Reading Materials
I tend to like most of the books I pick up at the bookstore, but every once in a while we find ourselves in mid-chapter asking each other, "Why did I buy this, again?"
Coruscant Nights: Jedi Twilight, by Michael Reaves, is one such example. In all fairness: I know exactly why I picked it up. I've got a tabletop character -- playing her Saturday, in fact -- in an Alternate Universe sci-fi mishmash that uses Star Wars as about three-fifths of its basis. She's a private investigator who turned out to have just barely enough Force sensitivity, twenty years after the Jedi Purge, for one of the remaining Jedi Council to take a "what the hell?" chance on training her.
Vanya's no Skywalker. I can't stand the "Child of Destiny" trope, myself, so the GM and I deliberately designed a character whose Jedi stuff would supplement the party and the plot, not prance about on center stage. She can't bounce blaster fire, nudge people's minds, envision the future or the past, heal physical wounds, or even SuperJump. She's a passably good investigator who can be sent off on minor errands without a Master along to play parent; she makes great support for a party vs. Reavers fight, but her reaction to a Sith wanting a confrontation is to send up the alarm and chuck obstacles to cover the party's retreat.
So here's a book that, going by the cover blurb (quoted on the Amazon page under "Product Description") offers an interesting take on the reverse: a bona fide Jedi who turns P.I. in the time between Episodes 3 and 4. Sweet, right?
No.
Honestly, I don't think the writer of the cover blurb read this book. I think it was someone who half-listened to the editor's summary, got some lunch, made a few calls, viewed the preliminary sketch of the cover art, and then dashed something off from memory.
Jax Pavan isn't a private eye. At most he's a bounty hunter. He's got a LOT of angst to work out, which I suppose is traditional for a main-character Jedi, but it's not even the sort of angst Mickey Spillane would consider. He's less effective at solving clues and fistfights than Inspector Gadget, so it's a good thing he quickly winds up with a large supporting cast, whether he wants them or not.
I couldn't get over the general sense that this was a PC who wanted to have a solo adventure, but bored the story lead so fast that the only solution was to retroactively shoehorn smarter, more action-efficient secondaries into the entire thing.
***
Alive in Necropolis, by Doug Dorst, is a straight-fiction novel about a cop in a town full of cemeteries. Its overarching theme examines the lengths to which love can lead various people to destroy their own futures: and though a few of the relationships have worthwhile, affirming and enhancing effects upon their principles and those around them, most of the characters proceed to wreck themselves to significant extent in the name of one "love" or another. A widow loves missionary work so much she needlessly burns through everything her late husband had set up for her retirement; a teenager deliberately covers up malicious tortures visited on himself so that one of the accessories might consider dating him.
Maybe if the plot had gotten past the introduction stage before the halfway point of the entire book, I might have found the whole amusing. Alas, I spent so much time wondering when things would start to happen that I kept falling asleep ... and, even when ill, I don't sleep with a book half-read! By the last sentence, I felt that the active plot had been moderately resolved, but so many of the other threads were "resolved" only in the sense of "sucks to have been THIS character" that I spent two days afterward feeling vaguely dejected. It doesn't even serve as a morality tale, really: no difference is shown between the successful pairing versus the requited-but-doomed sets. The message seems to be, "Don't get serious about anyone unless they've already gotten serious about you." What good is that?
***
Sacrifice and Service, by Catslyn, is one of the nine great regrets in my life. It's well-plotted, vividly characterized and described, containing a perfect ebb and flow of plot; and any online version of it I have ever found drifted into abandonfic, at best, about ten scenes before the conclusion. I keep this author and Eideann (of Highest Bidder fame) in my Autumn Equinox observance every year; I hope the troubles that clogged their storytelling will blow away with the fallen leaves, and some better spring will find them -- even if it finds them walking away from any stories I might see. They're great bards and have long since earned the little joys of creation.
Coruscant Nights: Jedi Twilight, by Michael Reaves, is one such example. In all fairness: I know exactly why I picked it up. I've got a tabletop character -- playing her Saturday, in fact -- in an Alternate Universe sci-fi mishmash that uses Star Wars as about three-fifths of its basis. She's a private investigator who turned out to have just barely enough Force sensitivity, twenty years after the Jedi Purge, for one of the remaining Jedi Council to take a "what the hell?" chance on training her.
Vanya's no Skywalker. I can't stand the "Child of Destiny" trope, myself, so the GM and I deliberately designed a character whose Jedi stuff would supplement the party and the plot, not prance about on center stage. She can't bounce blaster fire, nudge people's minds, envision the future or the past, heal physical wounds, or even SuperJump. She's a passably good investigator who can be sent off on minor errands without a Master along to play parent; she makes great support for a party vs. Reavers fight, but her reaction to a Sith wanting a confrontation is to send up the alarm and chuck obstacles to cover the party's retreat.
So here's a book that, going by the cover blurb (quoted on the Amazon page under "Product Description") offers an interesting take on the reverse: a bona fide Jedi who turns P.I. in the time between Episodes 3 and 4. Sweet, right?
No.
Honestly, I don't think the writer of the cover blurb read this book. I think it was someone who half-listened to the editor's summary, got some lunch, made a few calls, viewed the preliminary sketch of the cover art, and then dashed something off from memory.
Jax Pavan isn't a private eye. At most he's a bounty hunter. He's got a LOT of angst to work out, which I suppose is traditional for a main-character Jedi, but it's not even the sort of angst Mickey Spillane would consider. He's less effective at solving clues and fistfights than Inspector Gadget, so it's a good thing he quickly winds up with a large supporting cast, whether he wants them or not.
I couldn't get over the general sense that this was a PC who wanted to have a solo adventure, but bored the story lead so fast that the only solution was to retroactively shoehorn smarter, more action-efficient secondaries into the entire thing.
***
Alive in Necropolis, by Doug Dorst, is a straight-fiction novel about a cop in a town full of cemeteries. Its overarching theme examines the lengths to which love can lead various people to destroy their own futures: and though a few of the relationships have worthwhile, affirming and enhancing effects upon their principles and those around them, most of the characters proceed to wreck themselves to significant extent in the name of one "love" or another. A widow loves missionary work so much she needlessly burns through everything her late husband had set up for her retirement; a teenager deliberately covers up malicious tortures visited on himself so that one of the accessories might consider dating him.
Maybe if the plot had gotten past the introduction stage before the halfway point of the entire book, I might have found the whole amusing. Alas, I spent so much time wondering when things would start to happen that I kept falling asleep ... and, even when ill, I don't sleep with a book half-read! By the last sentence, I felt that the active plot had been moderately resolved, but so many of the other threads were "resolved" only in the sense of "sucks to have been THIS character" that I spent two days afterward feeling vaguely dejected. It doesn't even serve as a morality tale, really: no difference is shown between the successful pairing versus the requited-but-doomed sets. The message seems to be, "Don't get serious about anyone unless they've already gotten serious about you." What good is that?
***
Sacrifice and Service, by Catslyn, is one of the nine great regrets in my life. It's well-plotted, vividly characterized and described, containing a perfect ebb and flow of plot; and any online version of it I have ever found drifted into abandonfic, at best, about ten scenes before the conclusion. I keep this author and Eideann (of Highest Bidder fame) in my Autumn Equinox observance every year; I hope the troubles that clogged their storytelling will blow away with the fallen leaves, and some better spring will find them -- even if it finds them walking away from any stories I might see. They're great bards and have long since earned the little joys of creation.