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Here we go with Book 4 in the STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER series and the titles just keep getting longer.
It looks like I owe James Luceno an apology and a second chance. I’ve been enjoying this series quite a bit, but I was dreading starting this book because of my bad experience trying to read his SITH prequel novel, STAR WARS: LABYRINTH OF EVIL. While I found that book very scattered and difficult to read, I had no such complaints about AGENTS OF CHAOS I: HERO’S TRIAL.
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In STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – DARK TIDE II: RUIN, things get much worse.
The sub sub-title RUIN becomes very accurate by the end of the book. We now realize that the first wave of Yuuzhan Vong invaders (introduced in VECTOR PRIME) weren’t even warriors at all. They were essentially from the politician class and were eager to grab a few new planets. Since they botched the job, the warrior class has been sent in to finish the job and restore honor. The Yuuzhan Vong have their eyes on the peace-loving forest planet of Ithor.
So it falls to the Jedi Knights and the New Republic to defend the planet against all odds. There are a few side trips along the way, including a visit to Imperial space, where the last remnant of the Empire is licking its wounds. A primary focus of the DARK TIME duology is the Corellian Jedi Corran Horn. He’s a compelling non-movie character and author Michael A. Stackpole does a great job of fleshing him out and giving him a great arc.
It’s still strange to me that this story was split up into two different novels. It could have worked a lot better with a tighter focus and in a single volume. My main problem with this book is that there are so many subplots and all of them are given essentially equal importance. Some of the subplots seem only to exist to give the major characters something to do, such as Luke Skywalker’s pointless mission to hunt down a Jedi hellbent on getting her hands on a superweapon.
But I don’t attribute the subplot problem primarily to Stackpole. Since this is part of a multi-volume, multi-author series, there are threads that he has to carry throughout his books for the next writer to pick up. Some of these threads are bound to be more interesting than others. The way the story is structured so far makes it feel like the storyline for a long and really well-done STAR WARS television series. The strength of the story is really in the ensemble cast of great characters. When the NEW JEDI ORDER series slows down and takes time to focus on the characters, it becomes quite a page-turner.
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The NEW JEDI ORDER series continues with this two-book DARK TIDE series. The way these books are released continues to baffle me at times. What we have here is a two-book series set within a 20-book series set within the larger series of STAR WARS novels. It gets a little confusing at times. This book could technically be considered: STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – BOOK 2: DARK TIDE, BOOK 1: ONSLAUGHT. Yep. Pretty geeky.
All that aside, the NEW JEDI order storyline continues to be very cool. Author Michael A. Stackpole does a fine job of picking up where R.A. Salvatore left off in VECTOR PRIME. I still prefer Salvatore’s take on the material. VECTOR PRIME felt a little bit “pulpier” to me, whereas Stackpole takes a more technical approach.
In this second NJO volume, the New Republic politicians refuse to acknowledge the looking threat of the Yuuzhan Vong. This sends Leia out with a Senator on a fact-finding mission. Luke heads back to the planet where the threat was first detected. Han heads out to drown his sorrows in booze and never returns. So, in true STAR WARS style, we have various groups of characters split up and sent out on missions.
Stackpole has a big fan following because of his popular ROGUE SQUADRON series of books. In this book, Rogue Squadron plays a huge part and Stackpole goes into quite a bit of detail about the history of the squadron, how they operate and technical details about the ship. It’s surprisingly pretty entertaining. What I found less entertaining were the elaborately detailed battle sequences. These would play great on the big screen, but for me they don’t work on the printed page.
In addition to the focus on Rogue Squadron, this novel picks up story threads for dozens of characters and all are juggled really well. The non-movie characters have been developed to the point where they are just as interesting – if not more so – than the movie characters. While some of the battle sequences get a little long, they are more than made up for by the rest of the book.
Next up: STAR WARS: NEW JEDI ORDER 3: DARK TIDE 2: ONSLAUGHT. Sheesh!
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Mention the name Russ Meyer and the thing that immediately pops into people minds is “big tits.” This truly independent filmmaker built a career and made a fortune thanks to his preoccupation with oversized bosoms. What some people forget is that Meyer was a very talented photographer and editor.
BIG BOSOMS AND SQUARE JAWS is a briskly paced, highly entertaining read that covers Meyer’s life, his films and the supporting players in his life. Jimmy McDonough does a great job of balancing facts and enthusiasm. At times this book reads like a very well written fanzine in that it doesn’t approach the subject matter with dull, scholastic seriousness. It’s obvious McDonough had a great time writing the book and especially interviewing the Meyer starlets. To give you an example, here’s an example picked at random:
Uschi. Two syllables that evoke sweet dreams. There, beneath a ravenous grin that somehow managed to be more pornographic than old 42nd Street in all its glory, lurked a fleshy, sun-baked carcass with more curves than the Coast Highway — the sort of filthy figure that could even make a macrame dress look inviting. To a pimply adolescent, encountering an image of Uschi Digard for the first time was akin to the thrill of seeing Godzilla: taller than the tallest skyscraper and breathing fire.
