Tag Archives: Star Wars

Betrayal

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Betrayal(LOF)I guess I mentioned a new Star Wars series, right? I’ve read the first one, and even before I was pondering my review, I stumbled upon an enormous problem. See, between Return of the Jedi and this book, there are some 50 plus other novels, all directly contributing to the timeline in often meaningful ways. And the book assumes you know all of that stuff before you start reading it. (It assumed knowledge of events in the comic series from the 80s, for that matter.) Sure, I have a lot of this knowledge. But damn, it’s hard to write a useful review for people who probably don’t have it. Ultimately, I think, impossible. So expect the reviews of these books to be spoiler-cut early and often, even though my intention is to mostly only talk about spoilers for previous Extended Universe events.

As far as what I can talk about, wow, Betrayal is an intense book. After the resolution of the long war against the Empire and another war against an extra-galactic foe, stability should finally be the watchword. Instead, a civil war is looming as Corellia (famed for being the homeworld of Han Solo) and a coalition of other planets is agitating to not give up their personal defense fleets in favor of a unified army provided by the Galactic Alliance to which most inhabited worlds belong. And even as the schism threatens to tear families and friendships apart, one man is hearkening the overall situation as well as his personal one back to similar circumstances two generations previously, when Anakin Skywalker was balanced on the razor’s edge between the galaxy’s need for peace, order, and stability, and his own need to protect his loved ones. There’s a sense of ominous foreboding throughout the novel. History is doomed to repeat itself; the only unanswered question is, how bad can it get?

Upshot: I guess I could talk about it without more than vaguely referencing the events of the intervening 40 or so years. But expect future reviews in the series to have massive spoilers after all. Vagueness and handwavery can only carry me so far.

Allegiance

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I guess there’s a new Star Wars series out, right? But for a really long time, I couldn’t find the first one used. (It’s in hardback, and I’m reasonably picky about paying $25+ for a book. Well, obviously I wouldn’t be spending full price, but I still think of it that way when making the financial decision.) I finally did find it, plus the subsequent ones, and now I’ve apparently got six books in said new series stretched out in front of me. Naturally, then, I opted to read the new Zahn book instead.

Allegiance is set in the Splinter of the Mind’s Eye era, when the Rebellion was only really starting to get its legs following the propaganda victory that comprised the destructions of Alderaan and the Death Star. A group of pirates apparently working with a regional governor to declare independence from Palpatine’s Empire sets Luke, Leia, and Han, Darth Vader, the Emperor’s newest apprentice, Mara Jade, and five recently deserting stormtroopers on a collision course, during which each of the characters must determine how their personal morality interacts with their sworn duty in an ever-darkening galaxy. (Well, okay, I’m thinking Vader was probably pretty secure in his actions and choices. And Leia. But the others!)

Decent book. Still pretty close to top-shelf for Star Wars, but the author has almost always done better. I can’t help but think it was a set-up novel to allow us to see more of the Hand of Justice in the future. Which is fine; those stormtrooper guys were pretty interesting, and definitely the best part of the story.

Survivor’s Quest

With a new Stephen King book on the way, my goal was to pick a book that would be fast and easy, so I could be done in time to start right in. But, between suddenly picking up a lot of steam on the last of my 360 games and picking a book that wasn’t quite as breezy as I was expecting, I ran a few days late. Luckily, it was for a book that I genuinely enjoyed, so that’s okay.

Apparently, Timothy Zahn’s latest Star Wars entrant was released a couple of years ago while I was paying attention to something else. I never really saw it anywhere, or heard people talking about it until just in the past month. This is odd, because it appears to have been pretty relevant to all the other ones I’ve been reading lately, and even more so because it was at the usual high watermark in literary quality of the ongoing series. (Luckily for me, the prequel to Survivor’s Quest will be out next week, and I know to watch for it this time.)

