X-Wing: The Krytos Trap by Michael A. Stackpole

Just a hair over two weeks this time! Maybe I’ll shoot for one week for the next one…

cover art by Paul Youll

While The Krytos Trap is mostly more of the same, Stackpole has upped his game from the first two entries in the series. As with my review of Wedge’s Gamble, this review will contain major spoilers for the first two books in this series. Read on at your own risk.

As The Krytos Trap begins, the Alliance has taken Coruscant – or, to be more precise, Ysanne Isard has given Coruscant to the Alliance. Before relinquishing control of the world, however, Isard commissioned the creation of the titular Krytos virus, a horrifying, highly contagious disease that only affects certain species, humans being one of the groups spared. This virus, while curable, has the potential to simultaneously bankrupt the Alliance while severely limiting the supply of life-saving bacta, and destroy confidence in the Alliance’s ability to keep its new citizens safe.

Meanwhile, Wedge, Mirax, and the rest of Rogue Squadron mourns the death of Corran Horn, while the Provisional Council brings murder and treason charges against Tycho Celchu for Horn’s murder and for supplying Isard with classified intelligence from within the squadron. Wedge, convinced of Tycho’s innocence in the matter, searches tirelessly for Corran’s murderer and the traitor he knows remains hidden within the Rogues’ ranks.

But unbeknownst to the Alliance, Corran did not die during the liberation of Coruscant. Rather, he was taken captive by Ysanne Isard and brought to her feared Lusankya prison facility to be converted into a weapon against the Rebellion. Corran resists his torture as best he can while planning his escape from a prison no one has ever escaped from – and of which no one, Corran included, knows the location.

This book could have easily gone by one of two different titles – Escape from Lusankya or The Trial of Tycho Celchu. The majority of the book, in fact, focuses on Tycho’s trial and the investigations to prove either Tycho’s guilt or innocence. A smaller portion focuses on Corran’s torture and attempts at escape in Lusankya, while a yet smaller portion focuses on the politics between the new Republic’s Provisional Council, the bacta cartels on Thyferra, and a small, almost-insignificant detour to Ryloth. In fact, there may be even less X-Wing action in this book than there was in Wedge’s Gamble.

Yet, somehow, all of this is more compelling than most of the first two books in the series. In fact, the entire second half of The Krytos Trap – which comprises the final stages of Tycho’s trial, Corran’s escape attempts, and Kirtan Loor (remember him?) desperately trying to get out from under the various thumbs that rule him – is the most engaging, exciting part of the series thus far. It seems Stackpole is at his best when he’s not stuck using the overly-technical descriptions of X-Wing and TIE fighter flight that dominate the space and air battles of the series.

That’s not to say The Krytos Trap is free of the flaws I’ve noticed in Stackpole’s previous entries. He still has the very frustrating tendency to skip over scenes I want to read about – a certain rather major reunion in the latter half of the book is almost entirely skipped over, with the next chapter taking place over a week after said reunion, leaving the reader in the awkward position of being told what happened after the fact rather than reading how it happened in the moment. This has been an issue with Stackpole throughout the series, but it seems pretty glaring in this one once things really start rolling later in the book.

Thankfully, some characters are fleshed out more than they have been in the past. Iella Wessiri in particular (Corran’s former Corellian Security partner) has more to do this time, leading the investigation into Corran’s apparent death. We learn that she has a husband who has just been recovered from Imperial custody – a revelation that could have felt forced, but instead allowed the reader a bit more of an insight into Iella’s state of mind. I anticipate further development of her character throughout the rest of the series if the ending of The Krytos Trap is any indication.

Nawarra Ven, the Twi’lek attorney-turned-fighter-pilot, also gets to shine in this book as Tycho’s defense attorney. While the courtroom scenes that dominate the book could have been insufferably boring quite easily, it’s largely due to Nawarra’s spirited defense and steadfast faith in his client that these scenes are actually a highlight of the novel. Seeing Nawarra in his element for the first time (and getting a few chapters told from his point of view) brings him up from a less-than-interesting background character to an important part of the squadron’s story. While the short detour to his home planet of Ryloth was largely unnecessary to the plot of this book (though I admit it may have consequences for future entries in the series), the journey did allow for even more development for his character.

Gavin Darklighter and newcomer Asyr Sei’lar (introduced in the previous book trying to kill Gavin), now a couple, get some more development as well. Asyr’s allegiances, as a Bothan, are torn between her people (personified in the power-hungry Councilor Borsk Fey’lya) and Rogue Squadron. While this subplot could have felt forced, having Gavin – who she obviously has true feelings for – as a window into her world helps to ground her story in something familiar. There’s a great scene where Gavin and Asyr attend a Bothan party together, and Gavin stands his ground against another Bothan without fighting back that speaks to how much Gavin has evolved as a character from his Biggs-surrogate origins (though, as Stackpole tends to do, this point is hammered home a little to unambiguously for my taste).

