Star Wars: Darksaber (Anderson, Kevin J)

Rating: 1/5
Year: 1995
Genre: Sci-Fi / Star Wars
Read again? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...no. No.

One Word To Describe It All: Clumsy.

It's been 8 years since the Battle of Endor. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo infiltrate a group of Tusken Raiders so they can sneak out to the palace of Jabba the Hutt, hoping to find some answers.

The Hutts are up to something.

Han & Luke learn that they're trying to build a superweapon.

Luke's also on a personal mission; his girlfriend lost her Force powers.

See, Forceless Callista's soul used to be trapped in the computer core of an evil space ship, but one of Luke's students sacrificed her own life to save the galaxy (another book to buy...for someone else) and the soul took over this body and they fell in love and now Luke makes a pit-stop at Ben Kenobi's old home to see if his ghost will give some love advice and maybe help him fix his girlfriend's broken Force powers.

Her Force powers don't work anymore, see. We are reminded of this in pretty much every scene with Luke and/or Callista (she's the one who lost her Force powers).

And only by getting her her powers (she lost them, remember) can they complete each other. I mean, they can probably shag or whatever, but that's not the plot. This is a True Love Story!

Meanwhile, across the galaxy, the evil Admiral Daala is working to rebuild the Imperial fleet. She's itching to destroy the New Republic and apparently didn't learn from the last time she tried it. She whips out the Total Galactic Domination plan book and sets her sights on blowing up the Jedi School on Yavin 4.

Did I mention that Luke's girlfriend lost her Jedi powers? Gone. Poof. Well, gone except for the Dark Side.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Jedi Knight and Mass Murderer Kyp Durron thinks the Imperials are up to something and goes to check it out. Happily, he gets into a big pep rally in which the Empire's entire plan is laid out in convenient detail via loudspeaker.

Meanwhile a third time, Durga the Hutt has hired the original Death Star designer and has stolen a set of plans for it. All he wants is the superlaser, not a big moon-shaped thing. He's going to use it to extort money from everyone in the galaxy.

The designer puts together a plan: the weapon's going to be a long cylinder and the freakin' laser beam comes out of one end, just like a lightsaber--hence the name "Darksaber." Get it?

Woof: Luke and his Forceless girlfriend go on a tour of places he's been--Dagobah, Hoth--in hopes of jogging her Force ability (why not go to places she'd find significant?). While they're on Hoth, they're attacked by an army of Wampa ice creatures...and their "leader" is the same one Luke disarmed in "Empire Strikes Back." It remembers him and wants to settle the score.

Woof: there's a street scene with a vegetarian meat-alien and a meat-cooking plant-alien selling their wares side-by-side and trading dirty looks. There's your comic relief.

Woof: Admiral Ackbar was Grand Moff Tarkin's personal pilot-slave; Tarkin used to amuse himself by describing his tactics and plans for crushing the Rebellion. Ackbar was rescued and used those tactics and plans in battle. This is particularly sucky, since it takes him from being a master strategist and admiral of the Rebel fleet to being a really good listener.

Woof: a prison planet named "Despayre." Sounds like a pretentious Mercedes Lackey villain.

Woof: Luke, to Callista the Forceless, just before The Big Battle At The End Of The Book:

He smiled gently at her. "All right. I'll protect you with my Jedi powers."

Nice. Way to condescend to your girlfriend,  man. Is it because she lost her Force powers? Dick.

Dialog's melodramatic, comic-bookish, and clumsy. It sounds like something Ed Wood would have put together for a cheesy sci-fi movie.

Characterization is bland, where it isn't just awful.

The book doesn't so much drag as stagger while leading you carefully around like a toddler (remember that Luke's girlfriend lost her Force powers? Well, she lost them). Any "dragging" sensation is from being unable to take the bad dialog, silly plotting, and convenient plot points that duct-tape this book together.

There are some really weird word choices, too--"gunwale" (the upper edge of a boat's hull) in place of "gun emplacement"; "rear engines" where a ship only has engines in the rear (the fighter flew on, its rear engines blazing!!), and a scene where Luke looks into his (Forceless) girlfriend's "open eyes."

This thing reads like the sort of stories I wrote in high school creative writing class. About the only positive thing I can say (aside from being done with it) is that this is the new Worst Book I've Ever Read. I really ought to have it enclosed in a block of acrylic or something.

This is not a "Star Wars" book. This is just crappy sci-fi with "Star Wars" words.

Star Wars: I, Jedi (Stackpole, Michael A)

Rating: 2/5
Year: 1998
Genre: Sci-Fi / Star Wars
Read again? Nope.

