Rant: Coruscant Nights Jedi Twilight
I really, really want to like this book. I mean, it's a Star Wars PI novel, and I spend a lot of time bemoaning the lack of SF and fantasy crossover procedurals. I'm only on chapter 3 right now, so I'm hoping that it's going to get better. But the odds of that, IMO, ain't so good.
Okay, look. I know I don't have a lot of use for the Jedi, and even less for the Rebels. But if the story's good, I can still go with it and have a damned good time. NJO, after all, managed to make me like Luke and Leia. So far, though, Coruscant Nights: Jedi Twilight has a ton of the most offputting elements of latter-day SW EU canon and absolutely none of the good ones. For one thing, where's the bloody mystery? There's supposed to be a PI in here, and I haven't even seen him yet-- I get that the average SW fan might need some easing into a procedural, but if this actually turns into a proper PI novel, I'll eat my shoes. This reeks of Angel-esque PI veneer, and I detest that kind of story because I always feel duped by it by writers who don't get that the Private Eye story is a genre in itself rather than simply a way to get from Point A to romance, vampire angst, or what-have-you. (hildy-- you were right to be concerned, btw. I really do hate season 2 of Angel.)
But this is to a large degree to be expected, I've long since learned not to expect VI Warshawski or Harry Bosch to come tumbling out of a crossover "PI" story. No, the subject of this rant is something else-- three things about the EU that drive me absolutely bonkers.
1. Yes, you really can tell a story without it being about the Jedi. Really. You can. Star Wars isn't Harry Potter. It wouldn't be real life if you took the bloody wizards out, it would still be an interesting space opera setting. So why in hell can't your gritty Coruscant PI be an average dude? Oh, wait. Because average people don't matter in Star Wars, unless they're Boba Fett or cannon fodder who die to give the damned wizards something to angst about.
So far, we've been introduced to two people. A Jedi who is on the run from Stormies but who still stupidly nobly uses the Force to help people because *not* using the Force would be something other than a way to commit suicide actually pragmatic being something other than what he *really* is. As you might expect, this gets him quickly found and (presumably, since this is what the back cover says the actual mystery is about) deaded. Heaven forbid someone explain to Mr. Can't Adjust that he could help a lot more people for a lot longer if he'd just get over himself and use ordinary deduction and an ordinary blaster and thereby deprive his enemies of their Midichlorian-enabled tracking device.
The other character is a former Republic army officer who is now a "freedom fighter" (see rant #2) fighting against the Empire. Aha, you say, here's an average dude! Alas, no. He's not a Jedi (he's just BFF with the Jedi), but he does have the Force. This guy tries to rescue the first guy, presumably unsuccessfully. Where's the PI? Who knows, since the author's main interest right now seems to be in spending the beginning of the book railing about politics.
2. Which brings me to my next bit of bitchery, annoying fictional politics. Dear SW writers: The entire SW universe isn't composed of evil people and people against the Empire. The average person doesn't know much about the inner workings of such things, and really doesn't care. When Palpy made his little speech about Windu committing treason? A lot of people quite likely believed him. Yes, including the clone troopers, who weren't, y'know, there. They're soldiers, not professional puppy kickers. So quit blithering about how your Jedi wanker can "sense their malign auras"-- they still think they're hunting down bad guys. (And even if they don't, it's not like they have any choice in the matter.)
And you can take the "freedom fighter" bit and shove it. Unless the person wearing that label is trying to secure his planet's independence, it's 99.99999% likely to be a professional spinner's way of saying a whole host of very impolite things. In short, I don't believe this character, and that makes me have trouble swallowing the whole book before it's even really begun. This makes me sad, since this character's motivation for forcefully leaving the Imperial military (he's BFFs with Mace Windu and doesn't believe his friend could try to assassinate the Supreme Chancellor) is one of the more credible explanations for Imperial turncoatery that I've seen. Except that this person really didn't know Windu all that well, and a real person who's just committed a crime and tossed his life down the crapper based on a belief in someone's innocence would have at least passing doubts as to whether they did the right thing-- SW characters, of course, can just see the Puppy Kicker's Aura (tm) on every passing Stormie and be completely convinced of the justness of blowing them straight to Narnia.
