Blackfleet Crisis Book One - Before the Storm

A Review By: Zizziana Nightstar

Some Extended Universe authors seem to have a sense of how to take pre-existing characters and stay true to them. Others don’t, and this is one of the worst cases I think I’ve ever seen.

I found this story particularly difficult to be swept up in, and from the onset I had the feeling that the characters we all know and love were off. Han in particular seems to have lost all sense of his scoundrel personality. Our beloved Millennium Falcon was fixed-up by a crew to make it more efficient. Han’s reaction to the lack of clangs, bangs and hints that his ship is falling apart is realistic, the idea that he would let anyone go through his ship to spruce it up is not. The Falcon’s modifications have always been anything but legal and Han has had to pull rank to keep it from being inspected by those New Republic inspectors who would have a cow if they ever got to poke around the ship.

Suddenly Chewie goes back home for his son’s coming-of-age and takes the Falcon with him. The close-knit Solo children suddenly seem to be dividing themselves up, and Jacen seems unable to use Force-abilities like moving objects that he was able to use when he was younger. (There were hints that as babies, he and Jaina used the Force to pull shiny baubles from shelves to play with).

Leia seems to have adopted a naivete in a political dealing that we would expect from her twin - back when he was a Tatooine farm boy dreaming of adventure and heroics. In the mean time, the former Tatooine farm boy leaves his Academy to one of his students, and leaves the droids behind. He is now flying in an E-Wing with a new droid, and he seems to like it as much as any fan of Artoo would. Luke disappears on Coruscant and is approached by a mysterious woman who claims to be from his mother’s people, telling him that these people have a special power “the Light” not like the Force but that Luke’s strength in the Force does not come just from Vader.

Although this book was written before The Phantom Menace I think we can all believe that the most mysterious, mystic thing about Amidala was the aura that she and her handmaidens gave off due to their unique costumes. While it’s not impossible that Amidala wasn’t from Naboo things just don’t seem to match up. I also believe that seeing as Vader was the “Chosen One” Luke’s strength in the Force probably came from him.

As for accuracy, Luke makes a remark that Yoda had been a hermit on Dagobah for more than a hundred years by the time Luke had met him. I’m sure that the great Master Yoda abandoned his hermitage to go and visit his buddies on the Jedi Council and stuck around long enough to say, “I sense much fear in you,” and give Anakin a little lecture on anger. Yeah right.

The second half the story seems to pick up a little bit and the action becomes one of those spin you around in circles disasters that the heroes usually plunge themselves into.

Overall, I had a lot of problems with this story. I found it very hard to get lost in at first and then the inaccuracies in characters and errors in facts just discredited it in my eyes. Leia and Luke seemed to be complaining and almost whining about their current situations for far too much of the novel. Some of the theories on the way of the Jedi I highly disagreed with, and I am currently debating about going as far to write an editorial about it. As for whether or not it’s worthy of reading… Well, if you are the kind of person who wants to stay up on events in the Expanded Universe then read it, but if it’s a choice between this book and another one, I’d suggest reading the other one which is why I’m giving it a rating of two out of four.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer

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Thanks to the greatest Jedi of all time, the mighty George Lucas and his vision for bringing us this epic tale. Again all items belonging to George Lucas and all of his associates are© of his companies, and I take no reponsibility for their use. Enjoy!!!