Timothy Zahn Heir to the Empire (1991)
Excepting Marvel comics drawn by Carmine Infantino, I have no strong feelings regarding Star Wars. The films are sort of watchable, mostly, but I can usually take or leave them. The reason I ended up reading this, a novel representing the return of Star Wars at time of publication, is admittedly thin - mainly just curiosity about Grand Admiral Thrawn, as seen in fleeting images posted here and there on the internet.
'Read Timothy Zahn's novels,' I was told when asking about this character with blood red eyes and blue skin. 'They're really good.'
I was therefore prepared for something like Stephen Baxter writing Star Wars, or at least Alastair Reynolds. I've heard good things about Timothy Zahn, so hopefully Heir to the Empire isn't representative. It isn't terrible, and truthfully it's surprisingly breezy for a novel of four-hundred pages girth, but neither is it great, and what I take from having read it is that Star Wars doesn't work as the written word. Star Wars is supposed to be on a massive screen and is as such an exercise in scale and speed. Reduced to the written word it simply becomes four-hundred pages of stage directions, descriptions of fights - fights which sound a lot like something we've already seen - all strung together as a narrative which serves mainly to expose how little actual character is involved in this story. It's like novelising the paintings of Leonardo - page after page describing what we would see if we were to look at the things. Star Wars is essentially ridiculous, Flash Gordon with space wizards, a tale which harks back to those pre-Vietnam engagements wherein heroes remained heroes even after they came home and warfare still had a noble aspect. These details are easily lost in the cinematic spectacle, but as written word they're hard to miss and become intrusive.
It wasn't actually unenjoyable and was probably better than The Return of the Jedi, but then I doubt I'll bother with the other two parts of this particular trilogy. The person who described Heir to the Empire as amazing attends comic book conventions dressed as a Star Fleet officer. I should have trusted my instinct.
Excepting Marvel comics drawn by Carmine Infantino, I have no strong feelings regarding Star Wars. The films are sort of watchable, mostly, but I can usually take or leave them. The reason I ended up reading this, a novel representing the return of Star Wars at time of publication, is admittedly thin - mainly just curiosity about Grand Admiral Thrawn, as seen in fleeting images posted here and there on the internet.
'Read Timothy Zahn's novels,' I was told when asking about this character with blood red eyes and blue skin. 'They're really good.'
I was therefore prepared for something like Stephen Baxter writing Star Wars, or at least Alastair Reynolds. I've heard good things about Timothy Zahn, so hopefully Heir to the Empire isn't representative. It isn't terrible, and truthfully it's surprisingly breezy for a novel of four-hundred pages girth, but neither is it great, and what I take from having read it is that Star Wars doesn't work as the written word. Star Wars is supposed to be on a massive screen and is as such an exercise in scale and speed. Reduced to the written word it simply becomes four-hundred pages of stage directions, descriptions of fights - fights which sound a lot like something we've already seen - all strung together as a narrative which serves mainly to expose how little actual character is involved in this story. It's like novelising the paintings of Leonardo - page after page describing what we would see if we were to look at the things. Star Wars is essentially ridiculous, Flash Gordon with space wizards, a tale which harks back to those pre-Vietnam engagements wherein heroes remained heroes even after they came home and warfare still had a noble aspect. These details are easily lost in the cinematic spectacle, but as written word they're hard to miss and become intrusive.
It wasn't actually unenjoyable and was probably better than The Return of the Jedi, but then I doubt I'll bother with the other two parts of this particular trilogy. The person who described Heir to the Empire as amazing attends comic book conventions dressed as a Star Fleet officer. I should have trusted my instinct.
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