My Poor Faith In Humanity...

I've got to admit something... I'm something of an optimist about humanity. I can't help it, it's part of being a big fan in speculative fic. Even the most despairing versions of a dystopic futures are, at least to me, about the innate survivability of the species.

Yet, tonight... tonight it has been broken, beyond all belief.

You see, tonight, I went on a movie date with my beloved wife. We went to see The Proposal.

And as it started there was a preview for the upcoming movie New Moon.

Now, that in and of itself, is not that bad. What was bad was that a group of teenaged girls a few rows ahead of us clapped at the end of it.

Clapped.

And cheered.

As this happened, I felt my faith in humanity, and my hope in the future intelligence of my species, just... break.

Maybe one day I'll get it back... let's see what happens at the previews for the upcoming Harry Potter movie...

Review: Fate of the Jedi: Omen

Today's review is for the second novel in the Fate of the Jedi series, entitled Omen (ISBN: 978-0-345-50912-3). The premier Star Wars novel by author Christie Golden, Omen clocks in at 236 pages (not counting the 15 page or so preview of the next novel). Ms. Golden is a rather prolific writer, especially in the category of media tie-ins where she's done work for that other space franchise and Warcraft. So, with both of those factors (i.e. that she's never done Star Wars but has done media tie-ins) in mind, I delved into novel quite ready and willing to forgive minor characterization and continuity issues that may have sprung up.

Alas, I have once again been betrayed by my mere expectations of performance.

And not for the better. But more on that later.

For, there is something that desperately needs to be brought up here. Which is I'm Henry VIII, I Am. Now, the reason for this, is that the bridge to this song from the 1st and 2nd verses is thus: Second verse, same as the first. Which, sadly, is a fairly accurate description of this book.

The plot has 3 main pathways: crazy Jedi, Luke and Ben's spirit journey and the other plot point. The crazy Jedi path reads pretty much like a duplicate of the path from Outcast in which a Jedi goes bonkers, ranting and raving and then is captured. Since nearly a third of the novel is dedicated to this, it feels derivative and unoriginal. Worse, it feels like a rehashing of the the first quarter of Outcast.

But that still left us with 2 plot lines in which to get excited about. Or it would if one could get excited about Luke & Ben's little journey of self-discovery. Unfortunately, I couldn't. Again, a plot line needs something in which we become invested in it. It needs an element of suspense or danger, or just something which means we get emotionally invested in the characters; it was this something which I found lacking in this plot thread.

Ultimately, I did find the 3rd of the threads compelling. I was excited to read about the character, and wanted more of it. Which is scary--the information focusing exclusively on the nominal bad guys of the series should not be the most compelling and emotionally involving of your plot lines. There's something off about that, and that fact damages the rest of the book.

The reason for the compelling nature of this 3rd plot line can be attributed to the main character which inhabits it: Vestara Khai (a Sith Tyro and apprentice). She's probably one of the better characters introduced lately. I enjoyed her a lot more than any of the young Jedi apprentices that we've seen recently, and sadly, I'm more interested in knowing what happens with her character than I am about the mental-break-down Jedi.

Of course, Vestara gets only a short amount of the book focused on her. We also have Cilghal, Jaina, Jysella Horn, and Luke and Ben Skywalker to look at. Overall, Ms. Golden has a firm hand on these characters. In the broad strokes, she gets their personalities and major character quirks. In general, she does a good job.

But she falters in the fact that it doesn't read quite right. For example, she has in one scenario, where Ben and Luke are enjoying a meal together this line: "But right now, they were simply two bachelors eating dinner and talking, and formality had gone out the air lock, and Luke didn't mind one bit."

This is fail. Major, utter, fail. First, Luke is fundamentally a farmboy. That is one of the defining aspects of who he is, he was raised in what amounts to a backwater city, on a farm. To be blunt, he's a redneck hick, who fixes his own tractor and likes to shoot and drive fast. While I was not raised on the farm itself, my grandparents were the equivalent of Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. Additionally, my dad was raised in one of those backwater towns. It's instilled in me that you eat properly, and you don't talk with your mouth full. It's not a matter of formality, it's a matter of respect. Likewise, my sons get in trouble for doing so.

