The late Jack L. Chalker wrote some very creative books in his time, the pentalogy (plus) about Nathan Brazil and the mystery of the Well of Souls, the insightful satirical concept of a “fallen” (or should that be “risen”) demon working in an advertising agency (well before Don Draper haunted the Madison Avenue haunts of Mad Men), and a collaborative effort with Mike Resnick and the late George Alec Effinger called The Red Tape Wars. The latter may have been one of the funniest science-fiction novels I’ve ever read. Yet, A Jungle of Stars has none of the hallmarks of a Chalker novel. There are no brilliant revelations and, at least, once the prelude is out of the way, one pretty well knows who the potential bad boy (girl?) of the picture truly is.A Jungle of Stars reads (to me, at least) like Chalker couldn’t make up his mind whether he wanted to write an interstellar spy story, romance novel (not primarily, but the tensions are all the way through the story), or cosmic Zoroastrian morality play. The climax is clever, in theory, but it is neither emotionally nor aesthetically satisfying enough for the set-up. When two virtual gods are dueling for the fate (perhaps, even authentic existence) of the universe, one expects some pyrotechnics and universe-rending convulsions. Instead, the conclusion offers little more than the trendy “God is Dead” edition of Time magazine back in the ‘60s.When a virtual “shavetail” or “butter bar” (Second Lieutenant) gets sent to Vietnam, you know it’s trouble when the first information you receive is: “Paul Carleton Savage died for the first time on July 29, 1969, in a bit of characteristic Army brilliance.” Yet, just when one starts to digest the significance of this introductory material, a meteor crashes which is not quite what it seems. When said non-meteor crashes into a mountain lake, one senses the strands of story twisting together because a young woman driving a convertible while still on a drug-induced high crashes into that same lake. The subsequent investigations accomplish what the “Ghostbusters” long ago warned us against; they crossed the streams. And, that crossing of the streams pretty well sets the course for all of the subsequent events in the book, including its anti-climax, climax.The following quotation is the eponymous origin of the book’s title. Although it offers something of a spoiler in that part of the story is about an alien invasion, but since the cover copy talks about involvement in an intergalactic war, I don’t think it will hurt to read it. “’No, do not look for civilizing influences,’ the old one continued, and she had taken the young Gayal’s arm and brought her over to a window. The sky was ablaze with stars, exactly like this night. ‘When all is said and done, you will find no paradise out there—only a jungle of stars.” (p. 82) As with all Chalker’s books, there are some original ideas in A Jungle of Stars, but if the tale is in the telling, this isn’t a particularly good story; it’s more like a jungle of strands.
