Critical Myth-Interpretations

This is the mid-point of the “Legacy of the Force” saga, and as one would expect, this is the moment of truth for Jacen Solo.  At this point, the news is already out: Jacen is the new Dark Lord of the Sith, the heir to the legacy of Emperor Palpatine and Jacen’s grandfather Darth Vader.  No one expected the situation to somehow reverse itself, but by the end of the book, it’s hard not to wish that his fall might somehow be avoided.

Instead, Jacen assumes his place as Darth Caedus after he kills Mara Jade Skywalker, one of the most prominent characters from the birth of the Extended Universe.  This act makes redemption all but impossible.  Jacen is also positioned to take complete control of the Galactic Alliance, forging a New Empire in the process.  Even as Jacen’s journey is revealed to be the culmination of his entire life history, played out over dozens of novels, the parallels to the Prequel Trilogy are obvious.

Those parallels are hardly a negative for the books, at least not at this stage of the game.  The Legacy saga is doing a great job of exposing all the flaws in Lucas’ underwhelming attempt to tell the story of Anakin’s fall from grace.  The Legacy saga has all the politics and positioning, but none of the odd detachment and lack of creativity.  Jacen’s fall makes sense, and unlike Anakin’s conversion to Darth Vader, we’ll actually get to see the full measure of the struggle to bring things back into balance.

As strong as Jacen’s arc is, this book is hobbled by the same problem that undermined “Bloodlines”: the incredible amount of focus on Boba Fett and his family issues.  The resurgence of the somewhat confusing Mandalorians may eventually become a major aspect of the plot in the final act of the saga, but for now, one can’t help but wonder if a wider focus (including the Solos and their reactions to events) might have been more appealing.

There’s also still a sense of “padding” taking place.  With the “New Jedi Order” saga, despite its length, there was rarely a sense that the story wasn’t moving forward at a brisk pace.  This saga has a glacial pace by comparison.  Whatever the next arc of the story turns out to be, the editors might consider a tighter story, or at least one that doesn’t involve giving an author too much space to explore her own niche interests.

Rating: 7/10

I’ve said before that Cox is not one of my favorite tie-in novelists, because he seems to think he’s more clever than he is.  He comes across as the stereotypical fanboy, and beyond his excellent Khan novels (where it worked to his advantage), that tendency has been a detriment to his work.  That kind of thinking (and plotting) carries through in this novel, the first of the “APO Series”, set vaguely in the fourth season of the television series.

The book is riddled with continuity references, which is both a positive and negative development.  On the positive side, this helps to ground the book into the series more completely than the “Prequel Series” ever could, since the previous books were often too streamlined to delve into the pre-history of the series effectively.  Unfortunately, the attempt to incorporate continuity into the series brings about errors.

The most annoying error is the notion that Sydney had been with SD-6 for a total of five years before the events of the series itself.  That’s flatly contradicted by the continuity of the first couple seasons and the entire “Prequel Series”, books of which were written by writers on the show.  All of this is designed to give Sydney enough history with SD-6 to allow for a new villain from her past on the level of Anna Espinosa.  Instead, because that error comes early in the book and is repeated endlessly, it makes the author look sloppy.

On the positive side, the tone of the book seems to have evolved from the “young adult” mindset of the “Prequel Series”, which also includes some additional length.  It’s no longer possible to devour an “Alias” book in one quick sitting, so it feels more substantial.  Future installments will prove out the more mature treatment of the novels, in better keeping with the television series itself, but this is a good enough start for the format.

Rating: 6/10

This is the second book in the “Legends of Dune” trilogy, detailing the story behind the Butlerian Jihad and the formation of the various guilds and organizations critical to the setting of the original Frank Herbert classics.  With the Jihad underway, but the climactic Battle of Corrin still a book away, the authors were presented with quite a challenge.

I was fairly disappointed with the first novel, largely because of the inclusion of terms that were too “conventional” to fit within the Dune Universe.  Those issues still remain, but having been established, there’s not much to be done about it.  Omnius is still an incredibly bad name for the central power behind the “thinking machines”, a name Frank never would have used, and the less said about the cymeks, the better.

In fact, the scenes with the Titans and the “thinking machines” are the weakest material.  In this case, it might have been better to portray the “thinking machines” as something a bit more vague and undefined.  In other words, a “faceless enemy” of machines, rather than a group of cruel melodramatic villains posturing at every opportunity.