This is the only first-person "Star Wars" book I've seen. It's told by Corran Horn, a fighter pilot with the legendary Rogue Squadron.

Horn's wife vanishes during a mission involving a notorious pirate organization--Horn feels feels her "vanishing" via the Force.

His chain of command won't tell him what they know about her mission, so he tries to go over their heads and straight to President Princess Leia by talking to the First Scoundrel, Han Solo. Solo promises to talk to her.

Horn goes to Luke Skywalker, who invites him to come along to be in the first class of his new Jedi School on Yavin 4 and learn the ways of the Force, because that might help him to find his wife.

Horn goes on a 10-week Jedi training course. His wife's gone missing, but he's apparently really cool about it now, so 10 weeks is nothing.

The ghost of an evil Dark Jedi inhabits one of the nearby temples. It possesses one student after another, killing one, putting Luke Skywalker into a coma, and sending another student off on a mission to blow up a star system or two.

Horn and the students cook up a trap...and the bad guy's suddenly gone--but we never see the trap or have a description of that part of things. We're basically told "It's done."

Apparently this is covered in one of the other books and we have to buy 'em all to find out.

That last student returns from blowing stuff up and killing billions of people and is welcomed back into the fold!

What? He's a mass-murderer? Oh, that's okay, he's gonna be a Jedi!!

Oh yeah--when President Princess Leia is notified that her twin brother has been knocked on his ass by an evil ghost and is lying in a coma, she is TOO BUSY to drop her job and come running.

Apparently there's no Family Leave Act in the New Republic.

She finally shows up after, oh, a week.


So the Jedi ghost is kacked, Luke is going to be okay, and it's been 10 freaking weeks since Horn started his training.

He gets a sudden sense of urgency, now that half the goddamn book has gone by without any real plot movement. Seriously--by this point, it felt like I'd been reading for 10 weeks.

So now Horn leaves, hitching a ride with his smuggler pop-in-law, then goes off to Corellia to see his grandfather, then goes undercover for several MORE MONTHS to infiltrate the bad guys....


This book and its protagonist aren't in a hurry; there's never much of a sense of danger, no suspense (he remembers that his wife's missing, but she'll still be missing a few months from now, so it's no big rush), and Stackpole's portrayal of Corran Horn is damn near Mary Sue material.

Wordy. Not in Mercedes Lackey's chatterbox/prissy manner or Brian Daley's raid-the-thesaurus-for-obscure-words or Alan Dean Foster's paid-by-the-syllables styles. Stackpole could easily lose a good bit of padding and tighten the book up a good bit, both in narrative and dialog. Better word choice would make a big difference.

Draggy. The story doesn't go very far very quickly. There aren't any big surprises or twists and when the plot's moving it's in a straight line.

Characterization is weak; none of the Big Name characters--Han Solo, Luke Skywalker--sound anything like themselves. Han comes across like a professor, a bit too formal even when claiming that formality's never been his strong suit. The supporting characters are cardboard cutouts, flat and uninteresting.

Dialog is very comic-bookish...and there's the Industry Standard "spacified" lexicon: Timothy Zahn's "slicer" (instead of "hacker"), "slipped your circuits" instead of "slipped your mind"; and "Nerf and Gumes" for "Pork and Beans," among others.

Stackpole's a good guy and it bugs me to bag on this book so heavily, but I've got to be honest. Give this one a miss.

Star Wars: Hand of Thrawn 02--Vision of the Future (Zahn, Timothy)

Rating: 4
Year: 1998
Genre: Sci-Fi / Star Wars
Read again? Yes

The Caamas situation boils over; the New Republic's weak central government can't keep old feuds from erupting among its members--and can't interfere if there's fighting unless asked to intercede.

Star systems begin petitioning the Empire for readmission, looking to its strength and security to protect them from their neighbors.


The principals split up into teams, each looking for the original Caamas document that would reveal the names of the Bothans who (unwittingly? wittingly?) participated in the slaughter of the planet 20 years ago.

Han Solo and Lando Calrissian go to Bastion, the tightly-defended capitol of the Empire.

Talon Karrde--smuggler, scoundrel, information broker--follows rumors to his old boss, who might have a copy of the Caamas document.

Luke Skywalker finds his way to the world where Mara Jade tracked one of the mystery ships that have been sighted around the galaxy. He finds her and an outpost somehow linked to Grand Admiral Thrawn.


