Masters of Flux and Anchor (Soul Rider, #3)

From Wikipedia: Jack Laurence Chalker (December 17, 1944 - February 11, 2005) was an American science fiction author. Chalker was also a Baltimore City Schools history teacher in Maryland for 12 years, retiring in 1978 to write full-time. He also was a member of the Washington Science Fiction Association and was involved in the founding of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. ~ The writers he liked to read included Eric Frank Russell, James White, some Philip José Farmer, the early work of Raymond F. Jones and Robert A. Heinlein, Jack Vance, and others too numerous to mention. From January 1965 to November 2004, he missed only one World Science Fiction Convention. ~ Chalker's awards included the Daedalus Award (1983), The Gold Medal of the West Coast Review of Books (1984), Skylark Award (1980), 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. In 1967 Chalker founded the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and he was a 3-term treasurer of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Chalker was also the co-author (with Mark Owings) of The Science Fantasy Publishers (third edition in 1991, updated annually), published by Mirage Press, Ltd,[2] a bibliographic guide to genre small press publishers which was a Hugo Award nominee in 1992. The Maryland young writers contest sponsored by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society was renamed "'The Jack L. Chalker Young Writers Contest" effective April 8, 2006. ~ He is perhaps best known for his Well World series of novels, but he also wrote many other novels (most, but not all, part of series), and at least nine short stories. Many of his works involve some physical transformation of the main characters. For instance, in the Well World novels, immigrants to the Well World are transformed... The time of danger is at hand. Mervyn, wizard and Fluxlord, leader of the Nine Who Guard, faces the ultimate threat of the opposing Seven Who Wait: the opening of the Hellgates of the World. Closed more than two thousand years ago, they are portals to unknowable danger and, perhaps, great power. Mervyn must gather the shattered forces of guardianship, dispersed and reeling after the battle with Coydt: Cassie, once the powerful saint and crusader, now the brainwashed slave of an oppressive male dictatorship. Spirit, her daughter, controlled by her mysterious Soul Rider. Jeff, Spirit's son. Matson: he will lead the entire force of the Stringers Guild to war, if need be. But all of them are doomed to death unless they can become MASTERS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR