Razor's Edge

AUTHOR: Martha Wells
COPYRIGHT: 2013
SERIES: Empire and Rebellion
TIMEFRAME: Rebellion -- about 2 years after the Battle of Yavin

I read this book months ago, and I don't remember it very well. But that's part of the problem with it. It's passable, but not particularly memorable.

The story concerns Leia and Han doing a supply run for the new Hoth base. They are intercepted by pirates -- woman pirates! And to top it all off, these woman pirates just happen to be refugees from Leia's home planet of Alderaan. Now, that's a great premise to start with. But the book doesn't really follow through on that idea. Leia gets herself taken aboard as a hostage to try and talk some sense into them, and they agree if she's really who she says she is. Right away we have a curious power dynamic, as Leia is a Princess of their world and a Senator (well, former Senator I guess since there is no more Senate). It's also interesting to think about some people taking the opposite route from Leia, doing naughty things in order to survive.

But the potential of those ideas don't really go anywhere. They start to build for the first few chapters, but then most of that tension is resolved or put on hold and the story shifts focus to the real enemy: the pirates that have been exploiting these Alderaanians who they were stupid enough to trust. There's a subplot involving slave-running, with Han and Leia freeing the slaves. But none of it quite pays off the promise of the first chapter.

The writing of the book is passable, but there are times it feels a bit too much like Star Wars fan fiction. The opening sentence is Leia saying, "I have a bad feeling about this." This is the most cliché way possible to open a Star Wars novel. It doesn't feel natural, it feels like right away Martha Wells is saying, "See, this is Star Wars!" The way she writes Han Solo was weird to me, as there were times he said things I didn't think Han would say. Or it was the way he said it. I don't have the book in front of me, or I'd cite specific examples. But there were moments he sounded too much like just some 21st Century twentysomething instead of Han Solo.

I give Ms. Wells credit for a Leia-centric, and really female-centric, story concept. I just wish the ultimate execution of that idea had been more engaging. So much of it kept feeling like the first act and it never went beyond that. I mean, I don't always want some crazy Timothy Zahn plot where a bunch of different threads overlap and intersect and explode at the end. But I would like to be a little more engaged after the initial premise. For a first book in this new Empire and Rebellion series, I wasn't grabbed by it. It's maybe worth a read if you're a big fan of Leia, but beyond that there just wasn't enough there for me. Too simple, like the sort of thing that could be resolved in a 40-minute television episode. Indeed, it felt very Star Trek: Voyager to me. Oh well.

GRADE: C

Splinter of the Mind's Eye

AUTHOR: Alan Dean Foster
COPYRIGHT: 1978
TIME FRAME: Rebellion -- some time between episodes IV and V

When Luke and Leia crash-land on an unfamiliar planet, they stumble into a quest for a mysterious jewel. Trying to book passage off-world, they meet a woman who shows them a shard of this jewel which she claims has the power to enhance the Force for the one wielding it. She agrees to help them leave if they agree to help her find it first. Along the way, they run into Imperial agents who've made a base of some of the old temples, and escape only to find weird environments, native peoples, and ultimately cross paths once again with Darth Vader.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the very first Star Wars tie-in novel. It's interesting to see what Star Wars was to people who only had the first movie as a reference. Splinter of the Mind's Eye results in being an old-fashioned space adventure fantasy, much heavier on the adventure than later stories and novels. The book is full of strange exotic locales and adventure tropes like a fight to the death with the natives. In a way, this book has more in common with Indiana Jones than with where the Star Wars saga went. I liked that fantasy adventure element. The swamp environment where they crash also prefigures the Dagobah sequences in Empire. Too many Star Wars novels now get all bogged down in military maneuvers and technical matters. They know all about how hyperspace works and what powers each blaster, they have gotten mired in in-world terms like "'fresher" for bathroom and usually describe the "prefabricated" architecture. But they've lost some of the wonder and fun of a galaxy far, far away that this novel brings.

The book is also rather violent in places, though. During the bit where Luke and Leia have been captured by Imperials, there's a scene where the Imperial leader stabs a guy in the eye. This might be a bit much for some readers. But again, the first movie had that scene where Obi-Wan hacked off the arm at Mos Eisley.

Strangely, for all it's lack of technobabble, there are things in this book that I've never seen come up again. For example, Luke is constantly having to plug his lightsaber into his blaster's battery pack to recharge it. I guess since lightsabers are at least partially technological it makes sense they would need a power source of some kind. I've not read anything else that suggests they need their batteries recharged though. But this was back before many rules had been established and authors had to imagine things.

I love the title. It's just wonderfully evocative. The MacGuffin of the actual object though ultimately never completely works. We hear so much about it, but when we finally get to it at the end, not much more happens with it. It's really more of a plot device to instigate a quest. The idea of a crystal that channels or enhances the Force is interesting.

There is a lot to like in this book, and it's unfortunate to have to criticize any of it. But the absolute weirdest element about reading it now after the rest of the films have come out is the way Luke and Leia come across. That is, this was written before their relationship as siblings had been revealed, so there are at times very flirty moments between them that read as much more unsettling now than they did in 1978. Longing looks and such make the kiss in Empire Strikes Back seem like nothing. Also, the way Foster writes Leia it's hard to get a handle on who he feels she is. At times she's very much a girl and very much out of her element. He sees her as a sheltered Princess who has very little experience in the outside world. She has some more "damsel in distress" moments here. This can feel strange to later readers who remember Leia as spunkier, and better at the witty repartee. We see more of that in later films. This Leia is not one who has been a Rebellion leader; she's out of her element. But she's also got a mouth on her. There were moments of that in the first movie ("Into the garbage chute, fly boy!") and Foster tries to strike a balance there. So while this Leia at times seems weaker than the Leia you might remember, she's got a bit of sass to her as well. There's a great moment after Vader has arrived when she hides in the bushes to take a shot at him out of revenge. She does fire, but misses, and beats herself up over it.

It may be hard for some of you to imagine a Star Wars story with no Han Solo in it, but I'd say it fares pretty well without him and that his presence in this story would hurt the proceedings. Luke and Leia need to be out of their depth, and having a streetwise smuggler with them would keep them out of danger. And where's the fun in that?

For me, the biggest failing of the book is the ending. I just don't think we needed Darth Vader to turn up, but again this was the first new story and he was the big villain. It's unfortunate though because using him, to me, resulted in making him less menacing. After Leia has failed to kill him, there's a race to get to the temple for the crystal. The story culminates in a duel between Luke and Vader in the temple only to have it end in the most underwhelming way possible: Vader falls down a hole. There's a big ceremonial well or something in the middle of the floor, and just as Vader thinks he's beaten Luke, he comes walking toward him and falls right down the pit. That's it. That just felt so silly to me, and made Vader less threatening. Yes, they need to dispatch him somehow so he can terrorize them another day, but a Vader who can't watch where he's going (or you know, use the force to sense it) is not scary anymore.

Splinter of the Mind's Eye is a fascinating time-capsule of ideas from before there was more Star Wars. While some elements don't fare as well now in hindsight, the space adventure aspect is one that too many Star Wars novels have gotten away from and is really the highlight of this book for me. I want to see characters riding down underground rivers on giant lily pads. I want to see alien worlds with temples retro-fitted as bases (like Yavin was). Modern Star Wars sometimes tries too hard to be science-fiction, when Star Wars was always meant to be space opera and mythic adventure fantasy. While the ending for me is ultimately something of a cop-out, the journey was fun.

GRADE: B -- I want so much to give it an A, but my issues with the ending and the unsettling Luke/Leia stuff made me feel I had to dock it a bit. But this is still one of the best Star Wars novels I've read so far, albeit very different from the stuff to which we've grown accustomed.