Secondly, it just doesn't ring... true that a father would think of him and his teenaged son as two "bachelors." That phrase has certain connotations, the least of which is that they're on the prowl for the next proverbial piece of meat--and I'm not talking about the nerf everyone seems to be eating in this book. Additionally, the use of the word is simply wrong there. Since I am married, I can never again be a bachelor. It is an impossibility for me to be one. I can be a widower or a divorcee, but I can never again be a bachelor, as by definition it is either a human male who has never been married, or in general biology, a male who has not mated. Of course, this two things could all be my own biases flowing through, but it was a rather shocking turn of phrase, and knocked my suspension of belief on its head.

Ignoring the Skywalker boys, I have two other character complaints. The first of these is related to Jysella Horn. I cannot call it a characterization issue, as she has had no characterization prior to this point. But, she and her friends call their little clique "The Unit" and they continue to use that phrase well into their mid-twenties. Which seems a bit childish, or juvenile to me. I realize that in the Star Wars galaxy 80 is the new 40, but I did not realize that that implied that 20 was the new 13.

Additionally, why "The Unit?" I mean, Jagged Fel came up with better phrases and names than that for his date. Couldn't one of these four have at least a bit of creativity? Maybe the "Big Guy" whose defining characteristic was "big, slightly dumb brute," but no, everyone in "The Unit" is just a mere cardboard characters that were needed for what is effectively a juvenile-reader trope.

But speaking of Jag's creative naming brings me to the other complaint: why do Jaina and Jag go through so many hurdles in order to have a date? Let's look at this, the two lovebirds arrive at a restaurant, walk inside the restaurant together, and then jump through a dozen hoops in order to go somewhere else for dinner (or was it just an implied booty call)? He's the leader of the Empire and the son of an Imperial Baron, and she's the daughter of Princess Leia and General Han Solo--they should be used to a little bit of aggressive journalists and seeing their names in the sludgenews. Above that, they knew that the reporters were going to report on their movements, and the fact that they were having a date with one another. They weren't even hiding that, so why all the cloak and dagger nonsense again?

Now, as I stated earlier in this review, I was expecting some minor continuity errors and things of that nature. What we got instead was a proverbial slap in the face of continuity. I almost wrote a few hundred words here about the Jedi Temple, but realized that it's just as easy to say look up the history of the Temple of Wookiepedia and then re-read the fifth paragraph of page 10. Then 2 pages later, she speaks on how the Jedi Temple was "home" and how it was a "special place" for every Jedi, when earlier works have made it clear that their home base were Yavin IV and then Ossus. Luckily, that was the worse offense in regards to continuity flubs--or I just stopped looking for them after page 15.

The theme here was non-existent. I could not find one. There was nothing in this book that screamed (or whimpered for that matter) "Hey! I'm a lesson!" There were a number of short fights, but again, there was no HERO who struggled against overwhelming odds. There is nothing ominous about this novel, and only 1 literal possibility to explain the title. I have literally nothing to put here, and to me it seems that this was merely media-tie-in writing at its worst; it feels as if the author did not have a story to tell, she had a series of events to describe.

All that said, this was still an enjoyable read. It probably won't be one of those novels that I consistently return to, but it was well-paced, the style and tone works wonderfully with Allston's and unless Denning makes changes to his, will work well with his. And I'm interested in this new character--though I'm left wondering about the rather specific age that she's been given. Especially in how it relates back to Ben.

Now, here's the sad part. Taken entirely out of context, and by itself, I would have rated this book an acceptable Star Wars novel. Not as odious as some, but a bit better than others. Unfortunately, it has two major strikes against it for me to do that.

The first is that it cannot be taken as a stand alone novel, it must be compared to the novel immediately prior to it since this is part 2 of Fate of the Jedi. In that it fails. It reads like a repeat of the first novel for too much of the book. I constantly had the sense of "been here, done this" which is a horrible feeling for a brand new hard back novel. This leads me to actually dread the next book, because I fear my brain will stop repeating I'm Henry VIII, I am and start repeating This is the song that never ends...

