Friday, May 18, 2012

Book Review #6

Well, it's taken some time, but here's my new book review!  I'm sure many who call themselves Star Wars geeks have heard of Timothy Zahn's classic Heir to the Empire.  In fact, most of you have probably read it.  This review is not about that book, nor is it about its terrific sequels (Yes, I just said that) Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command.  It also is not about either of the books in Zahn's Hand of Thrawn duology.  No friends, this is about the first Zahn Star Wars novel to be published by Del Rey, Survivor's Quest.

For those of you who don't know much about the behind-the-scenes history of the Star Wars EU (Expanded Universe), let me give you a short crash-course.  Back when the original movies were coming out, novelizations were published by Del Rey (Also the original publishers of the Belgariad, the book series I reviewed several months ago), along with a few spin-off books of their own.  Then Bantam Spectra aquired the license, and 1991 they published Heir to the Empire, to massive acclaim.  This was followed by the rest of Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, and soon many authors were publishing the continuing adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, Lando (ever notice that three out of the four core human names start with L?), Chewie, C-3P0, R2-D2, and new additions from Zahn, Mara Jade and Talon Karrde.  This went on until December of 1999, when the last Bantam Star wars book was published, and the license was given back to Del Rey.  According to my friend N'eligahn, the first question they asked when they got the license back was "Who can we kill?".  To be fair, Simon Furman asked the same thing when he was offered the chance to write the series finale of the classic cartoon "Beast Wars: Transformers", but he was an acclaimed writer from the comics, and it was understood that here, the story would actually be GOOD.  Then Lucas established that the only non-killable charecters were Luke and Leia.  And sure enough, the first new novel by them kills off Chewbacca.  Yep, it's fairly obvious what their stance on the books is.  Anyways, onto the review.

Survivor's Quest

Our story starts three years after Luke and Mara got married (Thank you Zahn!  That was a godsend!), and they've been contacted by Admiral Parck (from the Empire of the Hand) who tells them the Chiss (Grand Admiral Thrawn's species) want them to join a ship they're sending to the ruins of the Outbound Flight, which was destroyed by Thrawn just before Revenge of the Sith.  The Chiss, feeling guilty about the whole thing, want to make amends and pay their respects.  Some other noteworthy passengers include Parck's son, who is now in command of the famed 501st, a man posing as a New Republic ambassador, and member's of a species that seem to think Outbound Flight saved them from the dreaded Vagaari (whom we've never heard of untill now.)  This is where my first two problems with the story lie: how the heck did Outbound Flight crash (with most of the ships INTACT) when it was established in an earlier Zahn book that it was UTTERLY DESTROYED, and only ONE ship BARELY survived.   Thank you for giving continuity the bird, Del Rey.  Another thing I need to mention, it's also established that even though Luke and Mara have been married for three years, they still, haven't been able to spend much time with each other, given all the problems in the galaxy that we don't know about.  And still, we hardly touch on that.  Anyone else noticing a distinct decline in quality from Zahn's original works?  Anyways, the ship is repeatedly sabotoged on the trip there, and suspicions arise, and whatnot.  They finally reach their destination and discover their are survivors from the crash.  Huge plot twist, right?  I haven't mentioned this yet, but we're about halfway through the book already, and very little charecter development has happened.  Then we discover that the 'gentle' aliens were really the Vagaari all along, and they want Outbound Flight for some reason that isn't really explained.  It's also established that the survivors of the OF hate Jedi for yet another reason the book doesn't explain.  Again, I'm wondering just how much of a hand Zahn had in the overall story of the book, because it certainly seems he was just hired to put the pre-written outline onto paper.  Anyways, the aliens are stopped, the good guys win, blah blah blah, you know the drill.  So that's Survivor's Quest.  A Timothy Zahn book that feels nothing like it.  Nice job, Del Rey.  You produced yet another crappy book, and worst of all, you got one of my favorite authors involved.  Seriously people, stick to Bantam's books and leave the rest to rot.  You'll thank me later.