Good second half to the story, but there's that euphemizing of common terms yet again--more skyarches, more avians, and "push comes to shove" becomes "nudge comes to punch." Yet other common words such as ship remain untouched. Since 99% of the whatever language is "translated" for us, why do we need "avians" instead of birds? There are no computer hackers, either--they're called "slicers," which loses some of the flavor of the original word.

At least he doesn't use Brian Daley's "howlrunner"--but there weren't any Space Wolves in the book.

Star Wars: Hand of Thrawn 01--Spectre of the Past (Zahn, Timothy)

Rating: 4/5
Year: 1997
Genre: Sci-Fi / Star Wars
Read again? Yes

It's been 10 years since the events of the Thrawn trilogy, about 15 since "Return of the Jedi."

The New Republic is still mopping up from the various crises that pop up every time someone writes another "Star Wars" book. The Imperial Remnant is still causing trouble, even at vastly reduced strength and reach.

Princess Leia is President, but taking a leave of absence to spend time with the family. Acting President Space Horse has everything firmly in hoof.

Admiral Pellaeon is in charge of the Imperial Remnant's military; it's grown obvious to him that the Empire's boundaries are shrinking, its power fading, and he's making the rounds to various government leaders to discuss declaring a truce with the New Republic.

One of the men he meets with--Moff Disra--has his own agenda; he's working with a former Imperial Guardsman and a con man who impersonates the long-dead Grand Admiral Thrawn. The three of them devise a scheme intended to lure worlds back into the Empire. Before long, there are rumors--some hopeful, some fearful--spreading across the galaxy that Thrawn is very much alive and is embarking on a new mission to destroy the New Republic.

Disra is also in under-the-table business with a pirate band working as privateers, hitting Republic shipping on behalf of the Empire. There's a lot of money to be made--and business is good.

The story's Big Controversy centers on the Empire's crushing of Caamas; a document has surfaced linking a small number of Bothans to the genocide. Before long, the New Republic is brought to a near-standstill as its people break into factions, with some demanding justice for the genocide and looking to punish all Bothans for it, others taking up the Bothans' defense and insisting that the actual criminals be brought to trial. President Space Horse is hock-deep in trying to hold things together. It's up to Leia, Han Solo and Lando Calrissian to find the truth about the Caamas document.

Meanwhile, mysterious small ships have been seen in various places around the galaxy. Luke Skywalker's old ex-enemy/sometimes Jedi student Mara Jade goes off after one of them and disappears. Luke--guided by a vision from the Force--goes to find her....


Only two books in this story arc; Zahn turns in another tightly-written, well-paced book with good characterization and several plotlines to keep us wondering what'll happen next.

The only annoyance is the same one I've had with Brian Daley's "Star Wars" books, where common words aren't spacey enough. In place of bridges, we have sky-arches; birds are "avians," spies indulge in "cloak-and-blade" behavior. Bleah. Gonna take a point off for it this time, since Zahn does it more in this pair of books than in the previous trilogy.

Star Wars: Thrawn 03: The Last Command (Zahn, Timothy)

Rating: 4
Year: 1993
Genre: Sci-Fi/Star Wars
Read again? Yes

Thrawn's been busy. After sneaking most of the Dark Force fleet and crewing the ships with newly-minted clones, he sets his troops to start taking star systems back from the New Republic. He makes a swift strike against the capital itself, launching cloaked asteroids into orbit around the planet.

A mission is put together to steal a piece of equipment that could locate those asteroids--but it's safely protected at the Empire's Bilbringi shipyard.

The only way to stop the flow of clones is to find their source and destroy the facility; it's up to Luke, Han, Lando, Chewbacca, and Mara Jade to find the mysterious planet Wayland....

Meanwhile, the insane Jedi clone C'Baoth suddenly decides to go to Wayland himself, where he's devised a special clone to deal with Skywalker.


The only real problem I have with this book is the identity of that special clone (spoiler!) and how he came to be. Otherwise, it's a good read.

Star Wars: Thrawn 02--Dark Force Rising (Zahn, Timothy)

Rating: 4
Year: 1992
Genre: Sci-Fi/Star Wars
Read again? Yes

I pretty much had to have this one once I finished the first book in Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy (Heir to the Empire). I just wish there were more good writers behind the stacks of "Star Wars" novels that followed.

"Dark Force" follows directly on the heels of the first book.

Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO travel to Honoghr, the homeworld of Thrawn's pet assassins. Leia is hoping to make peace with the Noghri.

Luke Skywalker flies out to Jomark, following rumors of a powerful Jedi master living there, not realizing that Thrawn is behind the rumors or that the Jedi is an insane clone. Luke's hoping for guidance in teaching a new generation of Jedi Knights. C'Baoth is only interested in turning him into a puppet.