The second strike against it is that it is short. At 236 pages it just did not feel like enough content to justify a hard-back price. It is noticeably thinner than any other hard cover novel which I have paid more than US$25 for. That coupled with the fact that one comes out of the novel feeling as if large portions of it are mere rehashes, is horrible. If the Powers That Be had built this series the same way that they had done Legacy of the Force, with 3 hardcovers and 6 mass-market paperbacks, this wouldn't be an issue. After all, a lot can be forgiven, especially size-wise, when one has purchased a $7-8 paperback as opposed to a nearly $30 hardback.

This is sad, because this wants to be a good book. It wants to be the fun escapism that one expects from Star Wars. Unfortunately, it is lacking. It's lacking cohesion as the three plot lines only tangentially touch. It's lacking a traditional protagonist/antagonist structure, as we still do not have a Campellian Hero, and worse, the most compelling character is our erstwhile villain. It's lacking because it feels more like the YJK than the Black Fleet Crisis. It's lacking, because it's just not enough story to warrant a $27 hardcover.

In the end, I fear that this can only receive a 0.8 out of 4.

Finally, and this had no bearing on my review score, but I despised what happened on the last page. Just utterly annoyed me to no end.

Second Verse, Same as the First!

Much in the same way that the fabled "I'm Henry the VIII, I am" verse ends with the above title, so is that how I felt when I finished the recent entry in the Fate of the Jedi series, Omen.

But more about that when I finish writing up my review.

Sadly, that's not the only sad bit about SF I have from this weekend. I went to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and was utterly underwhelmed. It's an eighth of the plot of the first one, and half again longer.

Frankly, that's two major genre releases that have been rather dismal failures at the movie theater. That leaves us with the following to pull out a decent summer movie season:

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
• 9

There's just nothing else on the list until James Cameron's Avatar that interests me.

That said, there was one thing of interest from going to see Transformers, and that was the The Last Airbender teaser. Now, I have seen it on the computer already, but these things just have a better feel when they're projected in forty feet of light. I just hope that it has at least half of the awesome from its source material, and that the director in question will be able to channel at least half of the awesome from Unbreakable.

Big note to M. Night--there doesn't have to be a trick reveal. Please, just don't.

Alas, that's my SF geekery recap, now, I'm off to get ready for work...

The Last AirBender Teaser

Thanks to OhNoTheDidnt over on LJ, I have now seen The Last Airbender teaser trailer, and it is goood :D

Monday Morning Rambling-Post Dad's Day Edition 09

Ah, here I am, once again finding myself realizing what a long time since I last pushed something out on this blog. As has been so often the case, this is due to the sheer amount of work which I've been doing recently.

Of course, my life isn't all work and no play, I've gone to see Star Trek twice now, and my two geeks-in-training are coming along quite nicely.

In fact my youngest has been watching so much Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, that he's taken to doing two things, the first is that he's taken to playing out the various scenes using his Galactic Heroes figures.

Which isn't the worse of the possible things that can be done in regards to Episode III.

No, the other thing that my youngest has decided makes the perfect thing to do is thrust out his hands, with his fingers splayed out, and announces, "Power!"

I'm not sure if I should be amused by his play-acting skills, or terrified that he has decided to play-act Darth Sidious.

Oh well, I'm certain that either way one looks at it that it's a good thing. At least that's what I tell myself at night.

Of interest as well is the fact that I downloaded teh Hulu desktop client and have been watching anime on it. Soukou no Strain and Bleach are both there, and it's quite a bit of fun to be watching Bleach again.

Alas, it's now time to head off towards work, here's hoping that I'll have time from here on out...

Fan-Made Green Lantern Trailer

Now, I think this rocks!! Also, Nathan Fillion works great as Hal Jordan.

Cute but Clueless

I was at lunch just a bit ago. Since it was Cinco de Mayo, me and the Beloved Wife went to a Mexican restaurant in the area. Now, in the normal course of events, that's not a big deal. The Beloved Wife loves her some Mexican food (much like me and my sushi), but today since they were busy, we were sat in one of those two-person tables, with one side of it fairly close to an 8 top table.

