History Literature / WellWorld

* GenderBender: Numerous.

** The fate of Damon Hain, a drug dealer and slave trader. The Well transformed him into a female breeder of a giant spiderlike species. Her new people brainwashed her into a loyal and adoring subject of the local warlord prince. When the group reaches the Well, Hain's only wish is [[spoiler:to mate with her beloved Prince. Brazil grants her wish, transforming Hain into the most beautiful female ever seen, and sends her home. When the rest of the group demands to know why the villain gets rewarded, Brazil explains that nobody told Hain that her new race's infants hatch from eggs inside their mother ... and ''eat their way out''. Cue horrified and squicked expressions on every face...]]

* EmergencyTransformation: In ''Midnight'', Nathan Brazil's soul is transferred into a deer-like creature when his human body gets fatally wounded. (Later, after he gets access to his powers, he obtains a new body for himself, but at the time it's expected to be irreversible.)

** The original series has Dillians and Rhone (which are basically the same race on two different planets) as more-or-less the classic model (albeit with horse ears, and only about the size of big ponies). Dillians also appear in the Watchers at the Well series; there, they're stated to have become a smoother synthesis of hominid and equine than the classic centaur.

* ResurrectionDeathLoop: In Midnight at the Well of Souls, one of the villains ends up being placed into the body of a deer-like animal on the home planet of a species of humanoid which hunts said animal in packs and eats it alive. Wanting to avoid such a grisly fate, he hurls himself off a cliff... only to wake up in the body of another such creature. Brazil made sure that he will experience death repeatedly, once for every person whose death he is responsible for— and he has a fair body count to his credit. However, the villain in question doesn't know that this will, eventually, end, and is thus made to think that he will be forced to experience this forever.

* RagnarokProofing: The Well World itself. Not only is it a planet sized computer that has been functioning for millions of years since its creators disappeared, [[spoiler:but if true Ragnarok is at hand,you can just Carl-Alt-Del the thing and reboot the entire universe.]]

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: Later revised as the [[CosmicRetcon universe is rebooted]]. In earlier ''Well World'' stories, communism spread to the stars, and there were even people who worshipped Marx and Lenin. After the universe was rebooted, the stories which (partially) took place on modern Earth noted that things are different.

* AllMythsAreTrue: Centaurs, fairies, and fawns are real alien races. Earth was created in seven (subjective) days. Nathan Brazil was Judas Iscariot, as well as the inspiration for the WanderingJew.

* ActionSurvivor: Nathan Brazil. Despite being the immortal guardian of the universe, he's small, unimposing, and doesn't normally go looking for trouble. His survival is guaranteed but his integrity is not and he's been mutilated quite a bit over the years, and while the stuff he loses always grows back it's a long and painful process.

* AllMythsAreTrue: Centaurs, fairies, fawns are real alien races. Earth was created in seven (subjective) days. Nathan Brazil was Judas Iscariot, as well as the inspiration for the WanderingJew.

* AndIMustScream: The final fate of Juan Campos, the South American rapist drug lord from the Watchers at the Well trilogy. [[spoiler: Nathan Brazil decides a fitting fate for Campos is to be dropped into the body of a gorgeous, mute South American Indian woman, who has wandered a bit too close to the Campos compound around the time that the Family's henchmen are looking for some fun. To add squick to the matter, Brazil's Modus Operandi is to find people who have recently died, and bring them back to life with the soul of the person he's dealing with. Campos, my boy, you are now a zombie sex slave for the family you were once groomed to lead. And only you will ever know or believe it. Sleep well.]]
** The fate of a bad guy in the first book. [[spoiler: He's dropped into the body of a deer-like animal on the home planet of a species of humanoid which hunts said animal in packs and eats it alive. Wanting to avoid such a grisly fate, he hurls himself off a cliff ... only to wake up in the body of ''another'' deer. Brazil made sure he will experience death repeatedly, once for every person whose death he is responsible for. He has a fair body count to his credit. And the worst part: ''he doesn't know'' that it will, eventually, end.]]
** The fate of Damon Hain, a drug dealer and slave trader. The Well transformed him into a into female breeder of a giant spiderlike species. Her new people brainwashed her into a loyal and adoring subject of the local warlord prince. When the group reaches the Well, Hain's only wish is [[spoiler:to mate with her beloved Prince. Brazil grants her wish, transforming Hain into the most beautiful female ever seen and sends her home. When the rest of the group demands to know why the villain gets rewarded, Brazil explains that the nobody told Hain that her new race's infants hatch from eggs inside their mother ... and ''eat their way out''. Cue horrified and squicked expressions on every face...]]
* AlternativeContinuity: ''The Sea is Full of Stars'' -- a series about a group of travelers to the Well World that doesn't include Marva Chang or Nathan Brazil, forcing the heroes to solve their dilemma without a walking DeusExMachina.
* ArcWords: the phrase "Until midnight at the Well of Souls" is found in all Well World languages. We learn why in the first book (that's when the Well is open for entry) but it isn't until the fifth book that we learn there is a much deeper but no less literal meaning lurking underneath.

