Bloodlines: Legacy of the Force on Five CDs
Some generations define themselves by heroism in battle, others by breaking cultural barriers, and others by making great strides forward in technology. My generation defines itself with a movie. A movie with laser swords.
I have been collecting Star Wars stuff for as long as I can remember. I had an AT-ST, the chicken walker from Return of the Jedi that would walk when you pushed the little button in the back. My pajamas, lunch box, and toothbrush were all adorned with Luke Skywalker's determined, banged-up face. I remember how excited I was when I got a package of Jawas made by the people who made Micro Machines. I was 23.
Obviously, Lucasfilm Enterprises loves nerds like me. They can slap a wookie on any old merch and they know I'll be drawn to it like a lightsaber is drawn into the force-powered hands of a skilled Sith lord. The books detailing the further adventures of Han, Luke, Leia, and the rest a good forty years after the movie takes place were meant for pitiful Jedheads like me and my ilk.
So I was surprised to be a little disoriented by Bloodlines. (By the way, spoilers ahead if you have any interest in reading Star Wars novels.) See the thing is, I kind of stopped reading the novels after the Yuuzahn Vong invaded Corellia. It was all just too painful. And the thing about licensed books is that their goal is to have huge, planet-shattering events sweep through the galaxy leaving all of the major characters entirely untouched. Sure, R. A. Salvatore got his one exception, but I was well versed enough in Star Wars literary canon that I knew about poor, poor, Chewie. I was a good disc and a half into this one, introducing myself to new relatives of old characters like Ben Skywalker and Thracken Sal-Solo and Britney Fett when I suddenly realized, "Hey, where the hell is Anakin Solo?"
I turned to Wikipedia (Wookiepedia, actually) and was shocked to find that Anakin was dead. In fact, not only was he dead, but he was so dead, and had come back to life and died so many times, that no one even mentioned him in this book. His name did not come up. That's really dead.
That bombshell aside, I was more enamored with this book than I thought I would be. I've read some Star Wars stinkers in the past (The Courtship of Princess Leia, anyone?) and figured that now, at a point when the original characters have reached retirement age, there's not a lot left to hold my attention. Boba Fett was 72, for crying out loud. Still, I thought this was pretty good.
Part of the charm of the book was the completely dedicated narrator. You know a narrator like this has to have a few Ewoks in a box in his basement somewhere. I'm still not entirely sure there weren't more than one narrator. Well, the settings were announced by a woman, I'm sure of that. And yet, this dude, Mark Thompson, in spite of having a female reading chapter headings for him, insisted on doing Princess Leia's voice himself. I noticed his credits included the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I was briefly excied about that until I realized that he's from the gritty new retelling of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles saga, and I have no interest in getting involved with that until the crossover special with Admiral Ackbar. Still, he did a spot on Luke, a pitch-perfect Boba Fett, and a reasonable facsimile of the other male characters.
I was impressed. You could almost hear the turbo thrusters scraping against the transparisteel rear shields when the Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace. Sorry, my mistake. I meant you could literally hear the turbo thrusters scraping against the transparisteel rear shields when the Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace, because this book included sound effects, and the John Williams score throughout. And I had no argument with that. Except when I was listening to the book while waiting in line at the drive-thru, and the cashier would give me a funny look when she heard laser blasters shooting droids somewhere in my car.
The story itself was OK, too. I felt like the whole Boba Fett searching for his family thing was a little bit of a stretch and seemed to be in the book because the author said, "I'm planning to write a whole bunch of books, but I need to make sure that Boba Fett doesn't play any role in them, so I'm writing something for him to do now." However, the family dynamics between the Skywalkers and the Solos was very interesting, and of course you could see a lot of subtle commentary of global politics from the last ten years.
So if you've ever dreamed of spending a weekend in stormtrooper armor, and you haven't listened to any Star Wars audio books, this one might be a good one to listen to. Not a great place to start, because like I said before, no Anakin, but not a bad read at all.
And fortunately for me, the library has a second Star Wars book on CD that I'm sure no other self respecting citizen would check out in public. Yes that's right.
There is another.
