Older Than Old School: Stephen King’s “The Bachman Books”

Posted on July 26, 2023 by Timewalkerauthor

I’ve recently come out of a reading slump of epic proportions, which came about due to some health issues. To celebrate this particular victory, I decided to go waaaaay back into my teen years and read (or in part reread) an old classic. Four of them, actually: Stephen King’s The Bachman Books.

It’s hard to believe in hindsight, but there was a time when prolific and ubiquitous author Stephen King tried his hand at writing under a pseudonym. The choice boiled down to two things: For one, his publisher wasn’t willing to publish at the rate that King was able to write, due to fears of oversaturation in the market; and for another, King didn’t want to be just a horror writer. That latter is both fair and ironic; fair, because King has the writing chops to write in just about any genre he chooses; ironic, because the Bachman novels are without a doubt some of his scariest.

The story of his alter ego, Richard Bachman, is famous in its own right these days. King kept the connection between himself and Bachman as tightly hidden as he could manage, out of a desire to determine if his career was really based on talent—these were early days, when he had only just begun to publish—or if it had been luck. I think we as fans can safely conclude that it was talent; but King himself wasn’t so sure at the time. At any rate, he was eventually found out by a bookstore clerk named Steve Brown, who noticed some similarities in the writing style, then confirmed his suspicions via research. In Brown’s defense, he didn’t simply expose King; rather, he contacted the publisher with what he had learned. King himself—now several years and several books more established—decided to release the information, and asked Brown to conduct an interview and write an article for that purpose. King would later memorialize these events in his novel The Dark Half, where author Thad Beaumont publicly “kills off” and buries his own pseudonym…until the pseudonym comes to life and tries for revenge.

*Rage* first edition (non-King-branded) cover

But I digress. Back to the books! In all, King has published seven novels as Bachman, five prior to ending the secret, two since (the latter two being billed as having been found by Bachman’s widow after his demise). The first four—Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, and The Running Man—were subsequently collected into a one-volume set titled The Bachman Books. As the original releases had limited print runs at the time, it’s a safe bet that most readers have encountered them via the one-volume collection. (And if anyone out there just happens to own copies from those original, non-King-branded print runs, and you want to get rid of them for stupidly low prices, give me a call! Those original copies are one of my holy grails of literature.)

I read (some of) the Bachman Books back in the day, which for me means the early to mid 1990s; but I was a teenager at the time, and wasn’t equipped to fully appreciate them. At the time I read The Long Walk, which has stuck with me ever since; and The Running Man, which…not so much. In the years since, Rage has been taken out of print due to the rise of real-world school shootings (more on that in a bit); recent copies of the collection do not include that story, which meant it took a bit of searching on my part to find a copy that includes it. Rage and Roadwork were both new to me on this later reading.

*The Long Walk* first edition (non-King-branded) cover

Just to get us on the same page, here’s a short summary of each. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t read the books!

Rage: High school senior Charlie Decker snaps after a disciplinary meeting. He shoots and kills two teachers before taking a classroom full of his fellow seniors hostage. During the police standoff that follows, he tells his story to the other students, slowly bringing out their own darker impulses. Later he releases the students, but not before the mind of one of them is irreparably broken by the trauma. Charlie is then shot by police and subsequently hospitalized; he is found not guilty by reason of insanity, and committed to a psychiatric hospital, from which he is now writing his story.
The Long Walk: In a dystopic version of our world, the greatest televised event each year is the Long Walk. One hundred teenage boys are escorted by the military on a walk from the Maine-Canada border to points south. They are not permitted to stop or rest, and must maintain a pace of four miles an hour or faster. If they stop or slow down, they are first warned…and then shot. Only one will survive; that one will win the Prize, which consists of a large sum of money, and the right to have anything given to them that they desire. Ray Garraty joined up voluntarily, as most do; but he has no idea of the challenges he will face, and the things he will learn about himself.
Roadwork: Barton Dawes’ life has been turned upside down. His home, and the laundry he manages, have been claimed by eminent domain and will be torn down to allow construction of a highway extension. Anyone else would simply take the city’s money and move—as most of Barton’s neighbors have done—but Barton is still reeling from the premature death of his son three years ago, and he cannot bring himself to accept this turn of events. He delays until it is too late to save the laundry; this costs him his job. In turn, his wife leaves him, and he descends into a cold, angry madness. On the day he is obligated to leave his home, he wires it with explosives, then blows it up with the police on scene, killing himself in protest of the city’s plan. In a further bit of irony, it is revealed at the end that the city had no real need to build the extension in the first place; the project was created simply for the sake of maintaining federal funding.
The Running Man: In an even more dystopic future than that of The Long Walk, society is both dominated and pacified via “freevee”, which constantly broadcasts violent and often deadly game shows. Desperate for the money needed to treat his sick daughter, Ben Richards signs up to participate; he is placed on the network’s flagship show, The Running Man. He is released into the world to attempt to elude the show’s Hunters, bounty hunters authorized to kill on sight. The longer he makes it, the more money his family will receive; if he survives for thirty days, he will win a billion dollars and his freedom. No one has ever come close. As Richard runs, he must elude not only the hunters, but also anyone in the public who would gladly report him. Along the way, he learns some disturbing truths about the world’s sorry condition, and tries to make a change for the better. In the end, he manipulates his opposition into allowing him onto a plane; gutshot and dying, he seizes control of the plane and crashes it into the network’s headquarters tower.

It’s well known that Stephen King’s first published book was 1974’s Carrie. What you may not know is that Carrie was far from his first written book. That honor goes to The Long Walk, which he wrote in its original form during his senior year of high school (note: Wikipedia states it was written in his freshman year of college, while King himself says he started it as a high school senior. I suppose both could be true). The other early Bachman books followed soon thereafter, although none would be published until Rage in 1977. The published versions were revised and updated; but you can still see traces of the early date of writing in the material. I’m not sure it would correct to say that King had an “edgy” teenage period, but the books are as close to edgy as he gets.

*Roadwork* first edition (non-King-branded) cover

They’re also very bleak. Two of his protagonists die; one ends up shot and then committed, likely for life; and one ends up heavily traumatized by his ordeal (after ninety-nine other deaths have already taken place!). King never shies away from a high body count in his novels; but rarely does it touch his protagonists so directly. Further, the books are bleak because they’re believable; there’s nothing supernatural or paranormal to be found here. The worlds he displays may be dystopias, but they’re grounded in the real world of the era. His characters are just ordinary men and women, and they die in terrifying, but utterly mundane, ways. I find that to be much more terrifying than any Pennywise or Flagg; there’s a feeling of “this could happen to me” that sets these stories apart from most of King’s work. (The emphasis on the mundane won’t last; the fifth Bachman novel, Thinner, brings in supernatural elements.)

The novels have an interesting relationship with time. They’re very deliberately paced; they rarely skip time, opting instead to account for events in a steady stream from beginning to end. One might even use the word “plodding”, although the action remains at a high enough level to maintain interest. In two of the four entries, King uses various devices to keep track of time: Roadwork includes the date before every scene, counting down toward the date that Barton must vacate the house; The Running Man uses a literal countdown, starting at “Minus 100 and COUNTING”, breaking the story into one hundred brief sections. (The trend continues in Thinner, where each chapter is headed with the protagonist’s current weight, which is a central plot point of that novel.)

*The Running Man* first edition (non-King-Branded) cover

That’s where the similarities end. What about each novel’s distinctive features? Let’s take a look.