* AssimilationPlot: The State, in an AlternateHistory where the Soviet Union never fell, and Communism became the default human government, tries to make this a reality on many of its more "advanced" planets, engineering humans in birth factories to be physically flawless but mentally ant-like workers and on some worlds even hermaphrodites, so everyone's equal.

** Nathan Brazil, is effectively immortal and something like God, but most of the time he does not consciously realize it. He remarks that no matter what the disaster, he has been a survivor, no matter how awful the event was.

* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Gypsy ([[spoiler:Dr. Zinder]]) has learned to directly manipulate minor local aspects of the universal programming, without technological assistance -- he claims it's all done mentally using mathematics.

* ConMan: both Brazil and Mavra Chang use this as their fallback survival strategy. Brazil's life is just one big con anyway.

* ExpansionPackPast: Nathan Brazil, which is sort of inevitable considering he has (he says) rebooted the universe, and subsequently relived the whole course of all human history, at least five times.
* TheFairFolk: An insectoid race that can abuse physical laws by their outstanding psychic powers, essentially making them magical for all intents and purposes. Brazil theorizes that the Well is cheating for them to make up for something they ares supposed to have in their native environment.
* FateWorseThanDeath: Nikki Zinder [[spoiler: is one of the founders of the Olympians, the race that Ben Yulin created through Obie's powers. When the other founders figure out they're all reaching their age limits, they go back to the Well World for one last life time. Nikki, on the other hand, uses cybernetics to stay alive and becomes a brain in the jar to continue leading her people. When you first see her in ''The Return of Nathan Brazil'', she seems relatively sane until Mavra leaves the room. Then she goes on a religious rant and orders her people to make sure Brazil doesn't fall into the "Evil One's" hands, before laughing madly and then begging in a child's voice for her father to come back to her, despite the fact that she can't reasonably think he's still alive.]]

* GenderRarityValue: The Olympians are a subspecies of TranshumanAliens specifically created to exploit Gender Rarity Value to fulfill a male villain's harem fantasies -- fantasies that backfired spectacularly.

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: Later revised as the [[CosmicRetcon universe is rebooted]]. In earlier ''Well World'' stories, communism spread to the stars and there were even people who worshipped Marx and Lenin. After the universe was rebooted, the stories which (partially) took place on modern Earth noted that things are different.

** Secondary protagonist Marva Chang looks Asian due to plastic surgery intended to hide her from those who would harm her birth family. When she is transformed on the Well World into a form which she believes to be based on her true form had she been allowed to grow up normally it's blond and busty, which would have made her extremely exotic looking (and thus difficult to hide) by prevailing human standards.
*** Brazil notes early in the first book that most people either look generic or engineered and names rarely match appearances.

* ImmortalProcreationClause: Nathan Brazil, which he actually considers a mercy since if he hadn't been he'd have outlived a ''lot'' of mortal descendents by now.

* LizardFolk: Marquoz starts life as one of a small saurian fire-breathing race. After reaching the Well World, he is reborn as a Hakazit, a race of huge armored dinosaurlike war machines.

* NeuroVault: In ''Midnight at the Well of Souls'', Vardia Diplo 1261 is, for the most part, a human cassette reel -- a NeuroVault with legs. A message is encoded in her head, to be shuttled to another planet's embassy, where the vault is unlocked, and she's basically written over with the base "Diplo program".

* NowWhat: every group that makes it into the Well confronts this to one degree or another.

* PluckyGirl: Mavra Chang absolutely refuses to give up despite all of the BodyHorror inflicted on her -- seemingly cripplng mutations and body modifications only seem to make her even more determined. Hell, Mavra's probably ar her most dangerous when she doesn't even have any hands.

** One of the first acts of Ben Yulin, the villain in Book 3 upon gaining control of Obie is to capture two of the woman characters and transform them into what he considers female perfection as well as program them to be his sex slaves. He keeps doing to this to all the other characters he captures increasing the size of his harem, with plans of doing the same to entire worlds.
* RagnarokProofing: The Well World itself. Not only is it a planet sized computer that has been functioning for millions of years since its creators disappeared. [[spoiler:But if true Ragnarok is at hand you can just ctrl-alt-del the thing and reboot the entire universe.]]