Han Solo and Lando Calrissian follow leads on the mythical Dark Force, a lost fleet of Dreadnoughts. The New Republic needs ships--and Thrawn's Imperial Remnant wants them, too. Han and Lando find former Senator Garm Bel Iblis, instead; they also find some clues that he knows more about the Dark Fleet than he lets on....


Where Thrawn is a seemingly omniscient Moriarty character in the first book, in "Dark Force" he comes off as a bumbling idiot, now, managing to draw exactly the correct wrong conclusions needed to move the plot along in favor of the Good Guys. It's a disappointing turn.

As with the first book I liked the characterization, plotting, and pacing.

Star Wars: Thrawn 01--Heir to the Empire (Zahn, Timothy)

Rating: 5
Year: 1991
Genre: Sci-Fi / Star Wars
Read again? Yes

I started on this book in late April; it's hard to concentrate on a novel when you're exhausted from kidney surgery, so it's no fault of Zahn's.

This was the first Star Wars novel I found in the years after "Return of the Jedi." I devoured it in a matter of hours, all 400-plus pages, and immediately wanted the next book in the trilogy. That one was only out in hardcover, but I gladly snapped it up and devoured it as well.

It's been 5 years since the Rebel victory against the Galactic Empire at the Battle of Endor. The second Death Star is gone, the Emperor and Darth Vader are dead. The remnants of the Empire still hold onto parts of the galaxy, but until recently they've been without a leader.

Grand Admiral Thrawn was a rarity in the Empire: he's not human. This blue-skinned man with glowing red eyes was one of the Emperor's master strategists. Now he's providing the leadership--and victories--the Imperial Remnant badly needs. Thrawn intends to bring down the New Republic and bring the Empire back to its former glory.

Meanwhile, the New Republic has established Coruscant as its capital planet, as it was for the Old Republic...and for the Empire. Luke Skywalker hasn't been able to sense any disturbances in the Force that would point to this being a bad decision, but he's uneasy.

Han Solo and Leia Organa are married; she's pregnant with twins. While her husband is out in the galaxy trying to scare up some of his old smuggling contacts with the offer of honest shipping jobs, Leia is up to her shoulders keeping the New Republic's government going.

Thrawn leads several lightning raids against minor Republic assets, forcing their overtaxed fleet to spread itself thinner and thinner and leading us to wonder why he needs stolen mining equipment and a deranged Dark Jedi. I won't spoil it, because it's pretty damn creative.

Unlike Alan Dean Foster and Brian Daley, Zahn's not giving us a crappy science fiction novel that uses Star Wars words. He's got a feel for the people that was sorely lacking in any of the movie novelizations or the early spinoffs by Daley and Foster. One nice touch is that the main characters--Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian--all have history with each other. Zahn uses this for inside jokes and tag-lines, as in one scene with Han, Leia and Luke:

"Yeah, as it happens, I do," Han said, his voice hardening. "I also have a pretty good idea what could happen if our late pals with the stokhli sticks brought friends with them."

For a long minute Leia stared at him, and Luke sensed the momentary anger fading from her mind. "You still shouldn't have left without consulting me first," she said.

"You're right," Han conceded. "But I didn't want to take the time. If they did have friends, those friends probably had a ship." He tried a tentative smile. "There wasn't time to discuss it in committee."

Leia smiled lopsidedly in return. "I am not a committee," she said wryly.

And with that, the brief storm passed and the tension was gone. Someday, Luke promised himself, he would get around to asking one of them just what that particular private joke of theirs referred to.

I really liked that callback to the argument between Han and Leia from "The Empire Strikes Back." Little moments like this add a lot to the "feel" of the characters.

About the only thing I didn't like is some of the euphemized slang terms that everyone in sci-fi seems to indulge in. Zahn uses "cloak-and-blade" in place of cloak-and-dagger, which isn't as bad as Daley's "howlrunner" in place of "Space Wolf." But given that a ship is a ship, and so many other common items have the same names (or are "translated" for us into English), why not call a dagger a dagger?

Maybe I should drop a point for it, but Zahn has done such a good job that I can cringe but let it pass.

Splinter of the Mind's Eye (Foster, Alan Dean)

Rating: 3
Year: 1978
Genre: Sci / Star Wars
Read again? Ask me in 10 years.

I took nearly 5 pages of notes for this one. Woof.

