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Chalker's awards include the Dedalus Award ( 1983), The Gold Medal of the West Coast Review of Books ( 1984), Skylark Award ( 1985), and Hamilton-Brackett Memorial Award ( 1979), as well as others of varying prestige, and has been a nominee for the John W. Campbell Award twice and for the Hugo award four times.
He is perhaps best known for his Well World series of novels, but has written many other novels (most, but not all, part of series) and at least nine short stories. Many of his works involve some physical transformationShapeshifting transformation or transmogrification refers to a change in the form or shape of a person. It primarily refers to: a change from human form to animal form and vice versa a change in appearance from one person to another a change in age in the of the main characters. For instance, in the Well World novels, immigrants to the Well World are transformed from their original form to become a member of one of the thousands of sentient species that inhabit that artificial planet. The Wonderland Gambit series resembles traditional Buddhist jatakaThe Jataka stories are a significant body of works about the previous lives of Gautama Buddha. Many of these have been preserved in Sri Lanka in the Pali language. Others have been preserved in Tibet through Tibetan. In the 6th century, some of the storie-type reincarnationReincarnation also called metempsychosis or transmigration of souls is the rebirth in another body (after physical death), of some critical part of a person's personality or spirit. Its occurrence is a central tenet of Hinduism, Jainism, some African reli stories set in an SF environment.
Chalker is also the coauthor (with Mark Owings) of The Science Fantasy Publishers (1991, upated annually), published by Mirage Press, Ltd. (Nominee, Hugo Award, 1992).