Granted, that is the difficulty with focusing on “enslaving thinking machines” (established in the original novels) as the enemy during the time of the Butlerian Jihad.  How does one portray such a thing?  How would billions of humans on thousands of worlds become slaves to “thinking machines”, and how would those machines interact and control humanity?  The answer provided by the authors is understandable, if non-ideal.  After all, why wouldn’t an artificial intelligence develop recognizable flaws like pride?  (A more clinical and cold approach, however, might have worked better.)

Taking all of that into account, the bulk of the novel centers on the human characters and the details of the Jihad, and while some of those story choices don’t always work as well as the authors would hope, most of the material fits very well into the established Dune universe and feels like something Frank Herbert might have intended.  I was pleasantly surprised to find myself accepting as much of the material as I was.

One item that I found hard to reconcile, however, was the transformation of Norma Cenva.  While there are specific links made to the power of the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers, none of the original novels ever pointed to the possibility of such a substantial physical transformation.  This is a minor moment in the story, but one with massive implications, and it simply doesn’t work within the context of the “Dune” mythos.

I also continue to have issues with the writing style.  I’ve never liked books with numerous short chapters, because it breaks the rhythm of the story, at least in my opinion, and it’s clear that the result is a trend in the writing that becomes annoying over the span of 650 pages.  Every new chapter recaps what happened before, sometimes in exactly the same language, advances the associated plot/character thread incrementally, and then hints at the next step in the same plot/character thread.

The result is somewhat shallow storytelling.  The writers, by chopping up the story, continually feel the need to spell things out to the most obvious level.  It’s one thing to do this for their own benefit, as scenes are written out of order and must later be assembled.  It’s another to take what could be a subtle and intriguing 350 pages after editing and massaging and leave it a bloated, oversimplified brick saved by mostly solid ideas.

Rating: 7/10

When “Enterprise” went off the air after four seasons of varying quality, the final episode brought fans of all stripes together by giving them something to revile.  Fans of “Enterprise” can refer to my review of the episode “There Are the Voyages” for a quick reminder of the sins of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

This book is essentially a refutation of nearly every element of that episode.  Consider that notion for a moment: the publishing arm of the Star Trek license has published a massive novel that exists for no other reason than to render one of the television episodes moot.  More than that, the story itself undermines any credibility that the episode might have had, with characters providing pointed criticism.  Trek novels have shown nuances unseen in episodes or differing perspective, but rarely with such inherent disrespect and derision for the original material.

That said, that disrespect and derision is completely warranted, so the book starts in the right place.  Like the original episode, the story is framed in a future period, decades after the “Next Generation” era that was the framework of “These Are the Voyages”.  This is meant to be the “true” history behind the “false” history shown in the episode, and on that level, it’s quite satisfying.  (It also fits very well into the Critical Myth concept!)  The characterizations are far more logical, and it leaves the door open for future tales.

In fact, had a fifth season of “Enterprise” emerged, this could have been the premiere, restoring Trip as a viable character and realigning events in a more logical fashion.  The rest of the characters get reasonable treatment, and the authors do a great job of reconciling the portrayal of the Romulans in “Enterprise” with the information given in the original series.  Besides, how can a novel with so much Shran fail to please?

The book, however, is not perfect.  The episode took place at the founding of the Federation; this book, by necessity, cannot reconcile that easily and still stand as a proper refutation and restoration.  It also portrays Archer as a determined, gritty hero, which was implied by the writing of the series but never convincingly communicated by Scott Bakula.

The book also courted controversy with the inclusion, at the very end, of a gay couple.  Basically, Trip is revealed to have a homosexual brother with a longtime partner (husband?), something that was never mentioned in the series itself.  In and of itself, this is hardly objectionable; the Trek mythos, in theory, would be more than accepting of same-sex couples.  All the same, the insertion of this item, late in the story, comes across as intrusive and unnecessary.  It adds nothing to the story.  Mangels and Martin have a tendency to incorporate homosexual characters into the majority of their stories, and while it sometimes works very well, it can sometimes be artless.  This would be one of those instances, and while some of those objecting are probably bigots, there are objective reasons to disagree with its inclusion.

Rating: 8/10