Kirtan Loor, on the other hand, suffers in this book. While his stature improved in Wedge’s Gamble, in this entry he manages to have freedom to act on his own authority without Isard’s direct instructions, only to find himself under the control of Colonel Fliry Vorru, former Imperial agent turned crime lord turned Alliance agent who clearly wants nothing more than as much power as he can get. Having Loor broken down the way he is in this book does his character’s potential a disservice – where once there was a legitimate Vader/Tarkin surrogate hunting the Rogues, Loor is now little more than a Piett or Jerjerrod surrogate. Of course, I’d prefer Loor to be his own character to either of those things, but a Vader/Tarkin figure is better than a Piett/Jerjerrod figure.

Honestly, I don’t have much more to say about this one. It suffers from many of the same flaws as the first two books in the series, but improves enough to be much more engaging than either of the first two. There are also many more hints of things to come, and while the story has more of a final ending than the second entry in the series did, it also does a lot to set up what comes next. There’s a surprise cameo toward the end that I won’t spoil, and more hints (some more direct than others) toward Corran’s possible future in the books to come.

While this series hasn’t been perfect, or quite as good as Shadows of Mindor, it’s still some fantastic Star Wars that expands the universe beyond the Jedi-Sith conflict while still feeling like the same story, and with The Krytos Trap, it has elevated itself beyond “Pretty good” to “Pretty much essential.”

I’m definitely looking forward to jumping into The Bacta War.

X-Wing: The Krytos Trap: EXCELLENT

X-Wing: Wedge’s Gamble by Michael A. Stackpole

Once again, this took much longer than I wanted it to. I promise I’ll get reviews up more often than once a month from now on – I’m shooting for one to two weeks for the next book, which I’ve already started on.

cover art by Paul Youll

So, more Rogue Squadron, more Stackpole, and more Corran Horn. The question here is, of course – is Wedge’s Gamble an improvement on Rogue Squadron? The answer turns out to be: mostly yes.

I should note that from here on out, there will be spoilers for the first book in the series (Rogue Squadron) that I didn’t include in my review for that book. This is a somewhat unavoidable consequence of reviewing multiple books in a series, and I’m sure it will become more of an issue the deeper I get into the post-Jedi Legends.

Spoiler warning out of the way, Wedge’s Gamble picks up shortly after the end of Rogue Squadron. The Rebellion has taken Borleias from the Empire and set up shop. The Rogues’ wounded have healed and their dead have been mourned. The Rebellion/New Republic leadership is preparing to advance on Coruscant while keeping under the Warlord Zsinj’s radar. Meanwhile, Ysanne Isard and Kirtan Loor prepare for the Rebels’ imminent attack on Coruscant, with the aid of an unknown spy within the squadron’s ranks.

And right away, Stackpole does away with one of my problems with the first entry in the series: Bror Jace.

Corran’s chief rival from the first book in the series, Jace received a message at the end of Rogue Squadron claiming that a member of his family was dying. In the gap between Rogue Squadron and Wedge’s Gamble, Jace’s X-Wing is said to have been intercepted by the Empire and destroyed. Jace never had much going for him as a character, and Corran’s character arc in the first book that was driven by his rivalry with Jace had run its course, so with no more need for the character, Stackpole wisely got rid of him. Thankfully, there is no equivalent character introduced to fill Jace’s void. In fact, Wedge’s Gamble as a whole is refreshingly different from Rogue Squadron.

First and foremost, Wedge’s Gamble (which, by the way, is not a great title; I still don’t know what Wedge’s “gamble” is supposed to be exactly) is a spy thriller wrapped in a Star Wars package. There’s not much time spent in space with the squadron – the book opens with a small battle above Borleias that the Rogues’ X-Wings take part in, but after that, Stackpole spends some time setting up the plan to take Coruscant before sending the Rogues undercover on the world itself for the bulk of the novel.

Surprisingly, the planning stages with the New Republic’s Provisional Council feature the return of a major character from the core group of the original trilogy: Princess Leia. She has a relatively small role, only appearing within the first third or so of the novel, but Stackpole manages to capture her character quite well. Most of her scenes are with the Provisional Council, mediating between Bothan Borsk Fey’lya and Admiral Ackbar’s differing views on how the Alliance should move forward, but there’s one very nice scene between Leia and Wedge that showcases a closer bond between the two characters than the original trilogy, Bakura or Mindor ever implied.

The rest of Rogue Squadron is handled well by Stackpole, too, perhaps more so than in the series’ first entry. Corran is still the focus, and he gets a bit more character development, but Gavin Darklighter – a character I initially dismissed as a stand-in for Biggs and a way to give a series with so few returning characters from the films a bit more legitimacy – is a standout as far as the development of existing squadron members goes. He doesn’t get a whole lot of “screen time,” but I found myself wanting to get back to his part of the mission more often than I’d anticipated.

Erisi fares a bit better this time around as well. We learn a bit more about Thyferran culture from her, and while her role still seems to primarily amount to “Corran’s backup love interest,” it feels much less forced this time around. Unfortunately, after a particularly intimate scene with Corran, she seems to vanish from the narrative altogether.

Mirax, otherwise known as “Corran’s main love interest,” unfortunately doesn’t fare as well. Her and Corran’s mutual attraction is developed a bit more, and as with Erisi it feels more natural this time around, but we learn precious little more about her in Wedge’s Gamble. Her role has been reduced to chauffeur for part of the squadron’s mission on Coruscant, and occasional backup in the many firefights throughout the novel.