This was the first "Star Wars" spin-off book to pop up after the original movie. I ate it up, like many "Star Wars"-hungry kids of the time. I suppose Foster--and Brian Daley, with his "Han Solo" books--knew their audience. At least, I hope they were deliberately writing for 11-year-olds. It would explain a few things.

As with Daley's "Solo" books, you won't find "Star Wars" anywhere in or on the book, just the "from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker" note beneath the title. But you know it's SW because it's got SW words--Luke Skywalker! Princess Leia! R2-D2! C-3PO!

And Darth Vader!

That was all this 11-year-old needed.

Luke & Leia are sneaking from the outskirts of the Circarpous system to a meeting with possible Rebel sympathizers on the 4th planet. Instead of them driving something sensible like a shuttle or courier ship, Luke's in his trusty X-Wing (with Artoo) and Leia's flying a Y-Wing (with 3PO).

Leia's ship develops convenient engine trouble and they make a forced landing on Dagobah Circarpous V, aka Mimban, a swampy, slimy mudhole that Yoda would love. Both ships are wrecked (convenient lightning-like disruption in the upper atmosphere), and the four of them make their way to a landing beacon, hoping for passage off-planet.

They find an Imperial mining colony, complete with Stormtroopers and rowdy miners. Luke & Leia steal some clothes and try to fit in. They meet an old woman and strike a deal with her: help her find the fabled Kaiburr crystal, she'll help them steal a ship.


Howlers:
--Leia's engine trouble is in her upper-right engine...on a Y-Wing? They only HAVE two engines. I'm not gonna be out-geeked by this hack!

--The lightning-like disruption doesn't damage Artoo, even though the droid's exposed outside Luke's ship.

--Landing beacon, colony--but no one picked up all the radio chatter between Luke & Leia before and during the crisis. After he crashes, Luke refrains from yelling while he looks for Leia--might attract attention.

--The Big Battle near the end features a primitive tribe of critters that demolish a company of Stormtroopers without using energy weapons. The Coway aren't ewoks, but the parallels between this and "Jedi" are amusing. Obviously (if we take this book as canon) the Empire didn't learn a thing from the encounter.

--The Kaiburr crystal: a honking big glowing ruby that magnifies the Force. And we never see it again once the book's done.


This is another B-grade sci-fi book like Daley's "Han Solo" trio and the horrible epic series "New Jedi Order." The plot doesn't twist much at all, and we plod half-awake from situation to situation--oh, look, they're gonna crash. Oh, she fell into quicksand. Look, Stormtroopers. Oh, now she fell through a hole in the ground. That guy's gonna kill Luke. Oh no, Stormtroopers are coming. Hey, that's that Darth Vader guy, he's not very nice. What? The book's done? Yay.

Where Daley relies on the longer words in his thesaurus to remind us that he's being sophisticated, Foster tends to go for word-count.

Characterization isn't great; Leia is just the girl-in-distress, screaming and crying hysterically at times. She gets mad at Luke after the crash-landing for not pulling a miracle out of his ass and saving the mission...WHOSE ship had engine trouble? Then she gets mad at him for being right about not trying to land on Mimban. She gets mad a lot. She does the Space Bitch thing a lot. Meh.

Foster DOES play lightly with the sexual tension between pre-sibling Luke and Leia (remember, it's not until "Return of the Jedi" that we learn about that), but they still never do more than exhange significant stares. There was some attempt at character development, but none of them are interesting people for the reader to identify with.

Dialog is laughable at best; none of the Big Names sounds like him- or herself. They all sound like Foster's writing.

If you want GOOD "Star Wars," find Timothy Zahn's "Thrawn" books--a trilogy and a pair--and skip this one.

Solo 02--Han Solo's Revenge (Daley, Brian)

Rating: 3
Year: 1979
Genre: Sci-Fi / Star Wars
Read Again? In a decade, perhaps

Second in the Han Solo set.

No dusty encrustations decorate his thesaurus: Daley the syllable-smith forges onward!

This is the most complex of the three books; Solo and Chewie each get their own plotlines! Beyond that, it's a straight line "B" book like the other two.

They start off on Kamar, showing travel movies to the natives...when the natives become restless, Solo decides to put in a "blind" offer--pilot and ship need work, no questions asked.

They get a contact, show up, and soon find that they're expected to give some slavers and their "cargo" a ride. Firefight, k'pew, k'pew, bad guys die, Han decides to go to the slavers' contact on Bonadan: someone owes him and Chewie 10,000 credits!