McDonoughs prose propels the narrative forward, thrusting the reader into Meyer’s crazy, comic-book world. But as fun as this book is to read, it is a very comprehensive and thorough look at Meyer’s life. With a lot of autobiographies, I just scan through the first few chapters devoted to the persons parents and childhood. But the tale of Meyer’s upbringing, his first camera and his experiences during WWII were actually pretty engrossing and are well integrated with the themes of the rest of the book.
The part of the book I most appreciated was the focus on Meyer’s filmmaking techniques. Meyer was an auteur before the term became popular, producing, directing, shooting, editing and distributing his own films. His cinematography and editing is remarkable even today. He may have been obsessed with breasts, but for most of his career he had the filmmaking chops to support his predilections. The ending of the book is depressing as hell as Meyer succumbs to mental illness and is reduced to a drooling caricature of the man he once was. His estate is taken control of by his secretary and his films are now in desperate need of restoration. It’s an incredibly downbeat ending to this colorful story. The book is backed up with a comprehensive filmmography with a lot of detail on each film including when they have been released on home video and which ones are still available.
If you are a Russ Meyer fan, you probably already own this book (and if not, you should). But I would also recommend it to anybody with an interest in cinema that transcends the mainstream. This book covers a lot of film history that you won’t read about elsewhere and it also serves as a very compelling morality tale.
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I have been a closeted reader of STAR WARS novels for about a year now. I am honestly embarrassed to admit to people how much I enjoy them. Sure, there are a few duds in the bunch, but for the most part, they are pretty fun books. So I have decided to come out of the closet by starting a series of reviews here at BOOKGASM that will attempt to review all of them. This may be crazy, because at this point, I don’t even know how many of them there are.
First up is VECTOR PRIME, the first book in the NEW JEDI ORDER series. This series is set nearly 30 years after the events of the first STAR WARS movie. This means a lot of stuff has happened. The Empire and all its little spin-off factions have finally been crushed. Han Solo and Leia are married with three kids. Luke Skywalker has started up a Jedi Academy and has been training new Jedi as well as studying Jedi history trying to figure out what the fuck the midichlorians were all about. So our main characters are now pushing 50 and are looking forward to moving in some new directions. Leia has resigned her government duties. Luke is thinking about starting a New Jedi Council. Han is looking forward to taking it easy.
Fortunately, there is trouble brewing in the outer rim of the galaxy. There’s a mysterious race of extragalactic aliens who are planning a galactic invasion. The Yuuzhan Vong are unlike any race we have seen in STAR WARS so far. They are a technophobic, humanoid warrior race who are very into self-mutilation (they rip out their own eyeballs and fill the eyesockets with venom spitting creatures — that type of thing). I am simplifying things here, but writer R.A. Salvatore does a great job of setting up this new threat and fleshing out their very brutal and very alien culture. The first wave of their invasion is being conducted with utmost secrecy – to give them time to build up their forces.
As our heroes set to take care of a few seemingly easy missions, they begin to uncover clues that something bad is going down. In true Star Wars fashion they split up into several groups and the action commences. Salvatore makes this book really FEEL like one of the classic STAR WARS films. It’s action-packed without losing sight of the characters that make these stories so important. He nails the dialogue, structure and most importantly the pacing. This book was damn near impossible for me to put down. There are also a lot of new non-movie characters that are pretty compelling as well. These include Han and Leia’s kids who are about the age Luke and Leia were in the original trilogy.
One of the highlights of the book for me was the return of Lando Calrissian, who has a new mining operation that put Bespin to shame. I love how Lando is presented here as a pretty shady but sometimes heroic character. Han still doesn’t seem to trust him and true to character, Lando manages to let him down yet again. In fact, it is due to one of Lando’s schemes that the story takes a pretty dark turn, which I won’t spoil for you here.
One of the things that’s really interesting about how this story is developing is the way it comments on the storyline in the prequel trilogy. There is quite a bit of debate between Luke and other Jedi about his plans to re-establish the Jedi Council. History is beginning to repeat itself as the government is taken over by Jedi-hating politicians and many Jedi Knights are starting to go renegade.
This book is darker, grittier and more intense than any of the STAR WARS novels to date. Honestly, I don’t know how the rest of the series can live up to this one (I am particularly dreading the fact that the last novel in the series is written by James Luceno, who wrote the dreadful, damn near unreadable STAR WARS: LABYRINTH OF EVIL). I expect that the NEW JEDI ORDER will have it’s ups and downs but if the rest of the series even comes close to the potential glimpsed here, it will be one hell of a fun read.
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