On to the story. As I said before, Wedge’s Gamble feels more like a spy novel than anything else. The plan to take Coruscant starts with the Rebels freeing hardened criminals from the Kessel penal colony and inserting them into the Coruscant underworld to do as much damage as they can before the Rebel attack. This presents a moral dilemma for former space cop Corran (okay, fine – Corellian Security Officer), one which I frankly wish had been delved into a bit more deeply. There’s some interesting stuff there, but there’s also room for more musings on the ethics of the plan.

The next stage of the plan involves splitting up the squadron into small groups and inserting them into Coruscant under assumed identities, where they will assess the situation on the planet and eventually bring down the world’s defense shields before the Alliance arrives to take it. As such, the bulk of the novel is spent on the streets of Coruscant, with the Rogues assessing security, possible targets, and the general mood of the civilian population.

As it turns out, the Emperor wasn’t exactly one for telling people the truth about much of anything. Most of the citizens of Coruscant believe the Rebels will subjugate them at every opportunity if they ever manage to defeat the Empire. In one particularly interesting scene, Wedge visits the Imperial Museum, where they are exposed to many of the Empire’s lies about the history of the Rebellion.

This scene provides for interesting reading in the post-prequel era. Of course, it’s not hard to reconcile the contradictions with the Clone Wars and rise of the Empire as we saw in 2002 and 2005 – it’s made abundantly clear that this is the Empire’s version of events and very little, if any, of it is true – but it’s still interesting to see another author’s interpretation of what may have happened before the original Star Wars before Lucas’ prequels set those events in stone.

For example, it’s implied in this scene that the Jedi didn’t fall until after the end of the Clone Wars and the establishment of the Empire, and that they only fell due to extreme Imperial propaganda turning public opinion against the Jedi. The museum display claims that the Jedi plotted to overthrow the Empire and take control for themselves until the always-right-and-just Emperor Palpatine brought order back to the galaxy by getting rid of them. The idea of the Empire forming, the Jedi purge, and the Clone Wars ending all simultaneously as they do in Revenge of the Sith was clearly not set yet in 1996. It’ll be interesting to see further examples of alternate pre-Star Wars history throughout the novels written before the prequels’ release. Anyway, back to the book at hand.

Ysanne Isard and Kirtan Loor still function as an Emperor and a Vader proxy, respectively. Isard does little but be menacing and generally disagreeable, but she’s still an effective, intense presence. Thankfully, Loor has improved as well – he even muses near the end of the novel on how he’s changed since Isard began to take a more direct interest in his work. This time around, General Derricote fills a bit of a mad scientist role under Loor and Isard. Their plan to defend Coruscant offers even more opportunity for ethical dilemmas, and while these dilemmas aren’t delved into terribly much in this book, I think they will be quite central to the third entry in the series.

While Wedge’s Gamble doesn’t offer what one would expect in an X-Wing book, what it does offer is rather good. It doesn’t feel like a rehash of any Star Wars to come before it, and the frequent trips into the seedy underbelly of Coruscant are very interesting. While you won’t find many space battles in this one, there’s plenty of action on the ground – and on speeder bikes whipping through buildings throughout the planet-sized city. This happens to help with Stackpole’s tendency to describe action in overly technical ways (he still does this in the little X-Wing action the book provides us with, and to a lesser extent in the speeder bike chases), making Wedge’s Gamble a bit of an easier read than Rogue Squadron was.

Overall, I’d say this novel is an excellent evolution of what made Stackpole’s first entry in the series good, and while it’s not as much of an improvement over its flaws as I’d hoped for (most of the secondary characters still feel like little more than pawns for the author to move around on a chessboard), it is still an improvement. Much like The Empire Strikes Back felt like a natural progression of story from Star Wars rather than a simple rehash of the first, Wedge’s Gamble advances the story of Rogue Squadron’s role in establishing the New Republic without feeling like it’s covering the same ground as Rogue Squadron.

Basically, if you enjoyed Rogue Squadron, you’ll enjoy Wedge’s Gamble. Even if you didn’t, you still might want to give it a shot, as it’s not just more of the same. And, of course, it dramatizes a pivotal moment in the history of the Legends EU – the battle for Coruscant, the seat of government in the galaxy itself.

X-Wing: Wedge’s Gamble: VERY GOOD

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole

This one took me a little longer than it probably should have. Sorry about that. I’ll try to get these finished a little quicker from here on out.

cover art by Paul Youll

So, here we have the first novel on the list that doesn’t feature the main cast of Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, Artoo, and Threepio. In fact, the majority of the characters in Michael A. Stackpole’s first entry in the X-Wing series are entirely new. The only returning characters to my memory are Wedge Antilles, who featured in all three original films, and Admiral Ackbar, who only featured in Return of the Jedi. There may be others (one character, Tycho, is mentioned as having been a part of the attack on the second Death Star at Endor), but that brings me to my point – most of the characters in X-Wing: Rogue Squadron are, frankly, forgettable.

The exception is, thankfully, the main character of the book (and, I presume, the series) – Corran Horn. A former Corellian Security officer turned Imperial turned Rebel, Corran has spent much of the time prior to this book on the run from a man he used to work with, Imperial Security officer Kirtan Loor. Eventually, Corran finds himself flying an X-Wing for the Rebellion and, proving to be an exceptional pilot, is assigned to Rogue Squadron.

