I'm trying out a new feature here in my little bloggy world. Michael Berube used to have his "Theory Tuesdays" and Slacktivist has his "Left Behind Fridays," so here at Scott Paeth's Semi-Daily Blog, we will have "Geek Fridays" wherein I will comment on, well, things geeky (science fiction, fantasy, comic books, role-playing games). Since I know that several of my fellow geeks check this blog out from time to time, if nothing else this will give them another reason to check in.
For my inaugural Geek Friday post, I will be writing about Aaron Allston's Betrayal, the first novel in a new series of Star Wars books called "Legacy of the Force." It begins the story of Jacen Solo's (son of Han Solo) descent into the Dark Side of the Force.
Upfront, the first thing that I have to say about this novel is that it doesn't suck. While that may seem to be damning with faint praise, believe me when I say that "doesn't suck" is a high bar for any Star Wars novel to reach. As a general rule, they are some of the most poorly written books I have ever read in my life. Some of them are completely unreadable, and the ones that I have been able to get through have nevertheless left me wincing at points. So the fact that Allston has written a Star Wars novel that is at least readable and enjoyable is quite an accomplishment. Dostoyevsky it ain't, but that's not what I come to the Star Wars universe for.
For those who follow Dark Horse's line of Star Wars comics, the Legacy era may be familiar, since it is the subject of a new line of books that began last year. In the Legacy era, the Jedi have once again been purged, there is a new Sith emperor on the throne, the New Republic has been wiped out, and the last few beleaguered jedi, play a game of hide-and-seek with the new Emperor's Sith minions.
But wait, lest you think that we're back in the Palpatine era, things are a lot more complicated, and Betrayal begins to tell the story of those complications. In the first place, by the beginning of the novel, the New Republic is already dead, replaced by a Galactic Alliance as a result of the Yuuzhan Vong war. The remnant of the Old Empire, led by Admiral Pellaeon as been incorporated into the Galactic Alliance.
Eventually, we know from the comics, Pallaeon declares a new Empire, and a new class of force-using warriors emerge -- the Imperial Knights. Neither Jedi nor Sith, their loyalty is to the Emperor. When the Sith Dark Lord Darth Krayt seizes the throne, the Imperial Guard go into exile with the true Emperor. So we now have three classes of force-user -- the Jedi who follow the light side, the Sith, who follow the dark, and the Imperial Knights who follow neither. They are the quintessential "Gray Jedi."
Meanwhile, the descendents of Luke Skywalker are almost entirely wiped out in the new Jedi purge. All but
his great (?) grandson, Cade Skywalker. Cade is tormented and morally conflicted, and a far more interesting character than the goodie two shoes Jedi of so many other Star Wars products. He's actually on a moral journey, and it's not immediately obvious where he'll end up.
And this brings us back to Betrayal. I just finished it last night, and was very favorably impressed with the way it dealt with the moral conflicts inherent in Jacen Solo's character. Over the course of many novels, Jacen has himself developed into a deeply morally ambiguous and conflicted protagonist, sometimes doing evil for what he believes to be the best of intentions, and at the same time recognizing it as evil. He doesn't appear to be making excuses for himself as he vears down the path of the dark side, but looking into the future and believing that the outcomes flowing from his actions will be the best overall in the end.
I was rather shocked, I must confess, by the end of the novel, to see the lengths to which Jacen will go to avoid the future that he sees before him. It's not that the novel portrays him as sympathetic and then sets him up to fall. From the beginning, we can see that his fall is inevitable. We can watch the pieces fall into place, and hope that perhaps there will be some redemption before the end, but when he takes his irrevocable act at the end of the novel, it flows directly from the character we meet in the first few pages.
Many, including myself, were pretty turned off by the Anakin Skywalker character in the second Star Wars trilogy. George Lucas did such a terrible job of making him a character who made sense that for the most part I skipped around the character development parts of the DVD to get to the lightsaber battles. In the end, even the voice of James Earl Jones couldn't save Anakin Skywalker from receiving a fatal does of "melodrama cheese." The fact that he actually shouted "Nooooooo!" at the end was just too, too much for me.
Jacen is a much more compellingly drawn character. I am going to be interested to see how events develop over the next several novels, and in particular to see how the Correllian insurrection will lead inexorably to the rise of the new Empire and set the context for the Legacy era.
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