(It's worth adding that, to some people, merely questioning Rebels' and Jedi's motives is enough to send me straight to hell. Earlier this week I saw a couple of screeds on canon_rants from someone who excoriates Karen Traviss for "Jedi-hating". I found this perplexing, and not only because there are so many better reasons to diss Traviss (perhaps most obvious being that she can't write for beans), but because I couldn't remember this "Jedi-hating"-- since I can't stand the little lightsaber-twirling weenies myself, I should be lapping this up. But looking at books like this one, it becomes a bit more obvious what this fan means. Basically, anything that interrupts the ongoing hagiography of the Jedi even the slightest (like pointing out that the average non-Force-sensitive bit of cannon fodder can't see a difference between the Jedi and the Sith, since they both use the Force, and their wars get you equally dead if you have the ill fortune to not be born with midichlorians fondling your privates) equals "Jedi hate".)
But I've been ranting on the general doesn't-make-sense-ness of SW politics for 20 years now, so that's not the worst problem. That would be...
3. Real-life politics. Yes, it's always been in there. The Empire is a stand-in for the Nixon administration, said Lucas in some interview that I dearly wish I'd bookmarked, explaining why he's baffled by charges of Bush-bashing in RotS. But back in the day it was at least a bit more subtle. These days, they beat you over the head with the politics. Traviss and Denning Bush- and Blair-bashes up a storm in the Legacy books, with Jacen's counter-terrorist squad, Traviss quite openly saying that she's inspired by current events in the backmatter interviews to one of the books. Reaves (author of Coruscant Nights) beaned me over the head with his opinion of stop-loss in another shitty SW book, Death Star. I can't wait to see what the rest of Nights will hold, since he's already off and running with a paean to War Is Bad, Yo. No, really? You'd think anyone with two brain cells to rub together could figure out that war, while at times inevitable, is hell. Sure, fiction about soldiers can definitely go with that theme, it's just that this idea has been done before by better. For one thing, I really do think that most soldiers can still have ideals, even while agreeing that War Sucks. Many of them would tell you as much. Yet Mr. Freedom Fighter isn't motivated by his being convinced that the Empire is evil and they framed his friend. No, he joins a rebel band because he's a soldier and that's the only thing he knows how to be. Because soldiers lack agency, and pretty much just drift along doing the bidding of their commanders-- but wait, wouldn't that also apply to the Stormtroopers? No, of course not, they set out to do bad things because they're eeeeeevil.
Tell me again why I'm still reading this thing instead of abandoning it for a book that doesn't suck, won't annoy the hell out of me, and is an actual mystery?
ETA: Was giving a version of this rant to my husband and had the following conversation...
Me: So the freedom fighter guy decides he's going to defect, and instead of doing this like a smart fuck and doing it right away, he waits till they show up to collect his oath to the new regime (and why the hell would they collect oaths anyway, instead of simply assuming that the soldiers would serve like... soldiers?) to, get this, grab one of the Stormies' guns (like that's so easy, and why the fuck wouldn't Mr. Brave But Dumb not bring his own gun to the party?) shoot both Stormies and Oath-Taking Officer Guy and then jump out a 200th story window onto a passing nerf-skin lorry that the Force told him was right outside the window at that very convenient moment and... Wow. This book is even dumber than I thought it was.
Him: So wait... this guy quits the Grand Army of the Republic Empire and shoots the Clones, except at that point there *wasn't* anyone but clones in the Grand Army of the Republic Empire? Good stunt!
Osama: Meep!
Me: This is the good thing about having cats. Random Feline Punctuation.
SON OF ETA: I just found another review of this thing. Not only does it not get better, it actually gets even worse. Not only that, but the PI isn't a PI after all. He's a bounty hunter. Shoot me now.