* ResurrectionDeathLoop: In Midnight at the Well of Souls, one of the villains ends up being placed into the body of a deer-like animal on the home planet of a species of humanoid which hunts said animal in packs and eats it alive. Wanting to avoid such a grisly fate, he hurls himself off a cliff... only to wake up in the body of another such creature. Brazil made sure that he will experience death repeatedly, once for every person whose death he is responsible for — and he has a fair body count to his credit. However, the villain in question doesn't know that this will, eventually, end, and is thus made to think that he will be forced to experience this forever.

* RockBeatsLaser: Even in semitech hex sophisticated weapons are often useless, so people who travel a lot tend to carry things like swords and crossbows, which work anywhere.

* SecondLawOfGenderBending: also applies to all of the ''species'' bending, as well.

* {{Tuckerization}}: Many hex names are {{shout out}}s to people Chalker knew in SF fandom and the publishing industry.

* WhatIfGodWasOneOfUs: Maybe, but also practically yes. Nathan Brazil's real origin is never stated, and several of the characters wonder about him: is he really God, the last Markovian, or a construct of the Well itself? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter because once he's in the Well Computer, he is a deity. [[spoiler: The last book reveals he is indeed the last Markovian.]]
** This is essentially the plot of the first novel, where the adventuring party reaches their goal only to discover that one of their own members is effectively god after they get there.

* WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve: The significance of the phrase "midnight at the Well of Souls" -- the six gateways to the Well open at local midnight. [[spoiler:That was the time the shift changed and it was the only automatic access left in the system.]]

* BiTheWay: Brazil. It's couched in the terms of "if you live long enough you'll try anything" but it's a rather understated and matter-of-fact for a book written in 1977 when alternate sexualities tended to be either ignored or waved at the audience for shock value.

Main series:
* ''Midnight at the Well of Souls'' (1977)
* ''Exiles at the Well of Souls'' (1978)
* ''Quest for the Well of Souls'' (1978)
* ''The Return of Nathan Brazil'' (1980)
* ''Twilight at the Well of Souls'' (1980)
* ''The Sea is Full of Stars'' (1999)
* ''Ghost of the Well of Souls'' (2000)

Watchers at the Well side series:
* ''Echoes of the Well of Souls'' (1993)
* ''Shadow of the Well of Souls'' (1994)
* ''Gods of the Well of Souls'' (1994)
----

* BizarreAlienBiology: several hundred hexes worth.
* BizarreSexualDimorphism

* GodInHumanForm: Nathan Brazil.

* LivingRelic: Nathan Brazil.

* MasterComputer: For the ''entire universe''.

* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody

* OneGenderRace: The Czillians, a species of sentient, parthenogenic plants

* OurDragonsAreDifferent

* SufficientlyAdvancedAliens: The Markovians.

* WhatMeasureIsANonhuman

* ImmortalInfertility: Nathan Brazil, which he actually considers a mercy since if he hadn't been he'd have outlived a ''lot'' of mortal descendents by now.

* DismantleMacGuffin: In the last Well World series, the villains are attempting to find all the pieces of the dismantled Straight Gate. As it was an artifact of the Markovians, it was indestructible, so it had to be split up, scattered, and removed from the history books to keep it from being misused.

* OutCentaursAreDifferent:

* GenderRarityValue: The Olympians are a subspecies of TranshumanAliens specifically created to exploit Gender Rarity Value to fulfill a male villain's harem fantasies -- fantasies that backfired spectacularly.

* [[HumanityEnsues Inhumanity Ensues]]

* {{Retcon}}:Brazil's origin story changes a lot over the years, explained in story as a combination of ShroudedInMyth and Brazil being a habitual liar.

* RewritingReality: The whole point of controlling the Well of Souls

* PowerPerversionPotential: Obie's a supercomputer hooked up to a Matter/Energy/Matter converter and planted inside a planetoid big enough to house a small town. He can give you anything you want, as long as he knows how to make it, and has a big transmitter capable of altering entire planets to a person's specifications. He's also capable of travelling to anywhere he knows the coordinates of within minutes. Upon hearing of Obie's full power, Nathan Brazil himself said, "to hell with porn," and upon seeing Obie in action, Brazil was rather disturbed.