The slavers are waiting. Another fight, slash slash, Chewie and Solo split up--the Wookiee in the Millennium Falcon, Han with his new gal-pal on a slow boat--all headed to Ammuud, the next planet in line. Solo still doesn't have the money, and the slavers are still after him!

On top of all this, a skip-tracer from a collections agency has tracked the Falcon to Bonadan and intends to take the ship as payment for money Han owes someone else. This character's pretty lame as Space Critters go. Remember--it's Sci-Fi, so we have to have anthropomorphized animals-as-people; Lucas gave us Space Mice, Space Trees, Space Wolves, Space Twin Sisters, Space Walruses (Walri?), Space Yaks, Space Squids, Space Goats, and Space Teddy Bears....

Daley gives us...the Space Otter. Or maybe it's a Space Seal. Space Otter sounds better. Spray (get it? Aquatic critter, watery name? ha, ha) is buck-toothed, near-sighted, talks with a lifp around thofe bfig teef. This is supposed to be the comic relief, since Spray stays with Chewie and the Falcon--you've got that whole big, hairy wookie/small Space Otter "Odd Couple" thing...meh.

That's the thing, here. Daley doesn't use ANY of these elements to advantage. Han and the women in all three books don't really have a lot of developed sexual tension to push the characters along. They're set-dressing, all equally anonymous and generic, all pale reflections of Princess Leia.

The various Space Critters--a pair of humanoid Space Cats in "Star's End," the Space Otter here, and the Space Caterpillar in "Lost Legacy"--are underdeveloped, not particularly interesting or funny. They're just boring 2-dimensional people like the other characters, only they're funny-looking.

This is also the book that introduces what has become my least-favorite "Star Wars" critter name: howlrunner. No matter what planet we're on (or what planet someone's from), "howlrunner" is the standard "Star Wars" name for a wolf. Given that most of the language is "translated" for us in the narrative...why not just call it a wolf, or "the wolf-like [alien-sounding name]"?

There are some notable howlers--other than Space Wolves--in the story. Chewie is forced to make a high-altitude mountain landing; while he's setting up a sensor on a nearby ridge, there's a stampede of Space Cattle--and they're getting dangerously close to him! So our Wookiee McGyver builds himself a hang glider!

Yes. A hang glider.

From the corpse of a pterosaur, the sensor tripod, some clamps, and some cable!

He glides too far...face-plants into the nearby lake...and Space Otter is there! Chewie is saved!!

You can safely skip all three of these books. But it's good news for Alan Dean Foster: He's not the worst "Star Wars" writer anymore. This is subject to change, because I'm considering reading his ghost-written "Star Wars" novelization. I haven't cracked it open in more than 20 years, and I remember really disliking it.

Solo 03--Han Solo and the Lost Legacy (Daley, Brian)

Rating: 3
Year: 1980
Genre: Sci-Fi/Star Wars
Read again? In another decade

Ooops. I read 'em out of order. This is the third in the set that isn't so much a trilogy as three stand-alone stories.

Daley's back at the thesaurus for this third Solo book, filling in the syllables to let us know that we're reading Science Fiction, not your common dimestore paperback.

Han and Chewie are in the Tion Hegemony, a galactic backwater, having skipped out of the Corporate Sector. Times are bad, business is slow, and they end up working as pit crew for an arrogant air-show flyer. Then they get an offer: ship some educational materials to a university on another world.

It turns out they were recommended by an old pal, Badure, who has a line on something big--a treasure vault containing the last hoard of tributes to Xim the Despot (I wonder if he called himself that?). This is Science Fiction, so we have to have a history expert who just happens to be a Space Caterpillar. He's seeking his fortune and glory before he becomes a Space Butterfly (but Daley calls that a "chromawing").

Badure also warns Solo that he's being stalked by the notorious assassin Gallandro, fastest gun in the galaxy, who has a score to settle.

Then there's the army of Xim's war robots, talking dinosaurs, and Daley's thesaurus, which should be named as a character itself.

Marginally better than "Star's End," but still firmly on the "B" list; Daley's plots flow right downstream with few twists or turns. His characters are simply there, barely fleshed out, not particularly compelling--and they all sound alike.

But it's Daley's narrative style that suffers the most; those extra syllables don't make the prose seem sophisticated, just clumsy.

Solo 01--Han Solo at Star's End (Daley, Brian)

Rating: 3
Year: 1979
Genre: Sci-Fi/Star Wars
Read Again? In another 10 years

First of the original Han Solo trilogy.

I devoured this book and the other "Star Wars" tie-ins over that long, dark time between the original "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back." That 12-year-old me couldn't get enough--Lucas' brainchild was in my blood, no matter that I was maybe 18 months later than every other kid on the planet in seeing the original.

