1. Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978) by Alan Dean Foster

Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Sweet Ralph Macquarie cover art, courtesy of Wookiepedia!


Summary: Luke and Leia crash on a swamp planet. Leia has PTSD. Luke has a crush on her. They go looking for the Kaiburr Crystal with cranky Force grandma and replacement Chewie twins. Darth Vader shows up and mostly kicks their asses, but he falls in a hole.

What it introduces: Naming things X of the Y: Which would hold for 4 of the 9 movies, 70ish novels, and numerous video games, comics, etc.

The Kaiburr Crystal: Shards of which would become the most desirable lightsaber focusing crystals in the later EU. Kyber crystals would make an appearance in the new canon as both lightsaber crystals and part of the Death Star's superlaser. 

Commentary: Splinter of the Mind's Eye is widely considered the first book in the Expanded Universe. It was published in 1978, about half a year after the original release of Star Wars/A New Hope. Preceding it are a few of the Marvel Comics (which I'll be mostly skipping) and a the novelization of ANH (which I'll circle back to next week). Splinter is interesting from the historical perspective for several reasons. First, the aforementioned EU starting. Second, it was (prior to the sequel trilogy butchering Dark Empire) the closest a Star Wars novel ever came to being filmed. Foster wrote it with some assistance from George Lucas. Had Star Wars done well enough to get a sequel, but not well enough for much budget, Splinter was designed to be filmed with minimal special effects, heavy reuse of props, and no Harrison Ford. Star Wars was a blockbuster, we got Empire instead, and the world is probably better for it.

It's interesting seeing the stuff that would make it into the sequels (Vader throwing stuff at Luke, Vader falling down a hole, Force ghost possession, natives fighting the Empire) and weird seeing the stuff that wouldn't make sense in hindsight (Luke and Leia wanting to bone, a force Hadouken, Vader killing Imperial officers with a lightsaber, none of the Imperials recognizing Luke or Leia).

The writing is just barely adequate, and it's a fairly stock sci-fi/fantasy get the macguffin plot. There's some decently written body horror in a couple places, and I got to learn what batrachian (Foster's favorite adjective) means (froglike). Luke is reasonably in character (finding a bit more confidence than in ANH but a bit less than Empire), and Vader is mostly fine. Leia gets about as much character development here as she would in Empire and Jedi put together. Foster doesn't seem to quite know what to do with her, ping ponging her from hyper-capable to abused slave to PTSD victim, to damsel every three pages. He's an okay writer, but a poor choice for Star Wars (we'll get more into this next week).

Review: 2/5 A passable mid 20th century pulpy sci-fi book. It's only a light 150 pages, so certainly an easy read. Not worth recommending on its own, but probably worth it for a pulp sci-fi fan or an Expanded Universe lover as milestone.

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