Rage: This is easily the most infamous of the four, due to its removal from print and its topic—that of a school shooting. The book long predates the current epidemic of school shootings, and in fact it hardly resembles the real-life shootings we see regularly these days. However, it does appear to have been influential to some real-life shooters; Wikipedia documents six such shootings. (Unfortunately, that’s only a tiny drop in the bucket of the total number of shootings to date.) I didn’t know what to expect going into this book. I was pleased, however, to see that the protagonist-turned-villain, Charlie Decker, is not portrayed sympathetically in terms of his actions, even though we see things from his perspective. He’s barely even sympathetic for himself. We are expected to feel some pity for him for the difficult life he has lived prior to the shooting, but at the point of the action, he is cold and calculating, if also confused as to his own motives. I had mixed feelings about Rage; on one hand, it’s divorced enough from the real world that I’d like to be able to say it’s fine to read, but on the other hand, it does have a documented connection to real-world shootings, so…I think King made the right call in allowing it to be pulled. But to anyone who has matured past susceptibility to such choices, it’s a valid read.
The Long Walk: If Rage is the most infamous of the Bachman Books, The Long Walk is the most famous. That’s impressive, given it has yet to be adapted for the screen; meanwhile The Running Man was adapted into a film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is, without a doubt, the scariest King novel I have ever read, even though that wasn’t his goal in writing it. The terror is in what we’re not told: for example, we never get a clear look at how this obviously-dystopian world came about, how it differed from our own. In the seventies, this novel surely had to look like a plausible future. We know, for example, that the military is dominating society, and that they have “Squads” throughout the country that remove any serious dissenters from the population. Perhaps scarier than that is the fact that every Long Walker is a volunteer. They sign up willingly, knowing there’s a 99% death rate for participants—in fact, two hundred volunteers sign up, and only one hundred are selected. What has to happen to a society to so completely destroy the tendency to self-preservation? We aren’t told, and that is terrifying. This reality hangs like a dark shadow over the characters’ experiences during the walk, which are scary enough already. I can’t say there’s any grand life lesson to be had here (other than don’t create a dystopia, I guess?), but I will say the novel’s most horrifying scenes have stuck with me for more than three decades.
Roadwork: This one was a total mystery to me going in. Not only had I not read it in my teenage years, but also I hadn’t seen any plot summaries or blurbs. It’s probably the most mundane and realistic of all four stories; it could easily have taken place in the real world circa 1973/74. King refers to real-world events, most notably the energy crisis of that era. I think, though, that the reason it resonated with me is that the protagonist is roughly my age, with a similar background and circumstances. Just how much inconvenience and misfortune would it take to transform someone like me into Barton Dawes? One can’t help but fearing that the answer is “not much”. It takes shockingly little for Dawes’ world to come crashing down around him—but viewed from outside, the changes he faces are only large inconveniences. Sure, his workplace and home are about to be taken away, but the tools and money he needs to relocate them are right there in his hands, and he refuses to use them. His reasons are a mystery even to him…but when things go wrong for us, that’s how it works, isn’t it? We don’t really understand our own motivations sometimes. All we know is how it all becomes compressed into a rage that we can’t let go of. Letting go can be the hardest thing to do…for Barton Dawes it proved impossible.
The Running Man: This entry, more than any other, has become a cliché over the years, owing mostly to the film adaptation, which—while certainly not the worst King adaptation—changes many details from the source material. I’ve never actually seen it, but I knew about it, even the first time I read the book. It’s the most obvious dystopia of the four, set several years in the future even from our present day, in a society that has essentially collapsed and become ultra-stratified. Protagonist Ben Richards is possibly the most inconsistent character in the books; he alternates wildly between mute brutality and a keen intellectual mind. He wins (for awhile anyway) more through dogged determination than anything else; or maybe it’s spite. It’s certainly spite that keeps him on course even as he’s dying at the end (there’s a disembowelment scene that will make you wince—it’s completely over the top, but also horrifying). The Running Man feels the least professional of all the books; had it been written today, it would certainly be accused of being a pastiche of various YA dystopia stories of the Hunger Games/Maze Runner variety. But, this book precedes all of those, so the criticism wouldn’t be valid; in fact it seems likely that it influenced those later authors. That still doesn’t make it a good book; I’m glad I (re)read it, but I’ll probably not be coming back to it any time soon.