The Squadron itself has become something of a symbol for the Rebellion (or the New Republic, depending on who you ask). Eager to win worlds away from the Empire, the leadership of the Rebellion sent Rogue Squadron on several missions after Endor, sacrificing many rookie pilots in the process. Sick of seeing so many friends die, the leader of Rogue Squadron, veteran pilot Wedge Antilles, is focused on training his new batch of recruits to be the very best they can possibly be before they embark on more dangerous missions for the Alliance.

Interestingly, this idea of so many green Rogues dying in combat because they weren’t ready gels quite well with the depictions of the Squadron in battle during Matthew Stover’s Shadows of Mindor, despite the fact that Mindor was written and released long after Stackpole’s novel. I’m sure this was at least partly intentional on Stover’s part, but it’s still nice to see things flow so well from one book to the next even when one was written more than a decade apart. But I digress.

Stackpole’s novel is well plotted and paced – in fact, the second half of the book feels like a movie, jumping from scene to scene without falling into the pitfall of describing exactly how the characters got from one scene to the next. That might sound like a bad thing, but it’s not – such transitional scenes are usually unnecessary, and in this case they would likely have bogged the story down unnecessarily, killing the pacing. I do, however, have some issues with other aspects of Stackpole’s style.

The biggest problem is Stackpole’s tendency to use a lot of technical jargon when describing the way the fighters move in space. I can’t tell you how many times I read “Corran stood the fighter up on its left S-foil and snap-rolled while inverting” or something similar. I’m sure it’s all accurate, but not being a pilot, these types of descriptions went over my head to the point where it became difficult to follow many of the battle scenes.

Stackpole also has a similar issue with dialogue. I may have been spoiled by the fact that the last two Star Wars books I’ve read involved established characters who had a voice and personality the authors tried to stick to, while Rogue Squadron establishes many entirely new characters that have no such voice established. Even so, Stackpole’s dialogue doesn’t feel much different from his narration. Characters wax philosophical and think out loud in long, awkward paragraphs that feel rather dry at times. Even Wedge, an established character, suffers from this – though I will admit that Wedge’s role in the films doesn’t offer us much in the way of his personality.

Which brings me, again, to the characters. Any character outside of Corran Horn, Wedge Antilles, and Tycho Celchu is woefully underdeveloped. For instance, Corran’s chief rival within the Squadron, Bror Jace, can be summed up as, “That egotistical guy whose family owns a large chunk of the bacta market.” Beyond that, we know little about him, and he appears so sparingly that it’s easy to forget he’s there at all. As such, I don’t particularly care when he and Corran argue about who had more kills.

Then there’s Gavin Darklighter, the cousin of Luke’s friend Biggs from the original Star Wars. His character seems to exist to lend more legitimacy to the book by including more “established” characters – even though Gavin isn’t established, and Biggs, having had most of his scenes cut from Star Wars, is barely established as is. Corran’s wingman and bunkmate, the Gand pilot Ooryl, is probably the next-most-interesting character behind Corran, but even he doesn’t do much besides be an alien. The rest of the Squadron? Well, I had to look up their names, and even then I didn’t remember who was who.

Finally, there’s the awkward “love triangle” between Corran, his squadmate Rhysati Ynr, and the smuggler Mirax Terrik. Luckily, Mirax gets much more characterization than any of the other Rogues. There’s a history between her family and Corran’s, and a personal history between her and Wedge. She even has some effect on the outcome of the final mission – but her character still boils down to “Corran’s main love interest,” while Rhysati is “Corran’s backup love interest.”

At this point, it really sounds like I’m trashing this book. I don’t mean to give that impression because, despite all the flaws I’ve highlighted, I actually enjoyed it for the most part.

One of the few characters that holds some promise is Tycho Celchu. We know little about him so far – all we know is that, while he’s a member of the Rebel Alliance, he’s considered enough of a possible security risk that he can’t fly a ship with weapons, and spends his free time in his quarters under guard. While we learn little about him during Rogue Squadron, there’s a lot that can be done with the character, and the gaps in his backstory intrigue me. I hope Stackpole (and later, Aaron Allston) expand on this in future entries.

Then there’s the villains.

While Kirtan Loor isn’t a particularly interesting or effective nemesis for the Rogues or Corran, his superior, Ysanne Isard, is. She has little “screen time,” but her presence is felt throughout the story. Based on Coruscant, Isard has filled the power vacuum left by the Emperor’s death, and is out to destroy the Rebellion out of vengeance. It’s implied that she may have had some sort of relationship with the Emperor, but that’s kind of gross so we’ll just move along from that.

I suspect that part of what makes Isard effective creates the problem with Agent Loor – he’s terrified of her. Sure, most of the Imperials we see in the films are terrified of Vader, but none of them feel like a real threat – not Piett, not Jerjerrod, nobody. The only one that does feel like a threat outside of Vader and the Emperor is Grand Moff Tarkin, and did he ever seem to fear Vader or the Emperor? No. I think making Agent Loor so fearful of his superior diminishes his effectiveness as a villain. We’ll see how his arc plays out throughout the X-Wing series.