In any case, yeah, this one has all the Star Wars-y (and otherwise) goodness you might be looking for. Onion layer-worthy twists, lightsaber excitement galore, a stormtrooper squad that I’ve lately been familiar with from the world of videogames (which makes it cooler to me, if not to Joe Average Reader, I suppose), the past and the future of the franchise coming together in an entirely sensible and interesting way. Sure, some of the books are golden, some of them you read just to know what’s going on between gold, and some of them you can ditch because the other books will pick up the slack for you in apology for this last group of books being so horrible. As usual, though, Zahn only provides the pure gold. Could you read just his stuff, ignore that the rest of the Star-Wars-as-a-novel experiment exists, and be pretty happy with the outcome? There’s a lot of other things I’ve read and enjoyed the hell out of, but yes. Yes, you could.

Return of the Jedi: Infinities

I know it seems like I should be a long way behind, but I’m not. No movies in an Age, one of my books vanished (and has since been replaced, but I’m in the middle of another book right now, which is huge and comfort material, because I wanted to turn my brain off for a bit), I’ve been playing Final Fantasy (and sure, doing well, but the end is days off yet at the minimum). However, I have read several comics lately, and I think I’m willing to review them. So, there’s that.

I was out looking for issues of Serenity, and I came across a 4-part Dark Horse offering, Return of the Jedi: Infinities. A minor change during one of the Jabba’s Palace scenes launches an alternate history of Episode VI. I like Star Wars, and I like alternate history, so I went for it.

Here’s the thing: it’s got flashes of unique vision, although a lot of the story seems to involve moving the chess pieces around such that the characters wind up in essentially identical situations, only slightly more bleak about it, for maximum angst. Which isn’t that bad in itself, except that the closing scene of the story is complete cheese, both on paper and in the execution. I didn’t buy it a bit, put the thing down in disgust, and may have been scarred for life if only I wasn’t aware of the awesomeness of other comics that are available these days. (Such as that Serenity I mentioned, once the third issue comes out and I finish the story. Or Sandman.)

The Joiner King

Apparently, there are new Star Wars books set later in the continuity than the New Jedi Order stuff (which has ended, so that partially explains that.) I read it between two weeks and a month ago. I wonder, therefore, if I can remember the title. …and, as it happens, I did so while explaining myself just now. It’s the Dark Nest trilogy, with this particular first book being called The Joiner King.

Even after over a decade of books detailing the rise of the new generation of characters, I’m still only minimally attached to them. It didn’t help my enjoyment of the book that a lot of what happened revolved around pheromones changing peoples’ brain chemistries such that they act in new and unexpected ways. I’m not going to come out and call it a sloppy plot device until I see how it plays out over the next couple of books, because, right, trilogy. Nevertheless, it tainted an otherwise fairly decent story. Standard adventury goodness, some rehashing of the Jedi trying to find their way in a changed galaxy and the government trying to find its way in a new galaxy, but those parts worked despite being rehashed, because the galaxy is more fundamentally changed than it was even after the fall of the Empire.

My favorite part was incidental so far, involving Luke’s discovery of some old recordings of his father and mother in Artoo’s memory banks that the droid keeps trying to prevent him from seeing, for reasons unknown. Because, like I started to say before, I’m mostly still interested in the original characters, 10 years on or not.

In sum: Interesting main plot conceit. Tantalizing side story. Character Template Modifications of Weirdness +2. Decent new characters. (An Ewok with a death mark on his head in multiple systems; cheesy, but it makes me giggle.) It’s not bad Star Wars, but I’d claim that most bad Star Wars has been stamped out these days. Not brilliant Star Wars, either. If you were already going to read it anyway, still do; if you weren’t, I’m not here to change your mind.

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

I am jumbled, and I wonder if I oughtn’t wait until another viewing. But screw it, first impressions are important, on top of which it’s one of my few first shot times, so I’ll take it. And then cheat by first talking atmosphere. I know I go on about the Alamo Drafthouse mystique, but it was in fine enough fettle tonight to run down. Someone went to the effort of editing up the Cartoon Network Clone Wars endeavour down to its essential “here’s the bits that are related to the movie” bones, and then showed it, interspersed with all kinds of Star Wars filmed coolness and uncoolness, from Troops to Anakin Dynamite to a Muppet Show appearance to the Turkish Star Wars rip-off to the much maligned (and rightly so!) 1978 Christmas special. A very pleasant way to pass a couple of hours while waiting for the last big event movie of quite a while, and I commend them once more.

