Star Wars Books, Musing

I recently picked up Betrayal, by Aaron Allston. It is a Star Wars/Legacy of the Force Novel. For those unfamiliar with what that means, Legacy of the Force is a series taking place about 40 years after Return of the Jedi ends; the children of the Luke, Leia and Han are full grown, the New Republic has weathered a full scale war with an alien species. However, they do not have to worry about growing soft and bleeding into legend before disappearing- something is always around the corner.

I read several of the Star Wars (post Jedi) books and greatly enjoyed them, though some were almost Tom Clancy-esque in details of battle stations, weaponry and space battle maneuvers. This was the first I had picked up in a couple of years. The books which have been published post-Revenge of the Sith have had the great advantage of back story, which pre-Phantom Menace books did not: we could only really speculate about what caused Anakin's downfall and the death of Luke and Leia's mother. Now, there are millions of acres of personal angst to work with, which works great. The books are much richer emotionally and character-wise.

"Betrayal" was so good that I immediately wanted to read the next. The familiar characters- especially Han Solo- were fully realized and one could easily imagine them a real individual people. The premise is that Corellia (Han's home planet) wants the advantages of the Galactic Republic without losing any independence, such as their own military and the ability to make treaties. Complicating things is Han's cousin, Thracken Sal-Solo, a power mad Corellian bent on ruling the planet.

The next book, Bloodlines, arrived just two days ago. As before, when I saw the cover, I was confused- it had Boba Fett on the front. The last I knew, he had fallen in the the Pit of Saarlac in ROTJ. What the heck? Indeed, Fett is a major character here. Apparently he escaped and had some dealings with Han in a book I haven't read. Well!

The thing that makes me kind of laugh (at myself, mostly) is I want to run around telling people, "Wow! did you know that Boba Fett made it out of the Pit of Saarlac??!" First, most people I know would ask who that was and why was he in some pit. Second, why am I so excited about it? Third, I would probably be reminded that it didn't actually happen. Which, actually (much as I hate to admit it) is something I frequently forget with Star Wars stuff.

Side note- I just read in Maxim about a group of people who use light saber fighting techniques to stay in shape: www.nyjedi.com.

The thing which makes me wonder is that they cannot actually use light sabers. Also, in Betrayal there is a character who has a light whip- how cool does that sound?

Thought I would also mention here that it disturbs me when I hear of people calling themselves Jedi Knights when asked their religion (a few years ago, for example, there was a news item that X percent of people in England had declared themselves Jedi Knights when asked their religious affiliation). Who exactly are they training with to have achieved that status? At best, they could be Padawan learners. I totally agree with much of what the Jedi believed in, but I doubt there are any authentic Masters around, right? Maybe George Lucas...

See paragraph above about forgetting these things actually didn't happen...