Rogue Squadron obviously places heavy focus on Empire vs. Rebellion. While I always like to see Star Wars EU material do new things (the introductio of the Ssi-ruuk in Bakura being a big part of the reason I enjoyed it so much), I didn’t expect anything but the Rebellion fighting the Empire in this book. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see that no Jedi or lightsabers made an appearance, something that much Star Wars media seems to be stuck on.

Having said that, there seem to be subtle hints that Corran may be Force-sensitive. It’s never said outright, but he has enough moments of “intuition” to convince me of this. If this ends up being the case, I suppose I have no issue with that, but I am glad they left the “big reveal” out of his introductory novel. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few books.

In fact, I’d say that sums up X-Wing: Rogue Squadron fairly well. It does a very good job of setting the stage for future books, and I don’t just mean X-Wing books – there are several references to the Katana Fleet of the Thrawn Trilogy, for instance. Usually such references in “prequels” bother me (like the ending of Brett Ratner’s Red Dragon…) but in this case it serves to ground Rogue Squadron in relation to the books that surround it. A book like this could have easily felt disconnected from the rest of the Star Wars universe, as that universe tends to revolve around the Skywalker family. Stackpole has done a fairly good job of making sure those connections are felt. Occasionally he goes a little far (as evidenced by Gavin Darklighter, or Stackpole’s stubborn insistence that no Corellian ever wants to hear “the odds”), but for the most part, these connections help the book feel like it belongs.

In short, this book is an entertaining, if flawed, novel that has me looking forward to the squadron’s next mission.

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron: GOOD

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor – Matthew Stover

cover art by Dave Seeley

Oh man, this one was fun.

I almost didn’t read it now. It’s a much more recent book, published in 2008, long after the post-Jedi EU had moved beyond even the New Jedi Order and three years after the last of the prequels had been released. As such, the events of this book couldn’t have a narrative effect on the mid-1990s stories that are set immediately after it chronologically. So I went back and forth over whether or not to jump right into the X-Wing novels instead.

Boy, am I glad I decided to read Shadows of Mindor instead.

Simply put, Matthew Stover’s novel was a blast. I would have finished it days ago if the realities of daily life hadn’t continually interrupted my reading sessions. While Truce at Bakura – good though it was – sometimes felt like a chore to read, Mindor never did. I’m sure this is due in no small part to the fact that the whole book is about one battle.

That’s right. This book is structured as if Return of the Jedi began with the briefing on the Death Star attack, and the two hours afterward were all spent on the battle itself. It moves at a breakneck pace and never really slows down. If one were to adapt it into a film, Michael Bay would actually be a reasonable choice to direct it. Not that Stover’s novel would be easy to adapt, but more on that later.

While constant action is all well and good, that’s really not why it’s such a good read. That is entirely down to Stover’s smooth-as-butter writing style. He writes with long, almost stream-of-consciousness sentences that burst with barely-contained energy. It’s as though Stover is so excited to tell you this awesome story that he can barely contain it in mere sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. It doesn’t feel like writing, it feels like telling. You can almost hear Stover excitedly relating this story to you, barely able to restrain his glee. It’s all very natural and fluid, and most of the time it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

But that doesn’t mean Mindor is all surface fluff and action. Honestly, I wouldn’t have any problem with it if it was, because it’d still be so much fun to read, but there’s certainly more to it than that.

I’m talking about the Dark.

Without going into too much spoiler territory, the villain in this story – Lord Shadowspawn – doesn’t use the Force exactly. He’s a servant of the Dark. To his mind, the Force is a tiny piece of the Dark that the Jedi restrict themselves to, limiting themselves in the process. The Dark is the void at the end of everything. The Dark entropy. The Dark is destruction for destruction’s sake.

When Luke finally gets a taste of the Dark, the novel’s themes begin to come to the surface. Luke begins to doubt himself. The Dark will consume everything in time. Why does it matter, then? What’s the point of fighting when the lives of every single person he’s ever known or will know are nothing but a speck in time, eventually to be lost forever to the Dark at the end of the universe?

To me, the lengthy philosophical musings in Stover’s novel serve as a Star Wars-y metaphor for depression. Nothing matters. Everything ends. Why bother? It’s a gutsy choice of theme for a novel that’s otherwise just a fun, pulpy action story. But it’s what transforms Mindor from a fun book into a great book.

To have Luke Skywalker, paragon of all that is good (in Stover’s novel, there are even “holo-thrillers” about the hero’s adventures – Luke Skywalker and the Jedi’s Revenge being one that particularly upsets Luke), sink so deep into depression and doubt is a brave decision that pays off. It allows Stover to delve deep into Luke’s character, deconstructing his status as a hero both in-universe and in the minds of Star Wars fans. Even before arriving at Mindor, before he learns of the Dark, Luke questions his ability to lead, to know what’s the right thing to do in any given situation. Throwing such existential doubts as why does anything matter? into the mind of someone who’s already unsure of himself is a great way to get some internal conflict going with a character who exudes confidence to all the characters around him.

As I said earlier, Mindor, despite its action-oriented nature, would be difficult to adapt to a visual medium, and this internal conflict is why. In fact, many pivotal turning points in the story happen inside a character’s head (usually Luke’s). And I don’t mean things like Shadowspawn’s history being explained by Shadowspawn himself thinking about it, though that does happen. No, I’m talking about things like Luke first experiencing the Dark in an abstract void, or communicating with a truly unique alien intelligence using similar abstract imagery, or the way Shadowspawn himself controls his subjects. All very abstract and difficult to visualize, let alone adapt into something visual. And I have no problem with this – Stover is merely using the strengths of the medium at hand. He’s not writing a movie, or a comic book – he’s writing a novel. I suspect if one were to adapt this with a full cast, an audio drama would be the ideal way to go. (Now I want Big Finish to get a Star Wars license…)

Another aspect of Shadows of Mindor that intrigued me was the way prequel-era stuff is handled. As I said, this book was written in 2008, so Stover had the benefit of already knowing what the Clone Wars were (in fact, Stover himself wrote the novelization of Revenge of the Sith). One of the characters featured in the novel is, as a matter of fact, a clone that fought in the Wars themselves. The clone (called Klick) refers to himself as one of the “original Fetts,” reminisces about the Jedi Padawan that gave him his nickname, and refers to the cloning facilities on Kamino several times. He was chosen by Shadowspawn due to his innately obedient nature – the clones were, after all, bred to be obedient. This comes into play more directly in the endgame of the novel. Sure, the same story could have been written in 1996 without the clone character and still turned out essentially the same, but it’s a nice way to tie post-Jedi material to prequel-era material, regardless of your views on the prequels.

Stover also does something I don’t recall encountering in my (admittedly limited) experience with Star Wars novels – he tells large sections (though not entire chapters) of the story from the point of view of either Chewbacca or R2-D2. I found the Artoo sections particularly interesting, as, apparently, did Stover, since they outnumber the Chewie sections considerably. Stover also tends to write out Chewie or Artoo’s dialogue – in “Rrrwargh”s and “Dwoop-theep-oop”s rather than actual dialogue, of course – instead of simply writing “Chewie growled” or “Artoo whistled.” There’s some of that, sure, but it’s neat to see them treated as characters as much as anyone else, even though we can’t understand what they’re saying.

Speaking of characters, Stover did an excellent job of capturing them. Han feels and sounds like Han (even more than in Return of the Jedi), Leia feels and sounds like Leia, and Luke feels and sounds like Luke, even when he’s sinking into the depths of what’s the point of it all? depression. Even Lando – sent away during Kathy Tyers’ Truce at Bakura – feels like Lando, especially when he’s dealing with C-3PO, who oddly enough gets the short end of Stover’s stick. Threepio is the only character that doesn’t feel much like himself, even though I can’t put my finger on why. He also spends almost all of the book with Lando, separate from the rest of the characters. In other words, he doesn’t get too much to do this time around.

Which brings me to Stover’s flaws. As great as Shadows of Mindor is, it isn’t perfect. Stover seems to have a preoccupation with “in-universe” analogies and similes that gets a little tiring after a while, and his fluid, energetic, conversational style occasionally gets bogged down with overly-technical description that could easily be condensed from three paragraphs down to one with a bit more focus and a bit less “thirty turbolaser turrets aimed in a parabolic arc at the event horizons of the gravity wells” (not an actual quote, but you get the idea). But these happen infrequently enough that it’s forgivable, and most of his description of the action going on is simply breathtaking. There I go again, throwing out praise when I’m trying to point out flaws…

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is easily one of the best Star Wars books I’ve ever read. There, I said it. Sure, it’s a standalone, and its story doesn’t really affect the books that take place after it, but that’s okay. Stover isn’t concerned with setting up the future, he’s concerned with reveling in the past. Free of the baggage of the dozens of post-Jedi books released before it, Stover can tell a Luke Skywalker story that examines his character without having to worry about the changes Luke would go through as the EU went on. The story is tons of fun balanced out by some surprisingly dark existential philosophy, and as the battle rages on, things get so crazy and desperate that, even though you know the story continues on after, you start to think … maybe it doesn’t. Maybe this is where everyone ends up. Maybe Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, Artoo, Threepio, and Lando don’t make it out of this alive….

And that is something special. How Stover was able to make me fear for the lives of characters I knew would survive, I don’t know. But he did. And it was glorious.

As I said, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is a standalone, and as such can be read by anyone who’s seen the films without having to pick up another Star Wars book. There are a couple of returning EU-only characters (I won’t spoil them here), but I haven’t read the books or comics they originate from, and I wasn’t confused in the slightest. Mindor is readily accessible to any and all Star Wars fans, whether you’ve dipped your toes into the expanded universe or not.

