all, then, this was exactly what I'd been looking for: a prose style that's unchallenging if not elegant, a series of well-constructed if familiar plot twists, and a chance to mull over thoughts about identity, sexuality, memory, and surveillance. That it's also a book about a dweebish male professor who gets turned into a hot blonde hooker is undeniable, but if you can tolerate that, you can expect entertainment.
April 23, 2008
An interesting concept, but Chalker didn't develop it as well as I expected he would.
November 4, 2011
Very good read highly recommend.
April 18, 2014
For me this book took a left turn at the lights and kept on going in a new direction I haven't read in any other book before. I really enjoyed it!
A boring "grey man" in his mid 40's gets his mind trapped in the body of a 13 year old female native American Indian and has to cope with this sudden upheaval to his life. It doesn't stop there as the body and mind switching continues through the story.
Have you ever read anything that begins like this?
Interesting concepts and very thought provoking. Kept me awake thinking about the possibilities long after I put the book down to sleep at night. Loved it!
A boring "grey man" in his mid 40's gets his mind trapped in the body of a 13 year old female native American Indian and has to cope with this sudden upheaval to his life. It doesn't stop there as the body and mind switching continues through the story.
Have you ever read anything that begins like this?
Interesting concepts and very thought provoking. Kept me awake thinking about the possibilities long after I put the book down to sleep at night. Loved it!
Read
September 26, 201210
July 31, 2018
I had a considerable stack of Jack Chalker that I never seemed to find the time for before I lost them all five years ago - I always fall back on his Well World and Four Lords of the Diamonds series as comfort books rather than dig into his other series or standalones. So this belongs in Books I Should Have Read Already - not the "literature" that I may or may not ever decide to read, but books/series by authors I've wanted to get to, but never have.
Odd beginning, and odd execution, I liked this well enough but Chalker was uneven with his pacing - drawn out too much, and jarringly accelerated, also too much. The story seems cliché now and was back in 1982, but Chalker tells a good story regardless. I liked how he sliding a couple of ferry references, as his other passion was ferries. The twist ending was mildly surprising - I hadn't engaged enough to think there would be one - but interesting nonetheless.
As Chalker is a preferred author, when I need/want a side read to balance the heavies, I'll try to hit some of his other series that I've read one of long ago...
...I hope.
Odd beginning, and odd execution, I liked this well enough but Chalker was uneven with his pacing - drawn out too much, and jarringly accelerated, also too much. The story seems cliché now and was back in 1982, but Chalker tells a good story regardless. I liked how he sliding a couple of ferry references, as his other passion was ferries. The twist ending was mildly surprising - I hadn't engaged enough to think there would be one - but interesting nonetheless.
As Chalker is a preferred author, when I need/want a side read to balance the heavies, I'll try to hit some of his other series that I've read one of long ago...
...I hope.
July 11, 2019
I am a big Chalker fan and really enjoyed this (one of a few) stand alone novels of his. Very typical Chalker, involving mind/body swaps and engaging discussions of subjectivity. Also, this being early Chalker, we see his dismissiveness of 'collectivist' societies in favor of individualism. Wrapped together with wit and humor, The Identity Matrix is a fun, quick read.
July 26, 2022
I am a fan. After reading the Soul Rider series, I wanted more, more ,more. I found it in The Identity Matrix. I wanted to be entertained and I was. I found it thought provoking with all the society twists and turns of what we take for granted.
Read
July 23, 2021I got this entirely for the setup to make a linear algebra joke on social media.
The content is basically what you would expect from the description.
The content is basically what you would expect from the description.
June 25, 2013
Intriguing beginning, somewhat anticlimactic ending. Full of the usual Chalker body changing and sex stuff.
Read
October 17, 2016Could have been a very good book but it took too long to get started. I think I listened to over half of it before losing interest.
January 25, 2025
This time the horror was an old woman.
April 6, 2017
You could go a lot of different ways trying to describe this novel. For instance:
"A lonely, nebbishy academic gets his mind transferred into the body of a beautiful woman, and finds himself much happier as a high-class hooker and stripper."
Or:
"When Earth finds itself a battleground between two alien races which both have the ability to switch minds between two bodies, a secretive government organization scrambles to find ways to meet the threat."
Or:
"A secret government organization perfects the ability to edit and alter anyone's mind, opening up terrifying possibilities."
All three descriptions are true. It's a complicated book which doesn't follow a very conventional narrative path, and has an open-ended, fairly ambiguous ending; at times, with the "man becomes a female sex goddess" plot, it also feels like an excuse to engage in a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Definitely a strange brew, and I'd recommend it to sci-fi fans for that very reason. I'm not going to try to pass judgment on the book's sexual politics, but they won't be to everyone's taste.
"A lonely, nebbishy academic gets his mind transferred into the body of a beautiful woman, and finds himself much happier as a high-class hooker and stripper."
Or:
"When Earth finds itself a battleground between two alien races which both have the ability to switch minds between two bodies, a secretive government organization scrambles to find ways to meet the threat."
Or:
"A secret government organization perfects the ability to edit and alter anyone's mind, opening up terrifying possibilities."
All three descriptions are true. It's a complicated book which doesn't follow a very conventional narrative path, and has an open-ended, fairly ambiguous ending; at times, with the "man becomes a female sex goddess" plot, it also feels like an excuse to engage in a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Definitely a strange brew, and I'd recommend it to sci-fi fans for that very reason. I'm not going to try to pass judgment on the book's sexual politics, but they won't be to everyone's taste.
February 2, 2018
Good ups and downs, popcorn reading. Was pleasantly surprised at what first felt like a very shallow treatment, that built more depth of character later.
Not deep, but interesting. and nice to see thoughts of society handling of depression and other topics without heavy judgement, that might have brought the wrong tone to the book.
Not deep, but interesting. and nice to see thoughts of society handling of depression and other topics without heavy judgement, that might have brought the wrong tone to the book.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews