Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly (1995)

 Children of the Jedi

Kevin J Anderson might write the best book in this trilogy.

So, I thought it'd be fun to keep the review for the worst Star Wars book I'd read up until that point in my pocket, and release it if I came up with a worse book. I really thought Courtship of Princess Leia would hold up for a while. I was wrong.

Summary: Luke gets kidnapped by the AI of a crazy asteroid super weapon that's summoned by a kid using the Force. He falls in love with a computer-ghost, his student sacrifices herself and the computer ghost takes over her body. Hand and Leia... exist?

What It Introduces:

The Eye of Palpatine: The dumbest superweapon the Empire ever created (and that's saying something) no superlaser or anything, it's just a ton of turbolasers strapped to an asteroid. Controlled by literature's dumbest super-ai.

Callista Ming: Dead Jedi Knight computer/Force ghost. She wants to bang.

Cray Mingla: Luke's super hot student, who kills herself because her boyfriend is a robot.

Nichos Marr: Cray's droid boyfriend. He died, and she tried to transfer him over to a droid. It only sort of works.

Commentary/Review: This isn't just the worst Star Wars book I've ever read, it's a strong contender for the worst book I've ever read, period. I've mostly stopped pulling quotes from books, because the effort of looking them up, moving them to the blog, etc. is too much. But no, let's suffer through this fully armed and operational shitshow in all its glory. "Silence had been growing around her, like a sea creature manufacturing a shell of its armor; a double shell, this time, enfolding them both." No human being could write that sentence and not want to cut their own fingers off. 

Hambly's writing is incredibly dense and repetitive, constantly making the same points over and over. At the same time, it's never really clear what's happening. After Luke is shot down, he's picked up by an Imperial lander and taken back to The Eye of Palpatine along with a bunch of Gamorreans who are brainwashed to become Storm Troopers. The Empire's racism is well established at this point, so it's rather odd that the Eye is picking up all these aliens. Maybe they forgot to program racism in to the AI? It never really clear exactly how much "The Will" knows. Sometimes it's implied to be superintelligent, if not sentient. Other times it's completely clueless. Characters seem to teleport around at will for whatever scene Hambly wants them in, with that scene rarely making any sense.

The Han and Leia subplot just doesn't need to be in the book, at all. I don't know that I wanted another 150 pages of Luke on the Eye, but Han and Leia are 100% filler. 

Luke's Force abilities are all over the place. He can levitate C-3PO entire floors up and fuck with lasers, but he can't heal his leg (he does heal a concussion earlier in the book.)

But by far the biggest issue with this book is the "purpose" of it. It's all there to setup Callista Ming, who will be Luke's love interest for all of three books. According to KJA, at the time CotJ was being written, no one thought Luke and Mara were going to wind up together, so Lucasfilm told her to create "the love of Luke's life."

There's a lot to unpack there.

1. LukexMara was an obvious pairing as far back as Dark Force Rising, a full three years before Children of the Jedi. Obviously, who knows about the back room dealings between Zahn, Lucasfilm, and whoever else, but it seems really weird that someone still thought he needed another designated love interest as late as 1995? (This piece of shit can't have been in the pipe for more than a year. It reads like a first draft someone cranked out for NANOWRIMO.)

2. I know this is my personal dead horse to beat, but Gaeriel Captison already exists. She has great chemistry with Luke, but also enough conflict to make their relationship a challenge, she's an interesting character on her own, and she ties into Bakura, which is one of the first big EU developments. Obviously, Mara worked out well for Luke, the fans loved it, etc., but if Lucasfilm needed a "backup" they had one on deck a year and a half before CotJ was released.

3. The idea of creating a character just to be Luke's great love interest feels off for me for Star Wars. It's not a romance series, Han and Leia are already there, Lando spends a ton of pages trying to find a wife. Why does Luke need a long term love interest so badly that one needs to be created whole cloth for him? Outside of romance, I think creating any character explicitly to be a love interest for another is an iffy proposition.

4. And, most importantly, the absolutely disgusting way we wind up with Callista.

1. Dozens of years ago, Callista is a Jedi Knight. She (along with her lover, because everyone in this book has to be boning somebody) attacks The Eye of Palpatine and dies in the process, but not before she Force-uploads herself into the gunnery computer, in hopes of making sure the station can never be used again.

2. Luke shows up, and instantly falls in love with her for... I dunno Force reasons or something? They don't have any chemistry, she's got no physical form, most of their on page conversations are strategy related (there's some implied off page flirting, because that's how you write great romance.)

3. They Force bone, in the first sex scene of Star Wars. That's great. I think I'd have rather Timothy Zahn wrote about Mara Jade getting Force molested by the Emperor or something than let this pop the franchise's cherry.

4. Cray, Luke's "leggy blonde" student (Barbara Hambly could be in one of those "men writing women" blogs) decides to sacrifice herself, similarly to Callista. Also, going with her is her boyfriend, Nichos. One of the major themes of the entire book has been whether droid-Nichos is "real" (as opposed to the original who died off page before the book starts), whether he actually loves Cray or has just been programmed to think he does, whether she loves him or the image of him she remembers. This is VERY IMPORTANT. Hambly rewrites the same four sentences about it at least a half dozen times (sometimes multiple times in the same chapter).

5. As Cray sacrifices her life to take down the Eye, Callista somehow transfers herself into (but partially transforms) Cray's body. Luke and Callista make out.

So Nichos isn't "good enough" for Cray, but Callista is able to transfer into Cray's body, and Luke is not even slightly put off by the fact that this is he student that his ghost-computer-girlfriend is inhabiting. And, somehow, her face changes. Presumably, she's still hot and leggy and blonde though. All the other issues with the book aside (and there are many) I don't understand how this "twist" alone didn't.

I kind of regret the last zero or two I've given out. I'm not sure Assault on Centerpoint actively makes the universe a worse place. Star Wars? Sure. But it's not offensive to the basic concept of reality like this book is. Maybe I'll create a new -1 score or something.