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor: EXCELLENT – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The Truce at Bakura – Kathy Tyers

While Kathy Tyers’ 1993 novel The Truce at Bakura wasn’t the first post-Return of the Jedi novel to be published, it is the first in a story sense. Technically, it is preceded by Tales from Jabba’s Palace and the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, but as Bakura picks up directly after Return of the Jedi ends and focuses on the main cast of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, et. al., I’ve elected to begin my journey into the Star Wars Legends here.

cover art by Drew Struzan

The (chronological) beginning of the post-Return of the Jedi “Legends,” Kathy Tyers’ The Truce at Bakura picks up right where Jedi left off. In fact, it’s so soon after the destruction of the second Death Star that Luke is still suffering the ill effects of the Emperor’s Force-lightning attack against him. Before Luke can properly rest and heal, however, a distress call of sorts – intended for the Emperor – is intercepted by the Rebels. An alien fleet has arrived at the Imperial planet of Bakura. As Bakura is something of a backwater, only recently annexed by the Empire for its superior repulsorlift technology, there isn’t much of an Imperial garrison there to defend the world, and the invading Ssi-ruuk have gained the upper hand. It’s only a matter of time before the world is lost to the strange invaders. At the urging of Princess Leia and the still-recovering Luke, the Rebellion decides to intervene, and assist the Empire in defending Bakura, in the hopes that they might win the planet’s people to their cause and begin the process of transforming the Alliance from a band of rebels into a new government.

While there, Leia struggles with the new knowledge of her father’s identity, Han struggles to find some alone time with Leia to help their relationship grow, and Luke struggles with his new feelings for Bakuran Senator Gaeriel Captison, who harbors religious prejudices against the Jedi Order and an appreciation for the stability of Imperial rule. And among the Ssi-ruuvi fleet above Bakura, a lone, Force-sensitive, brainwashed human named Dev Sibwarra happily serves his captors, helping them to steal human souls to power the very weapons they use against the Bakurans, Empire, and Rebels alike – until Dev’s devotion is shaken when he senses the presence of Luke, a true Jedi master, among the people his masters fight to enslave….

Kathy Tyers’ novel manages to depart from the standard Star Wars formula while adhering to it at the same time. On the one hand, you have the Ssi-ruuk invasion of Bakura, which is something that wasn’t seen in any of the original three films; but on the other hand, you have the remains of the Empire at odds with the Rebel Alliance, which is about as Star Wars-y as you can get. Thankfully, Tyers manages to subvert this formula, forcing the Alliance and the Empire to work together to fight the alien invaders. Of course, it isn’t that simple, and while the wrinkles in the titular “truce” aren’t exactly surprising or unpredictable, Tyers still manages to find ways to make the twists and turns feel fresh.

Unfortunately, the novel gets off to a somewhat slow start. It takes Tyers a good 30-40 pages to really capture the characters we know and love in her dialogue, but once she does, Harrison Ford’s wry grin and Carrie Fisher’s biting sarcasm come off the page vividly. Luke is a bit trickier – it feels like Tyers is unsure how to write for a post-Jedi Luke Skywalker, which is understandable as he experienced so many life-altering events in the final film of the trilogy.

Which brings me to one complaint I had with Bakura – Obi-Wan. The only reason Luke gets out of his hospital bed to travel to Bakura – indeed, the main reason the Alliance leadership is convinced to go – is a visit from the ghostly form of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Couldn’t Luke have made the decision to go on his own? Wasn’t the whole point of Return of the Jedi that Luke had become his own master now? That he no longer needed Obi-Wan’s guidance? Or Yoda’s?

Frankly, this problem could have been solved by removing Luke’s early hospitalization. Sure, the Emperor’s lightning did some damage. We saw that in the movie. I don’t see why Luke needed to suffer further from it in the first quarter of the novel. It seems like Tyers was going for a theme of “recovery” in her story – Leia has to recover from the emotional pain of learning the truth about her parentage (more on that in a bit); Dev Sibwarra has to recover from his physical, psychological, and emotional torture at the hands of the Ssi-ruuk; Gaeriel has to recover from her prejudices against the Alliance and Jedi (a bit of a stretch, that…perhaps “recovery” is the wrong word); there’s even a character that makes a much more dramatic recovery later in the story. One could perhaps make the case that Bakura itself must recover from Imperial rule, too.

Even so, Luke is disappointingly inactive for much of the beginning of the story. Thankfully, this improves once the Alliance arrives at Bakura, and Luke gets to demonstrate his tactical skills as he commands the entire battle from the capital ship Flurry. I know we all like seeing Luke in the cockpit of an X-Wing, but I have to say, the guy’s got chops as a commanding officer.

The second issue I have with the novel lies in the second “Force ghost” that appears – Anakin Skywalker, this time to Leia rather than Luke. I don’t have an issue at all with Leia rejecting Darth Vader as her father, and having her work towards coming to terms with the idea. I do think it’s somewhat lazy to use Anakin’s ghost as the catalyst for her acceptance of him. It’s a realatively minor part of the story, and a relatively minor complaint.

Things pick up even as they slow down for the politics on the surface of Bakura itself. The Big Imperial Villain role, occupied in the past by the likes of Grand Moff Tarkin, Darth Vader, and the Emperor himself, is filled by Imperial Governor Wilek Nereus, who wants nothing more than to see Bakura remain under his power. There’s not much depth to Nereus, but frankly there doesn’t need to be. The role of Imperial Officer with Character Depth falls to Pter Thanas, a man of the Empire who was sent to the backwater world of Bakura as punishment for having a conscience. His conflict over his loyalty to the Empire and his aforementioned conscience is a particularly effective thread that Tyers runs through her book.

