(P)Review : Star Wars : Fate of the Jedi : A Star Wars EU Introduction

*This honestly started out as an attempt to review the newest Star Wars novel, Fate of the Jedi: Abyss. What it quickly turned in to was an introduction and defense of something that I knew I enjoyed, but didn’t quite understand how much. There will be reviews to come, that much I’m sure of. For now, take a peek at the ravings of a nerd in love…*

It’s interesting trying to start a review for a book that’s not only the 3rd in an ongoing story line, but part of an altogether larger, more epic story arc. If you’re checking out this piece, then you at least have a vague understanding of what is currently going on in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. For those of you who don’t, fear not - I will provide you with a few resources you can use for various timelines and story summaries. It’s a big, bad universe out there, and it’s freakin’ awesome.

I do feel like there is some bit of back story necessary to understand where my particular views of the Expanded Universe are coming from. I was introduced to EU in the Summer of 2000, if memory serves. The first book I picked up was actually the second book in the New Jedi Order story arc, which consisted of 19 books and started in 1999 with R.A Salvatore’s Vector Prime and ended with James Luceno’s The Unifying Force in 2003. The series as a whole was nothing short of a work of miracles, as such a long and involved storyline had yet to be tried within the Star Wars universe. It was also Del Rey’s largest undertaking since working with Lucasbooks. The idea was to tie as much of the EU together as possible. Make it more cohesive - not just reconcile it with what had come before (as those novels were scattershot, and unless they were a duology or trilogy, only held to a very small amount of facts to glue them together) - but create a greater continuity going forward.

This opened me up to a entire series of books set during and after the events of the Original Trilogy, and has since… expanded… in to settings well before the Prequel Trilogy and well after the Original Trilogy. It’s been a tumultuous time in the lives of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa Solo (yep, she married Han), and of course Han Solo and Chewbacca. Things have changed - some would say for the better, some for the worst - so this is certainly a look at things from my own perspective.

Troy Denning is no novice when it comes to playing within the Star Wars EU, as he had started contributing to the series in 2001 with the NJO’s Star By Star. This brought the (extremely surprising) death of one of the series’ main characters, and helped to establish the “no one is safe“ feeling that the new books were trying to elicit. He then went on to author the entire Dark Nest Trilogy and the stand alone Tatooine Ghost, which worked to set up the post Yuuzhan Vong universe the characters now found themselves inhabiting. He was also one of 3 authors to pen the Legacy of the Force series, which again, aimed to shake up the Star Wars EU, and up the ante as far as action and political intrigue (and I would argue, political parallel’s to reality) were concerned.

If this seems like a lot of preamble to talk about one book, it is. One thing to understand is that this has become an increasingly intriguing and interesting universe, all based on the original 3 films (for the most part - it’s been difficult to reconcile a lot of what happened in the Prequel Trilogy with what was written prior to it’s existence) that came out 30 years ago. If anything speaks to the power of these characters and the universe they live in, it’s the fact that they’re writing better fiction based on the films than a lot of what was actually included in the films themselves. That may seem like a tragic statement to Star Wars purists, but I stand by that assertion wholeheartedly. I still watch the films on occasion, just to sort of remind myself of what was so great about them to begin with. But the books offer such a vast and epic view of a universe that you really only get glimpses of in the films. That’s not to say that all of the books are amazing and should be praised for their achievements as pristine works of the written word. I only mean that it’s impossible to deny that the idea, the concept, of taking something so relatively small and creating dozens and dozens of stories, and hundreds of characters, is one worth exploring. But I digress.

*In trying to write this, I think I’ve decided that this should stand alone as my sort of… introduction to the Star Wars EU, and to any forthcoming reviews I do, especially concerning the Fate of the Jedi series. There are a handful of books slated to come out between now and March of next year, when the 4th book in the series and Aaron Allston's second entry Backlash, will hit bookshelves. I would definitely like to discuss them here, so you know, maybe I will. Check back next week for my review and discussion of the Fate of the Jedi series, starting with Aaron Allston’s Outcast, the first book in the series. I may also end up discussing the NJO and the impact it has had on the Star Wars EU, as well as where I think the series might ultimately be heading. I know, super nerdy stuff to be sure. But it’s just so damn good!

Here are some sites to check out for reference material, and to see how sadly nerdy my life is:

StarWars.com
DarkHorse.com
A Star Wars EU Timeline

If you are interested in purchasing any of the books mentioned, check out the box to the right, where there are direct links to a few different items!