The setting for a series of science fiction novels by JackChalker, beginning with ''Midnight at the Well of Souls'' in 1977. The Well World is a planet-sized computer created by an ancient race that used it to expand and stabilize the universe; its surface is a series of 1560 hexagonal laboratories used to develop new sentient species with carbon-based lifeforms in the southern hemisphere and truly alien lifeforms in the north. Newly arrived space travellers are incorporated into the experiment by being automatically assigned to a "hex" and transformed into its dominant species. Control the Well World and you can theoretically control the entire universe. Of course, it's never that simple.

** The fate of Damon Hain, a drug dealer and slave trader. He'd been transformed on the well into basically a neutered female giant locust, and then brainwashed into a loyal and adoring subject to a local prince/warlord. When the group reaches the Well, his only wish is [[spoiler:to go back and be the mate of the Prince. Brazil grants his wish, transforming him into the most beautiful female of that race ever seen and sends him home. When the rest of the group demands to know why the villain gets his reward, Brazil explains that the nobody told Hain about that race's reproduction in detail: infants hatch from eggs while still inside their mother ... and ''eat their way out''. Cue horrified and squicked expressions on every face...]]

* BiTheWay: Brazil. It's couched in the terms of "if you live long enough you'll try anything" but it's a rather understated and matter-of-fact for a book written in 1977 when alternate sexualities tended to be either ignored or waved at the audience for shock value

* EnforcedTechnologyLevels: Each hex has a maximum technology level -- Non, Semi, or High -- to simulate the availability of resources in that race's target biosphere. Technology above a hex's maximum level will simply fail to work inside that hex.
* TheFairFolk: An insectoid race that can abuse physical laws by their outstanding psychical powers, essentially making them magical.

* GenderRarityValue: The Olympians are a subspecies of TranshumanAliens specifically created to fulfill a male villain's harem fantasies -- fantasies that backfired spectacularly.

* RewritingReality

** The fate of a bad guy in the first book. [[spoiler: He's dropped into the body of a deer-like animal on the home planet of a species of humanoid which hunts said animal in packs and eats it alive. Wanting to avoid such a grisly fate, he hurls himself off a cliff...only to wake up in the body of ''another'' deer. Brazil made sure he will experience death repeatedly, once for every person whose death he is responsible for. He has a fair body count to his credit. And the worst part: ''he doesn't know'' that it will, eventually, end.]]
** The fate of Damon Hain, a drug dealer and slave trader. He'd been transformed on the well into basically a neutered female giant locust, and then brainwashed into a loyal and adoring subject to a local prince/warlord. When the group reaches the Well, his only wish is [[spoiler:to go back and be the mate of the Prince. Brazil grants his wish, transforming him into the most beautiful female of that race ever seen and sends him home. When the rest of the group demands to know why the villain gets his reward, Brazil explains that the prince never told Hain one detail about the race: children grow within the mother, and hatch by ''eating their way out''. Cue horrified and squicked expressions on every face...]]
* AlternativeContinuity: ''TheSeaIsFullOfStars'', a series about a group of travelers to the Well World that doesn't include Marva Chang or Nathan Brazil, forcing the heroes to solve their dilemma without a walking DeusExMachina.
* AuthorAppeal - Even a casual survey of Chalker's work will show that he was obsessed with the idea of humans changing their species and sex. The ''Well World'' books just gave him a justification for doing it on a massive scale.

* BizarreAlienBiology - several hundred hexes worth.
* CharlesAtlasSuperpower - Gypsy ([[spoiler:Dr. Zinder]]) has learned to directly manipulate minor local aspects of the universal programming, without technological assistance -- he claims it's all done mentally using mathematics.
* CompleteImmortality - Nathan Brazil, [[IHaveManyNames among other names he uses]]; later, [[spoiler:Mavra Chang]].
* EnforcedTechnologyLevels - Each hex has a maximum technology level -- Non, Semi, or High -- to simulate the availability of resources in that race's target biosphere. Technology above a hex's maximum level will simply fail to work inside that hex.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Nikki Zinder [[spoiler: is one of the founders of the Olympians, the race that Ben Yulin created through Obie's powers. When the other founders figure out they're all reaching their age limits, they go back to the Well World for one last life time. Nikki, on the other hand, uses cybernetics to stay alive and becomes a brain in the jar to continue leading her people. When you first see her in The Return of Nathan Brazil, she seems relatively sane until Mavra leaves the room. Then she goes on a religious rant and orders her people to make sure Brazil doesn't fall into the "Evil One's" hands, before laughing madly and then begging in a child's voice for her father to come back to her, despite the fact that she can't reasonably think he's still alive.]]