This is pre-franchise "Star Wars." You won't find those two words anywhere on the book. There's just a little tag under the title letting you know that it's from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker.

But it has Han Solo! It's got Chewbacca the Wookiee! It's got the Millennium Falcon! It's got other "Star Wars" words! But there's no Empire, no Luke Skywalker, no Jabba the Hutt. Han and Chewie are in the United States Corporate Sector, where the government places profit above everything else.

After the Falcon takes some damage on a smuggling run, Han & Chewie seek out an old friend: Doc, the leader of a...consortium of enterprise-minded ship techs, who can and will do most anything, no questions asked, for the right price. "Outlaw-techs," as Daley calls them. But Doc's not there--he disappeared months ago, leaving his daughter Jessa to run the family business.

Jessa is happy to make the repairs; all Han has to do is go to a meet-spot, pick up some people, and take them where they need to go. The meet-spot is a Corporate Sector data center; the people are looking for information about missing relatives, "disappeared" as undesirables. Their first passenger is a droid, Bollux, and its little super-computer pal Blue Max. We have to have comic relief, right?

The mission goes well enough at first. Han & Chewie meet their contact, they get into the data center, Max finds the information they need, the rest of the team shows up, and it's time for a firefight and daring escape!

Yeah, almost. Before they can escape, Chewie is nabbed by the security guys--and now he's "disappeared" too.

As with Alan Dean Foster's "Alien" books, Daley's got a style peppered with expensive syllables, since apparently that's what makes something science-fictiony. Why say "work and play" when you can have "toil and enjoyment"? Why use a simple lock when "impoundment fastener" has 5 more syllables? When you tell time in Daley's "Star Wars" (and others', since many of his ideas are aped by later writers), you don't use hours. You use "Standard Time-Parts," with the capitals intact. Even the wordy Mercedes Lackey tells time in candlemarks. One less syllable, yes--but less clunky.

Yeah, yeah, I know Daley--and others who write like this--are trying to tech it up, use more "sophisticated" language, but it feels fake and clunky and doesn't really add anything of substance to the narrative. Solo comes off at times sounding like some upper-class professor rather than the fast-talkin' wise-ass.

"Star's End" isn't Great Literature, doesn't explore the histories of its main characters, and doesn't make them grow into better beings. It has the benefit of being better than anything George Lucas has done in the past 20 years, so that's worth something.

Quickie: Star Wars: New Jedi Order (series, various)

Rating: 1/5
Years: 1999-2003
Genre: Sci-Fi
Read again? HELL no.

Yeah, I know I just finished saying you shouldn't look for a "Star Wars" review anytime soon. Changed my mind--because this series is one of the reasons (aside from Luca$) I don't want to read "Star Wars" books. There may be spoilers without warning--this is a series I will not recommend to anyone.

It is a dark time for "Star Wars" fans. Although he's raking cash in at a phenomenal rate, the money-crazed Lord Luca$ isn't happy with destroying the franchise in film. He spreads his grasping tentacles outward into the book market.

Hiring hacks who vomited some of the worst "Star Wars"-affiliated crap to ever grace the page, he and his agents set forth to deliver the coup de grace to what was once a treasured childhood world.

I first encountered this "New Jedi Order" series with book #4, "Hero's Trial." Chewbacca is dead. Han Solo is utterly wrecked. On first reading, I thought it a reasonably good book, and it made me want to read the others to see how Chewie bought it.

I got that chance in January, 2007. For three full months, I slogged through the series from start to finish. Oh, man, did I slog. And there are only maybe 3 of the 19 books (plus short stories/novellas) where I wasn't groaning "Oh, for F*CK'S SAKE!" every other page. Few of the writers have any sort of grasp of the characters and "feel" of Star Wars. They could all have learned from Timothy Zahn, who wrote the best damn "Star Wars" novels, period, with his Thrawn trilogy. I can live with the inevitable continuity issues from one author to the next. But idiotic plots and crappy dialogue are unforgiveable.

In a nutshell, a race of beings with living technology invades the galaxy, killing and destroying anyone and everyone who oppose them. Droids are anathema. Any technology that comes from a non-living source is anathema. They are capable of growing anything they need--ships, weapons, communications, clothing. Even their human disguises are a living skin.

Basically, they waste everyone. Chewie dies. Han and Leia's boy Anakin (inexplicably named after his evil grandfather) dies. The freaking Hutts die. This all sounds cool, but I know damn well there are better writers out there who could have made this turd into something pretty.