Yes, I think I'll send this bunch of nonsense back to the library and go on to a real mystery. I mean, my currently borrowed list includes Lippman, Pelecanos, and... this rubbish.
Okay, look. I know I don't have a lot of use for the Jedi, and even less for the Rebels. But if the story's good, I can still go with it and have a damned good time. NJO, after all, managed to make me like Luke and Leia. So far, though, Coruscant Nights: Jedi Twilight has a ton of the most offputting elements of latter-day SW EU canon and absolutely none of the good ones. For one thing, where's the bloody mystery? There's supposed to be a PI in here, and I haven't even seen him yet-- I get that the average SW fan might need some easing into a procedural, but if this actually turns into a proper PI novel, I'll eat my shoes. This reeks of Angel-esque PI veneer, and I detest that kind of story because I always feel duped by it by writers who don't get that the Private Eye story is a genre in itself rather than simply a way to get from Point A to romance, vampire angst, or what-have-you. (hildy-- you were right to be concerned, btw. I really do hate season 2 of Angel.)
But this is to a large degree to be expected, I've long since learned not to expect VI Warshawski or Harry Bosch to come tumbling out of a crossover "PI" story. No, the subject of this rant is something else-- three things about the EU that drive me absolutely bonkers.
1. Yes, you really can tell a story without it being about the Jedi. Really. You can. Star Wars isn't Harry Potter. It wouldn't be real life if you took the bloody wizards out, it would still be an interesting space opera setting. So why in hell can't your gritty Coruscant PI be an average dude? Oh, wait. Because average people don't matter in Star Wars, unless they're Boba Fett or cannon fodder who die to give the damned wizards something to angst about.
So far, we've been introduced to two people. A Jedi who is on the run from Stormies but who still stupidly nobly uses the Force to help people because *not* using the Force would be something other than a way to commit suicide actually pragmatic being something other than what he *really* is. As you might expect, this gets him quickly found and (presumably, since this is what the back cover says the actual mystery is about) deaded. Heaven forbid someone explain to Mr. Can't Adjust that he could help a lot more people for a lot longer if he'd just get over himself and use ordinary deduction and an ordinary blaster and thereby deprive his enemies of their Midichlorian-enabled tracking device.
The other character is a former Republic army officer who is now a "freedom fighter" (see rant #2) fighting against the Empire. Aha, you say, here's an average dude! Alas, no. He's not a Jedi (he's just BFF with the Jedi), but he does have the Force. This guy tries to rescue the first guy, presumably unsuccessfully. Where's the PI? Who knows, since the author's main interest right now seems to be in spending the beginning of the book railing about politics.
2. Which brings me to my next bit of bitchery, annoying fictional politics. Dear SW writers: The entire SW universe isn't composed of evil people and people against the Empire. The average person doesn't know much about the inner workings of such things, and really doesn't care. When Palpy made his little speech about Windu committing treason? A lot of people quite likely believed him. Yes, including the clone troopers, who weren't, y'know, there. They're soldiers, not professional puppy kickers. So quit blithering about how your Jedi wanker can "sense their malign auras"-- they still think they're hunting down bad guys. (And even if they don't, it's not like they have any choice in the matter.)
And you can take the "freedom fighter" bit and shove it. Unless the person wearing that label is trying to secure his planet's independence, it's 99.99999% likely to be a professional spinner's way of saying a whole host of very impolite things. In short, I don't believe this character, and that makes me have trouble swallowing the whole book before it's even really begun. This makes me sad, since this character's motivation for forcefully leaving the Imperial military (he's BFFs with Mace Windu and doesn't believe his friend could try to assassinate the Supreme Chancellor) is one of the more credible explanations for Imperial turncoatery that I've seen. Except that this person really didn't know Windu all that well, and a real person who's just committed a crime and tossed his life down the crapper based on a belief in someone's innocence would have at least passing doubts as to whether they did the right thing-- SW characters, of course, can just see the Puppy Kicker's Aura (tm) on every passing Stormie and be completely convinced of the justness of blowing them straight to Narnia.