Now, here's the grand part.

The party their filled, the table, and closest to me and the Beloved Wife, were a man and a woman, both in what I'd guess to be their mid to late twenties.

In the course of a discussion of upcoming movies, the man, quite rightly so, stated, "I can't wait for G.I. Joe to come out."

The girl across from him, gets this nice confused look on her face, and replied, "What?"

At this point, a reasonable person, would have condescendingly patted the poor unlettered girl on the head, and made some comment about her not knowing anything. Sadly, the man wasn't that reasonable.

His response, "Well, you know guys, we're all just little boys at heart. We love our science fiction and action adventure movies. This one is based on G.I. Joe."

So, Ms. Unlettered, pushed her plate away from her, and placed her hands on the table to either side of it. Then she leaned forward slightly, and in utter, and total sincerity, responded, "Oh, I so know what you mean." She then glanced from side to side furtively, before continuing. "I mean, I actually own G.I. Jane."

Then, quite oblivious to the look of shocked confusion on the man's face, and even the amazed incredulity on my Beloved Wife's, she continued talking!

"And I also own Indecent Proposal."

Now, just so everyone was clear on things, because the guy was starting to sputter as his poor brain attempted to formulate a response, she then added in. "Because you know Demi is just awesome. I mean, whenever I watch G.I. Jane, I get so pumped up, and spend a few weeks constantly working out, hoping to be as tough as she is there."

Of course, at this point, she must have realized the grave error which comparing oneself to the Demi was, for she finished up this brilliant thought with, "But then I just get lazy again and eat an Oreo."

Before too long, the group finished their meal, and removed themselves from the restaurant. Which is probably a good thing, Ms. Unlettered was on her second margarita and I doubt that she'd have anything more intelligent to say with the consumption of a third.

Once they were gone, and me and the Beloved Wife had free reign to begin the inevitable laughter, with a smirk on her face, my Beloved Wife dubbed Ms. Unlettered, "Cute, but Clueless."

Freaky Mondays

I love a good marketing ploy as much as the next guy. Especially one aimed at kids, and their parents. But sometimes, enough is enough.

What brought that one? Why the discovery of this picture:

I had flashbacks to that scene in Alien, where the monster comes ripping out of that guys chest.

Then I had flashbacks to Total Recall.

Still trying to figure out which one made me feel worse, but I'm thinking Total Recall.

Of course talking about flashbacks, StarWars.com has released an image of their new t-shirts in which they take a classic piece of artwork by Ralph McQuarrie and turn it into an abomination promoting their rather ugly characters from the Clone Wars television series.

It's one of those things which make me cringe upon seeing it.

In honor of that, I have created this:Well, I was amused.

Now that I have that out of my system, it's time to start thinking about the upcoming summer movie season. It is after all, the time of the year when genre movies seem to get released the most.

Anyways, on my list for things I absolutely must see are:

• Star Trek
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• 9
• Where the Wild Things Are
• Astroboy
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
• G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra

And of course, there are things that I want to see, but am willing to forgo (or at least happily wait for DVD):

• Battle for Terra
• Pandorum
• 2012
• Planet 51
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Angels & Demons
• The Time Traveler's Wife

Well, that's enough lists for this week I think.

Monday Ramblings for 4/20/09

I know that it's no longer morning, but I still managed to get out today's rambling. And in honor of the day, though why it needs honoring I have no clue, except for maybe the two things geek that I've really enjoyed watching the past few days--or at the least made me laugh.

The first was the awesome movie, Fido. This came to my attention via a discussion on Zombies, and I have to say it is one of the best zombie movies I've seen. I laughed. Then I laughed some more. And even my beloved wife--no big fan of zombies mind you, she didn't even particularly like Shaun of the Dead--laughed.

The second one, which I enjoyed less than Fido, was a recent episode of CSI. Specifically, the episode featuring the Star Trek spoof, and the SF Fandom convention. Good times, though the jokes were a bit labored, and harbored that whole "let's point at the geeks and laugh" vibe.