* FisherKingdom - entering the Well World induces transformation into one of that world's indigenous races.
* GenderRarityValue - the Olympians are a subspecies of TranshumanAliens specifically created to fulfill a male villain's harem fantasies -- fantasies that backfired spectacularly.
* TheFogOfAges - In the first book, Nathan Brazil is so old that he's forgotten most of his life, including his own origins; it all comes flooding back when he comes (back) to the Well World.
* GenderBender - numerous
* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp - later revised as the [[CosmicRetcon universe is rebooted]]. In earlier ''Well World'' stories, communism spread to the stars and there were even people who worshipped Marx and Lenin. After the universe was rebooted, the stories which (partially) took place on modern Earth noted that things are different.
* {{Hermaphrodite}} - several species, mostly aquatic, as well as variant humans.

* HurricaneOfPuns - Those hex names which aren't {{shout out}}s or nonsense words. Like "Wasdamaddah".

* LaserGuidedKarma - If you make it to the Well of Souls with Nathan Brazil, better hope you were a good person.
* MagicVersusScience - In some hexes the differing laws of physics allow "magic" of various sorts, which [[DoingInTheWizard is in fact]] all just the MagicalComputer doing its thing.
* MasterComputer - for the ''entire universe''

* MisterSeahorse - literally (via MixAndMatchCritters)
* MixAndMatchCritters- justified as lazy Markovians cribbing each other's work

* NoSexAllowed- Taken to extremes by the Comworlders, most of whom are genetically or biochemically engineered to never hit puberty.
* OneGenderRace - the Czillians, a species of sentient, parthenogenic plants

* PowerPerversionPotential - Obie's a supercomputer hooked up to a Matter/Energy/Matter converter and planted inside a planetoid big enough to house a small town. He can give you anything you want, as long as he knows how to make it, and has a big transmitter capable of altering entire planets to a person's specifications. He's also capable of travelling to anywhere he knows the coordinates of within minutes. Upon hearing of Obie's full power, Nathan Brazil himself said, "to hell with porn," and upon seeing Obie in action, Brazil was rather disturbed.
* RagnarokProofing - The Well World itself. Not only is it a planet sized computer that has been functioning for millions of years since its creators dissapeared. but [[spoiler:if true ragnarok is at hand you can just ctrl-alt-del the thing and reboot the entire universe]]

* SecondLawOfGenderBending: also applies to all of the ''species'' bending, as well

* SteamPunk - in certain hexes, technology is limited to steam.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAliens - the Markovians
* {{Tuckerization}} - Many hex names are {{shout out}}s to people Chalker knew in SF fandom and the publishing industry.

* WhatIfGodWasOneOfUs - Maybe, but also practically yes. Nathan Brazil's real origin is never stated, and several of the characters wonder about him: is he really God, the last Markovian, or a construct of the Well itself? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter because once he's in the Well Computer, he is a deity. [[spoiler: The last book reveals he is indeed the last Markovian.]]

* WhoWantsToLiveForever - Brazil, in his darker moments. [[spoiler: But what do you expect from someone who's been forced to destroy and recreate the universe at least ''five times''?]]
* WritersCannotDoMath - Look at the partial maps of the Well World and the data given in the text. Try to extrapolate the possible numbers of hexes. 1560 is ''not'' a possible result.

** Marva Chang, the secondary protagonist, is Asian (she looks Chinese or Korean). That is, however, the product of plastic surgery to hide her from those who would harm her birth family. At one point she is transformed on the Well World into a form she thinks might look like what she would have if she had grown up normally, and it is blond and busty. However, it is stated that this would have made her extremely exotic looking by prevailing human standards.

** Also with the secondary protagonist, who is Asian (she looks Chinese or Korean). That is, however, the product of plastic surgery to hide her from those who would harm her birth family. At one point she is transformed on the Well World into a form she thinks might look like what she would have if she had grown up normally, and it is blond and busty. So... trope Averted and played Straight at the same time then?

* HumansAreWhite: Averted with Nathan Brazil, who is described as having a dark complexion, black hair, brown eyes, and a Roman (aquiline) nose. He's Semitic and he looks it, because he has to look like someone who wouldn't be too out of place in the mesopotamian "cradle of civilization".
** Also with the secondary protagonist, who is asian. That is, however, the product of plastic surgery to hide her from those who would harm her birth family. At one point she is transformed on the Well World into a form she thinks might look like what she would have if she had grown up normally, and it is blond and busty. So... trope Averted and played Straight at the same time then?