The premise was fun, but I'm not compelled to see where the story goes. ( )

This started out with a very interesting concept. A sort of artificial world/planet/ringworld is inhabited by normal humans, some who can control The Flux. Those that do are effectively wizards and wield great power, but not always to good purpose, and perhaps the Flux itself is not a good thing. This starts out as as sort of sci-fi/fantasy cross, with a sort of sword and sorcery feel, but eventually turns a little strange, as most of Chalker's books do. Actually, it gets strange pretty fast! I think Chalker's point was to build up an artificial society that was overly controlling the population to bring order (Ringworld meets 1984 meets Amber) and then work to bring it down and build a better one, but it just got too weird too fast. ( )

Great book ( )

I really enjoyed this book for the most part and thought it was very interesting. It showed, through use of an "anchor" (or town) in the middle of a magical "flux" of power, the flaws of creating a perfect utopian society in which everyone contributed. At the end of the book though, I was a little dissapointed. It seemed like Chalker was rushed at the end and stopped it very abruptly and anti-climactically. Also, I did not like the fact that the main character, at the end of the book, recreates the same horribly prude, strict society she was escaping from in the beginning.