(It's worth adding that, to some people, merely questioning Rebels' and Jedi's motives is enough to send me straight to hell. Earlier this week I saw a couple of screeds on canon_rants from someone who excoriates Karen Traviss for "Jedi-hating". I found this perplexing, and not only because there are so many better reasons to diss Traviss (perhaps most obvious being that she can't write for beans), but because I couldn't remember this "Jedi-hating"-- since I can't stand the little lightsaber-twirling weenies myself, I should be lapping this up. But looking at books like this one, it becomes a bit more obvious what this fan means. Basically, anything that interrupts the ongoing hagiography of the Jedi even the slightest (like pointing out that the average non-Force-sensitive bit of cannon fodder can't see a difference between the Jedi and the Sith, since they both use the Force, and their wars get you equally dead if you have the ill fortune to not be born with midichlorians fondling your privates) equals "Jedi hate".)
But I've been ranting on the general doesn't-make-sense-ness of SW politics for 20 years now, so that's not the worst problem. That would be...
3. Real-life politics. Yes, it's always been in there. The Empire is a stand-in for the Nixon administration, said Lucas in some interview that I dearly wish I'd bookmarked, explaining why he's baffled by charges of Bush-bashing in RotS. But back in the day it was at least a bit more subtle. These days, they beat you over the head with the politics. Traviss and Denning Bush- and Blair-bashes up a storm in the Legacy books, with Jacen's counter-terrorist squad, Traviss quite openly saying that she's inspired by current events in the backmatter interviews to one of the books. Reaves (author of Coruscant Nights) beaned me over the head with his opinion of stop-loss in another shitty SW book, Death Star. I can't wait to see what the rest of Nights will hold, since he's already off and running with a paean to War Is Bad, Yo. No, really? You'd think anyone with two brain cells to rub together could figure out that war, while at times inevitable, is hell. Sure, fiction about soldiers can definitely go with that theme, it's just that this idea has been done before by better. For one thing, I really do think that most soldiers can still have ideals, even while agreeing that War Sucks. Many of them would tell you as much. Yet Mr. Freedom Fighter isn't motivated by his being convinced that the Empire is evil and they framed his friend. No, he joins a rebel band because he's a soldier and that's the only thing he knows how to be. Because soldiers lack agency, and pretty much just drift along doing the bidding of their commanders-- but wait, wouldn't that also apply to the Stormtroopers? No, of course not, they set out to do bad things because they're eeeeeevil.
Tell me again why I'm still reading this thing instead of abandoning it for a book that doesn't suck, won't annoy the hell out of me, and is an actual mystery?
ETA: Was giving a version of this rant to my husband and had the following conversation...
Me: So the freedom fighter guy decides he's going to defect, and instead of doing this like a smart fuck and doing it right away, he waits till they show up to collect his oath to the new regime (and why the hell would they collect oaths anyway, instead of simply assuming that the soldiers would serve like... soldiers?) to, get this, grab one of the Stormies' guns (like that's so easy, and why the fuck wouldn't Mr. Brave But Dumb not bring his own gun to the party?) shoot both Stormies and Oath-Taking Officer Guy and then jump out a 200th story window onto a passing nerf-skin lorry that the Force told him was right outside the window at that very convenient moment and... Wow. This book is even dumber than I thought it was.
Him: So wait... this guy quits the Grand Army of the Republic Empire and shoots the Clones, except at that point there *wasn't* anyone but clones in the Grand Army of the Republic Empire? Good stunt!
Osama: Meep!
Me: This is the good thing about having cats. Random Feline Punctuation.
SON OF ETA: I just found another review of this thing. Not only does it not get better, it actually gets even worse. Not only that, but the PI isn't a PI after all. He's a bounty hunter. Shoot me now.
Yes, I think I'll send this bunch of nonsense back to the library and go on to a real mystery. I mean, my currently borrowed list includes Lippman, Pelecanos, and... this rubbish.