This series runs entirely too long--and it brings us back into contact with characters and situations from the worst "Star Wars" novels ever written, such as Dave Wolverton's "The Courtship of Princess Leia" (which is some unholy melding of crappy Harlequin romance complete with hunky prince Fabio type trying to woo the Princess away from Han) and Roger MacBride Allen's Corellian trilogy (where we find that Han Solo has an evil twin cousin with access to a super weapon that will rule the...yeah. Crap.). Yeah, they bring Fabio and the Evil Twin back, and both are still the same after some 20 years.

The worst of it is, I went to Wookieepedia shortly after beginning the set. The write-up makes the series sound good. That's false advertising, isn't it?

Read this series at your own peril. I know of one person who actually liked it, so your mileage may vary.

George Lucas sucks.

Anyone who's read through this blog (well, basically it's just me) will have seen some sniping at George Lucas.

He sucks.

He totally screwed over the whole "Star Wars" story with Episodes 1-3. I grew up with the originals. I really loved the darkness of "The Empire Strikes Back." But even with the Big Three, we see Lucas beginning his free-fall into suck with the half-crap "Return of the Jedi." The whole teddy-bears-defeating-armored-troops-with-sticks-and-stones thing.

Granted, a Stormtrooper's armor didn't do much for protection, given that a single blaster shot from a good guy would take 'em out. But the Ewok schtick made the ending of "Jedi" into one long, drawn-out Three Stooges pie fight.


He took a rest for a while. Then he brought suck to an entirely new low with "The Phantom Menace." I didn't have very high hopes for the movie to begin with...but I left the theater simply numb. The farting camel. That idiotic Jar Jar. The really bad acting from Liam Neeson and others--we know these people can act, so I'd have to blame Lucas, who apparently went with first takes during rehearsals, then stitched it all together as foreground for very flashy computer graphics, and sent it to John Williams to write music for it. He didn't really develop the Sith as a "phantom menace"...and then there's the midiclorians-as-microbe-causing-the-Force instead of the much tidier mystical energy field that controls people's destinies.

"Attack of the Clones" gave us Hayden Christiansen, probably the least-inspiring actor in the entire series. He didn't really seem to be an angst-ridden teenager so much as an always-angry ADHD victim. Considering that the Sith are supposed to be a phantom menace, there's really not a good thread showing Palpatine exerting influence so much as seeming like an indulgent grandfather. The most irritating element in this movie, though, is C-3P0 and his incessant punning through the entire droid factory sequence ("Oh no! I'm beside myself!" "What a drag.")

Phooey.

"Revenge of the Sith" is much better than the first pair, but it still falls far short of the promise of the original trilogy. The battles are spectacular! The acting is somewhat better, but we still have that horrid, embarassing ending with a newly-minted Darth Vader (entirely too skinny, compared to the tall and bulky Dave Prowse) pulling a Frankenstein and wailing "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!" Bleah. He's turned the franchise into a modern-day version of the "Star Wars Holiday Special" without the snappy musical numbers.


But the crowning achievement of suck lies not with the Star Wars franchise...but with Indiana Jones, which suffered the same fate as the SW flicks. It started out serious ("Raiders of the Lost Ark") and got dark ("Temple of Doom"), with some appropriate bits of humor. Then it got silly. I had serious problems with "Last Crusade," which went out of its way to be irritating. Sean Connery did some good stuff--but by this point Indy is just a cartoon character. And Denholm Elliot and John Rhys-Davies (Brody and Sallah) should be ashamed. Their characters are just caricatures of the originals.

Which brings us to the utterly shitty "Crystal Skull." I have seen it only once and will never watch it willingly again. I started hating it within a few minutes, when Jones is blowed up in a noo-cue-lar explosion and rides a freaking refrigerator from launch to touchdown. How convenient that it was lead-lined. It was good to see Karen Allen, but she's just the Bitchy Ex-Wife for her entire set.

Cate Blanchett as the psychic Pinko was just...I don't know. The giant ants, the obligatory Tarzan moment...I don't see Spielberg or Lucas ever committing to film anything that's worth a shit for the remainder of their careers.


That said, Lucas is dead to me. I used to be a devoted "Star Wars" geek. I got the books, the toys, the first-run of "Star Wars: The Role-Playing Game." I even endured several months of reading the entire series of "New Jedi Order" novels. But that was then.

I skipped the animated "Clone Wars" flick. Knew it would suck. Apparently I was right.

Don't look anytime soon for any "Star Wars" book reviews.