But to me, the most surprisingly effective character was Gaeriel Captison. While she mainly serves as a love interest for Luke, Tyers doesn’t write her as simply a pretty face for Luke to rescue. She supports the Empire for stabilizing Bakura and giving her an education, even as she recognizes the slow erosion of civil liberties taking place around her, and the religion she follows holds that Jedi are dangerous and disrupt the balance of the universe. Those two qualities immediately put her at odds with the Alliance as a whole and Luke in particular. Of course, she warms up to both over the course of the story, but it all feels like a natural progression of character development rather than her changing simply because the story requires it.

Tyers writes the story in such a way that each section tells the story from a particular character’s point of view. It’s not first-person – it’s actually rather similar to George R.R. Martin’s POV structure for A Song of Ice and Fire, though in Tyers’ novel, the point of view shifts within chapters as well. But by limiting each section to a certain character’s point of view, we get to delve more deeply into their thoughts and emotions, which is particularly effective for characters like Gaeriel and Dev.

Ah, Dev. Some of the best parts of Truce at Bakura don’t even feature Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Artoo, or Threepio, or any Rebels or Imperials. Large chunks of the book take place aboard a Ssi-ruuvi ship, told from the point of view of the most tragic character – Dev Sibwarra. Taught the ways of the Force by his mother, kidnapped at a young age by the Force-blind Ssi-ruuvi, brainwashed by them into using his Force sensitivity against other humans, Dev seems like little more than a villain at first, a traitor even. But by telling his story from his point of view, we feel his “love” for his captors. We feel how truly he believes he is doing the captured humans a kindness. And, though we know he’s been brainwashed, the true magnitude of the horror that’s been done to him doesn’t hit us until that brainwashing fades, and he realizes what he’s done – only for the Ssi-ruuk Bluescale to “renew” him once more, and again he’s a willing participant in the entechment of living humans.

And that’s what really sets Truce at Bakura apart from any Star Wars I’ve seen or read: the concept of entechment. The concept is difficult to fully understand at first, as we’re initially exposed to it through the twisted mind of the brainwashed Dev, but once the impact of what’s being done – human souls ripped from their bodies and used to drive battle droids that will capture more humans to be delivered to the same fate – really hits home, it’s hard to believe that you’re still reading a Star Wars novel. And that’s not a bad thing. Part of my concern for the future of Star Wars on film is a natural desire for nostalgia, but I don’t want to see Abrams’ sequel retread the same ground that the films before it have. I want to see something different, something I didn’t expect. And the threat of the Ssi-ruuk and their process of entechment in The Truce at Bakura has absolutely delivered on that idea for me.

There’s a lot to talk about in this novel. The climax is exciting, and the plan Governor Nereus hatches against Luke is almost as disturbing as the Ssi-ruuvi entechment process, and it does an excellent job setting the stage for the future of the Star Wars universe after Return of the Jedi. It’s not perfect – it takes Tyers time to get the feel of the characters down on the page, and the use of both Obi-Wan and Anakin’s spirits felt lazy to me, but other than that, I can wholeheartedly recommend The Truce at Bakura. I’m not certain how important the events of this novel will become to later story arcs, but Tyers’ novel is an excellent starting point for those wishing to step into the Star Wars Legends after Return of the Jedi ends.

I don’t like using a numbered rating system, so I guess I’ll do this instead from now on –

The Truce at Bakura: VERY GOOD

Welcome!

Welcome to “Legends of Star Wars,” a blog dedicated to the pre-Disney Star Wars Expanded Universe!

On October 30, 2012, the Walt Disney Company purchased Lucasfilm, Ltd., shortly thereafter announcing the production of a sequel trilogy of Star Wars films.

Many fans, myself included, wondered what this meant for the Expanded Universe of Star Wars. Would Disney/Lucasfilm be adapting existing stories for the new films? Would the films be set in the gaps between these stories? Or would the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe be ignored altogether?

We got our answer a year and a half later, on April 25, 2014. Not only would future films ignore the post-Jedi Expanded Universe, Lucasfilm as a whole would relegate the entirety of the Expanded Universe – from Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye to Dark Horse’s Dawn of the Jedi – to non-canon status. These stories, including the ones set before and during the prequel trilogy, now fall into the category of “Legends.”

This blog focuses on these works. Starting with post-Return of the Jedi material, I will be working my way through the material that, since 1991’s Heir to the Empire, has been our answer to the question, “What happened after?” While J.J. Abrams’ Episode VII will be the official answer when released, the stories we’ve enjoyed for the past 23 years shouldn’t be forgotten.

In story order, beginning with Kathy Tyers’ The Truce at Bakura and working my way up from there, “Legends of Star Wars” will primarily feature reviews of the Expanded Universe as it once was. I will also offer my opinions on which stories could be considered alternate-timeline “Episodes” in the Star Wars saga and which work best as standalone, side stories, and musings on what material from the Legends branch of the Expanded Universe might still “count” in the new Star Wars canon.

My hope is that “Legends of Star Wars” might serve as a guide for those who are interested in diving into the Expanded Universe, but might not know where to begin with the Legends material, while also sparking interesting discussion on Star Wars, the Expanded Universe, and the place the Legends now hold in the ever-expanding Star Wars saga.