Then, there’s the movie itself. The scroll cleared the screen just in time to drop into an unrelenting action spectacle with all the right touches of humor and explosions alike. And then… well, things got a little wooden. Never bad, but never quite great. Motivations that were a hair off, decisions that very nearly made sense, enemies that were inches south of believable. Nothing enough to make me stop enjoying myself, but so much that came close to working perfectly that I had to be disappointed when it didn’t. The real irony I think is that it was the longest Star Wars movie, yet really needed another ten or twenty minutes of scenes expanded in just the right ways to achieve the brilliance it was in sight of.

That said, there’s a moment that I choose not to ruin[1] in the main portion of this review past which everything comes together again. It’s still never quite as perfect as that opening sequence, but the complaints from that moment on are nits to be picked, not faults to regret. It’s a hell of a thing, to know essentially everything that’s going to happen (not due to spoilers but to the logical consequence of having already seen the galaxy twenty years down the road from that moment) and still be kept on the edge of my seat, wondering what will happen next, if there’s a way out of it, how it came to this. For that, I’ll offer Lucas my thanks and my kudos. When he got to the important part, he made it work.

If you watched the other two movies, like or dislike, go ahead and see this one, at least the once. Even with the mis-steps, it’s worth it.
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The Cestus Deception

A week or so ago, I got caught up in Star Wars excitement despite myself, and snagged a Clone Wars novel at Half-Price Books, the second one I’ve read now. The whole idea is the thing where they can do some guided merchandising, build a bit of storyline between the two movies, and just generally synergize. Still, though, I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. (See also how I’m writing this from a line I’ll be sitting in for the next ten or eleven hours in order to see that one movie at the back half of the two I previously referenced.)

In any case, I finished The Cestus Deception a couple of nights ago, and have now found time to leave general impressions. They are largely the same as the impressions I had of Shatterpoint last year. You’ve got your exciting lightsaber duels, only with Obi-Wan instead of Mace Windu (also a tentacly-headed Jedi named Kit Fisto), an army of Force-sensitive bio-droids being manufactured to kill Jedi, and also lots of clone troopers. They are busily being humanized even as the Jedi are slowly being crushed by the pressures of the War. You have to admire Palpatine’s strategy; he’s put them in this impossible position where if they sit back and do nothing, everyone hates them, but if they step up and do what needs to be done in order to win the war (like force the cessation of Jedi-killing droid manufacture if it can be handled diplomatically, and I think we all know that it cannot), they get their hands dirty and nobody trusts them anymore. Much like Shatterpoint, this is more of the dirty hands storyline. I really hope the movie tonight touches on some of this theme before things start going bad, so that it’s understandable where the popular lack of support came from. If not, well, at least there are lots of people with the talent to make it clear in non-movie places, and I can just take the whole thing as one piece. Frankly, I’d rather be able to rely on the movies for everything, though.

Shatterpoint

I’ve had lots of real books lately, but being as this was an airport weekend, I snagged a Star Wars book I bought on a whim at Hastings a few weeks ago. I haven’t read any of these since the New Jedi Order series concluded early in the year, I don’t guess.

Anyhow, this one is set in the Clone Wars, several months after the battle of Geonosis. It’s all about Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson, for you casual fans, of which there surely must be very few these days) on a quest to find out why his fellow Jedi Council member and former Padawan has apparently gone rogue and is committing atrocities.

The actual plot of Shatterpoint is irrelevant. Honest. There are lightsabers, fights against overwhelming odds, bad feelings, and pretty much everything else that has the Star Wars stamp on it. The main purpose the book serves is to give you yet another window on what being a Jedi was, back in the Republic, and why the Clone Wars were ultimately their demise as a society. Which is to say, rabid fans will eat it up, and casual fans won’t care enough to get past the label.

Also, of course, it serves the ever-widening purpose of making fans rabid and casual alike resent George Lucas for being among the least capable writers in the Star Wars universe. I shouldn’t need a book to tell me in an oblique hint exactly why Palpatine’s plan was essentially unstoppable from start to finish, even while Lucas’ cinematic attempts leave me largely grasping at straws.