Regardless, it is now time for me to return to my labors, and finish what I'm trying to get done.

Review: Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast

The latest in post-RotJ Star Wars EU is a 302 paged book from Aaron Allston entitled Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast (ISBN: 978-0-345-50906-2). Which for ease of use, and general laziness on my part, I shall henceforth refer to it merely as Outcast. Outcast was a fun, fun ride, a continuation of the trend, started by Millennium Falcon, that replaced the NJO/LotF focus on depressing, non-fantasy story lines. Set 40 years after A New Hope, it begins with a tight focus on Valin Horn's situation where he's coming under the sway of what I can only assume is the major plot point of Fate of the Jedi--a plot point which is described on the dust jacket as "a mysterious psychotic break." While the novel itself was a fun read, well-paced, nicely structured, and generally oozing the "feeling" of the GFFA, I was still left with the feeling of something being off.

I must confess something here, even after two reads, I'm still trying to figure out just what the plot is for this story. There's a lot happening, and a lot of characters doing things, but it's not really tightly coupled together with a plot. As stated above, we have this nice defined "A" plot involving psychotic Jedi, and there's the whole peace summit that folks are talking over, and suddenly, we're dealing with three distinct groups, doing three distinct things, none of them really related to what I perceived as the A or B plots from the opening chapters of the novel.

Ultimately I think the problem is in the fact that there's not a clear-cut villain for any of the various plot points which our cast-of-heroes find themselves. The only exception would be the one of the narrative thread bit where the environment itself is the antagonist. We have all these narrative threads--and no true antagonists in any of them. Sure, the protagonists are doing things against people (or the environment) but none of them come across as a threat to the hero; they're just macguffins to get through.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I just enjoy a book more when there's an overarching reason for the novel; when there's a good guy and a bad guy.

In the end, I think what we're seeing here, is what one often sees in the first chapter of a Dean Koontz novel; it's the section where people tangentially related to the plot, but aren't a focus of the story. do things to let you know that bad things are happening.

Speaking of people, the protagonists here are the usual mixture of Star Warriors in the form of the remaining heroes from the movies and their remaining children. In fact, the Dramatis Personae is somewhat... lacking this time around. For the start of a nine-book series, Outcast only features eleven characters in the DP (for comparison, Betrayal had 28 characters listed). What's sadder, is that if they had added just one more character to the DP, then it would've just been a listing of POV characters rather than the list of characters that play a role in novel--and no, they're not the same thing.

But, even then, we can cull our list of characters further, gathering just Luke, Ben, Jaina, Han and Leia as primary--and by extension important--characters.

First, Luke Skywalker, hero extraordinaire, and beloved Jedi Master--actually remembers what it means to be those things. He's wise, he's decisive, and he's not scared of silly soldiers with blasters and itchy trigger fingers. But above that, this book manages to successfully pull off what both LotF and the NJO failed to do: which is remove Luke as the power-house that can solve the problems of the overarching plot in 5 minutes, and thus leave the Fate of the Jedi "A" plot to the little Jedi to plod along until end of the nine books (which I have a bad feeling will feature Luke returning and setting things right). The thing is those earlier stories did remove him as instant problem solver, but they did so at the cost of his characterization. Allston managed to do this, and still keep him as the decisive hero that Luke is supposed to be.

The only thing that left me annoyed with his characterization here was a discussion between Luke and the Chief of State, in which he takes the time to poke at her over her old flame in order to protect his stance in the conversation, but when she attacks Kyp Durron for something he did 30-something years prior and was pardoned by the New Republic for, he doesn't bring up things she did--and was not pardoned for--during the same time frame. It seemed like he was willing to let Kyp get fed to the wolves there. But a single conversation where he doesn't act quite right is better than where he is way out in Left Field in terms of character in 12 out of a 19 book series .

So, after this beautiful handling of Luke Skywalker, we must glance over at his partner-in-crime for this particular novel; his son, Ben. For the first time, I've actually enjoyed Ben's characterization. He's no longer the cardboard cut-out which appeared in the first half of the LotF, additionally, he's coming into his own as a valid character--and an interesting mixture of Corran Horn and Luke Skywalker. I distinctly like the thought of a Jedi who approaches things using investigative techniques (including interrogation ones) rather than just following their whims and calling it the "Will of the Force."

