StarWarsClassics

 I really thought I had 2 or 3 year/era overview posts already. In my mad rush to try to get through all the crap, I knew I hadn't done one in a while. Now I can't find the old ones, so I don't know if I titled them differently or hallucinated, or what. Anyway, 1994!  Releases include: Jedi Academy Trilogy ( Jedi Search , Dark Apprentice , Champions of the Force ), The Courtship of Princess Leia , The Crystal Star Also the TIE Fighter video game , which will get some kind of mini-review at some point. So, a lot of movement in the EU for this year (especially with less than half a dozen books). The Jedi Academy Trilogy obviously establishes the Jedi Academy, and a bunch of characters of varying importance (most importantly all 3 Solo kid's first "proper" appearance as characters, not just background). Dathomir makes its first appearance (and a bunch of other, less important, planets). The Solo twins get kidnapped for the first time!  Big year. Total crap year ...

 Anderson and Modesta really like dropping lines from the OT into their books. I marked them for a while as I was reading (remember when I was going to mark all the "bad feelings?") but kind of got over it. This time, it gets promoted to the title of the book! Other than that, I'm pretty sure only Baen would touch, "A group of bad guys named with Diversity in their name use a plague to try to get revenge on humans," these days. I figure I'll have to address that in more detail at some point, but I might as well wait to the end of the arc so I can fully go out on it.  Book still not good, but better than the last one (which was borderline unreadable at points) and slowly stepping into something resembling a real plot that the main characters will have to resolve.

 Alright, we can't hold the ridiculous name against them, since it was the 90s. We also can't blame them for this cover... BUT I can totally blame them for writing Boba Fett so badly that he had to get retconned out and replaced with his daughter in disguise. Boba Fett is in EVERYTHING at this point in the 90s, and no one else does such a crap job that he needs to get retconned.

 As established, Star Wars is rotten with under populated planets. We're talking whole planets with a population around some US states at the times the books were written. You could probably find whole continents on some habitable planets with almost no settlers. Which makes it incredibly stupid to settle a planet that, every eight years, becomes completely uninhabitable and destroys all the settlements due to some bullshit sci-fi atmospheric phenomena. They then live in temporary refugee stations made out of cargo ships FOR A YEAR. I feel like if my colony had to spend over 10% of my time there, I'd have some kind of permanent shelters. OH WAIT, I WOULD JUST COLONIZE ANY OTHER PLANET! These books are stupid.

 No Steven Seagal cameo, unfortunately. The good: Since these books are so short, M&M can get away with basically devoting the whole thing to an extended battle scene. First novel mention of Mandalorian Iron (it's in the comics first). The "new" Emperor is a deep fake. The bad: Endless, "why would that happen?" or "that doesn't work that way" mostly in regard to the starship combat. Admiral Ackbar and Jaina pull a Wrath of Khan  shield maneuver off screen (lame). The biggest issue is that the attack never really feels particularly dangerous, succeeding (in the marginal way it does) only due to Luke being a complete moron. They flew back from Kashyyyk, why couldn't they contact the Republic before the Empire started jamming them on Yavin? Why is their only defense (this is not the first time the Academy was attacked) a shield generator seemingly set up for a trench run? Where are all the adult Jedi? The handful of them in Darksaber easily be...

 Yes, that is the real title. In theory, this is the Lowbacca book. In practice (after getting screwed on Lost Ones ) he has to share a lot of page time with Zekk, his sister, the twins, etc.  Kashyyyk is apparently a major computer exporter. Not sure why that is, but okay.  After not really shying away in the first 4 books, there's a lot of "YA Acceptable" violence in this one. The kids are constantly knocking Stormtroopers into hazard instead of just chopping them in half. It's weird. Similarly, the kids are constantly, "Jedi Brats." I get that the Nightsisters can't call them, "you little shits!" or anything, but we couldn't have gotten a little variety? "Meddling initiates?" We do get a cool little bit of continuity, though, when they mention the Mandalorian lineage of the royal guard armor. I assume this is from the RPG, but it's never mentioned in the novels before. Eventually, we would see Mando armor in that style.