Aug 15, 2009 17:00
Reviewer's Note: I'm breaking with my reading chronology to get these unimpressive reads out of the way. They're four entries from the middle of a nine book Star Wars series.
Titles:
Sacrifice by Karen Traviss, Inferno by Troy Denning, Fury by Aaron Allston, Revelation by Karen Traviss
Background: Starting in the 1990s, George Lucas' franchise began licensing books with the condition that all authors' works followed the same continuity (the Expanded Universe or EU). Usually, authors wrote stand-alone books or short series that occasionally referenced other books. Around 2000, LucasBooks started releasing larger story arcs. These series run about ten to twenty books in length and contain contributions by multiple authors. This 'Legacy of the Force' story arc is one such series.
Summary: Set approximately forty years after the events in Star Wars: A New Hope, the series follows the exploits of the aging original Star Wars cast and their various offspring. The galaxy is embroiled in a civil war that pits Han Solo's homeworld against the Rebel government he helped establish in the Star Wars movies. Leia and Han's children, now in their thirties, find themselves on opposite sides of the war as one leads a military coup and the other sides with the exiled Jedi who resisted the military. Much of the mayhem is orchestrated by hidden dark Jedi. But even as these villains are defeated, the ambitious Solo child falls to the Dark Side and takes up the mantle of his grandfather, Darth Vader.
Reaction: I'm a long time Star Wars reader. The books are largely content-free adventure novels with simplistic themes, but at least they're fun. They've always been formulaic, and LucasBooks has tried to mix thing up a bit. First, they killed off some major characters. In the previous story arc, beloved Chewbacca got a moon dropped on his head. In this series, one of the Solo kids turns to the Dark Side and kills a family member. Okay, that's an interesting premise. Dark, gritty, more mature. It's the execution that falters in these novels. The arc is written by three authors, and their writing doesn't always mesh. Traviss has an obsession with the Mandalorians, a fictional warrior culture, and spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the geriatric Mandalorian bounty hunter Boba Fett. (For that matter, the action packed exploits of Luke and Leia (pushing sixty) and Han Solo (pushing seventy) seem pretty unrealistic.) Denning is competent but forgettable. Allston is probably the most engaging of the three, but his contribution amounts to an overdone Star Wars plot: The good guys must stop the bad guys from using a devastating super-weapon. Yawn. A few fan favorite EU characters are killed off and the fallen Solo son is given some evil villain street cred by acting nasty. The story arc editors could've used Allston more effectively.
What really got to me about these books is the sense that the Expanded Universe setting is collapsing under it's own weight. With fifteen years and dozens of books out there, authors' imaginations are increasingly constrained by what has come before. Their constant referencing of other EU fiction got annoying, too. I kept running up against half-remembered names from other Star Wars novels. I can't imagine how a new Star Wars reader could get into a series like this.
Thumbs: Down
adventure,
fantasy,
sci-fi,
movie-book,
fiction,
family saga