Unfortunately, he's still not a character that just screams HERO the way Luke did during the early years, and Anakin Solo did during the early NJO. Still, his character is a lot more sympathetic and generally good, than the little StormTrooper which was Ben in LotF.

Speaking of good little Jedi, we next get to look towards Jaina--who is anything BUT a good little soldier in this novel. She's a perfect example of her mother's wit and fire and well, rebelliousness in relation to authority. Additionally, she seems to finally be over her soap-operatic ways and Mando-adoration and has thus settled into her role as Sword of the Jedi. But, still, she lacks that special something which would make her the Hero of the story, but she's much closer to having it than Ben, or her LotF incarnation.

The final duo of our primary characters are the perennial couple of couples, Han and Leia Solo. This was the same Solo couple that we got in last year's Millennium Falcon novel; loving and happy, and willing to do just about anything for a friend.

I do feel the need to bring out one additional detail that Outcast needs praise on, and that is the fact that long-time Jedi Master Kenth Hamner actually gets a personality above and beyond "Stern Master #2." Yes, he has that whole retired military officer thing going for him, but just how he interacts with others, including (or maybe especially) Jaina, display him in a much more.... personable light.

Settings are slim here. We get Coruscant, Kessel and Dorin, home of the Kel Dor and the prequel-era Jedi, Plo Koon. Of those, both Kessel and Dorin get decent descriptions, and emphasis on the alienness of the planets as opposed to such terrestrial planets as Corellia.

Now while dealing with the Theme of this novel, I have to start and wonder if that sense of disquiet, that "not rightness" that I felt while reading was intentional. The book was titled "Outcast" and there were numerous references to being exiled, and leaving things behind. I have to wonder if the author intentionally built what should be, and on the surface is, a fundamentally sound Star Wars story but structured in such a way that when one thinks about it, it leaves you with a sense of disquiet. As if the story itself is an outcast from the greater narrative which is the expanded universe--or at least our expectations of that narrative.

Which in turn leads nicely to the lack in that narrative, that absence of a Campbellian Hero, which has been at the crux of how everything has played out since the last Campbellian Hero was forcibly removed from the narrative. We're still dealing with the ramifications of the Anakin Solo-shaped hole in the narrative; we're looking at the fact that the narrative exiled itself from the Hero's Journey which is at the root of Star Wars.

We're missing things here, things are separated from how they "should" be. Even above and beyond Luke's exile from Coruscant, this is a book, a narrative, that has exiled itself from the morality play roots of Star Wars. Outcast is a Good vs. Evil story with no defined evil, and no defined Hero to fight that evil. Just a cast of protagonists, going about doing things they feel they need to do. It's not Campbellian, if anything it is episodic operatic drama; a literary version of a daily soap opera or procedural police drama from American TV so to speak.

It's not bad per se, but it's not classical Star Wars either. And that separation, especially coupled with narrative threads that should be Star Wars is what lends itself so well to that disquiet, that sense of disconnectedness with the narrative, that I felt while thinking about the story.

As unintended end result of editorial influence on the author to have XYZ happen in the book, and nothing else, it works. If it was intentional on Mr. Allston's part (whether due to editorial influence or not) it is utter and sheer genius.

And on that note, I feel it might be time for my final thoughts on the novel, and my final thought has to be that I liked it. I liked the way that the absence worked with the greater narrative, but above that I liked the fact that I actually enjoyed it while reading. Sure there were an issue or two that made me stumble over the narrative. I'm not entirely certain how well I enjoy the characterization of Tahiri Veila here, or how much I enjoy the thought of Tarc coming back into the overall storyline. on the flip side of the coin, I did enjoy seeing a handful of secondary, non-Jedi characters during the Kessel scene.

In the end, I have to give this a 3.8/4. All the good things done right here, far outweighs the few bad things--and even on just the chance that that sense of disquiet I felt while reading was intentional makes me all sorts of happy.