So: What to think of The Bachman Books? If you want your horror to be cold but personal, you’ve come to the right place. The books will always have value as the earliest samples we have of King’s writing (though, keep in mind that they were heavily revised before publication, so they are perhaps not pure early samples). I’m certainly glad I read them; I’m equally glad to put them back on the shelf. (Preferably in the form of those first-run copies I mentioned—seriously, call me, let’s talk!) Perhaps without them, King wouldn’t be the author we know today; but even if that is not the case, any King fan owes it to himself/herself to round out their experience with him, and give these books a read.

Guessing the Future

Posted on September 21, 2022 by Timewalkerauthor

In the classic comedy film Robin Hood: Men In Tights, there’s a scene where Blinkin, Robin’s blind servant, is at the top of a watchtower, pretending to look around, when Robin rides up.

Robin: Blinkin, what are you doing up there?

Blinkin: Guessing! I…guess no one’s coming.

Robin: Please come down from there…twit. <rides away>

Blinkin: Well, I guess there’s a ladder around here somewhere. <feels for the ladder> Oh…here we are! Right. <knocks the ladder down, then falls out of the tower>
(A clip of the scene is available here.)

As writers of science fiction, much like poor Blinkin, we do our fair share of guessing. Our blindness in this case isn’t physical, though; it’s temporal. That is, we can’t see the future–even though the future is perhaps the most common territory of science fiction.

Of course, that’s a good thing from the point of view of creativity; if we can’t see it, we’re free to imagine it any way we like. And if our visions are sufficiently far into the future, we’re unlikely to be called to account for our accuracy anytime soon. (Not, that is, that we should be called to account; this is, after all, fiction. But people do like to complain, and this is fertile ground for complaints.)

But, not every story is set hundreds (Star Trek) or thousands (Dune; Warhammer 40,000) of years down the road, or in some semi-mythical past (Star Wars), or even in a collection of all the above (Doctor Who–lest you think I won’t pick on any of my favorite franchises!). Some stories are within reach, if not at the time of writing, then during the time that the story remains popular. And what happens when that story gets something wildly wrong about the future?

Art by Wallace Wood; text by Damon Knight; published in Galaxy Magazine, September 1958. Screenshots obtained from a pdf copy of the magazine, courtesy of the Internet Archive.

The story that brought this topic to mind is an old and obscure novelette by well-known author and editor Damon Knight–and here I’m going to make an aside before we continue. Aside from having the greatest sci-fi author name I’ve ever heard, Damon Knight was greatly influential over the field of science fiction. If you don’t recognize his name, that’s understandable here in 2022, as he would have turned 100 two days ago, had he not died in 2002. He was known for his short stories far more than his novels, making him less of a household name than his novel-writing colleagues. It’s purely by coincidence that I’m writing this post so near the one hundredth anniversary of his birth–I had no idea until I sat down to research this post–but we can take a moment to acknowledge his achievements before we move on. His first publications were two issues of a sci-fi fanzine, Snide, at the ripe old age of eleven, before slipping away from the genre for several years; in his twenties he returned as a writer and, prominently, a reviewer. He published numerous short stories over the years, though he struggled to find popularity for his novels. As an editor he worked for several magazines, but his best known editorial work is the Orbit series of sci-fi anthologies, launched in 1966, which in turn helped establish later well-known author and editor Gardner Dozois. If you don’t know him for anything else, there’s a good chance you know him for one of the original Twilight Zone‘s most famous episodes: Season 3, Episode 24, To Serve Man, about a peaceful alien contact with a horrific twist.

The story in question for this post is titled “Thing of Beauty“, and was published first in the September 1958 issue of Galaxy magazine. You can download that issue at the Internet Archive, if you would like to read the story for yourself. (Spoilers ahead for a 64-year-old story, if that’s a concern for you!)

“Thing of Beauty” is the story of one Gordon Fish, a con artist and general slacker who stumbles into the chance of a lifetime. Due to a time slip–of which Fish is mostly unaware–a large machine is erroneously delivered to his home. Fish finds its controls to be written in a language he doesn’t recognize; but he puzzles out its use. The machine can create complex and beautiful drawings, with only minimal selections from the user. Fish, ever the con artist, finds a way to use this machine to pose as an artist himself, and becomes wildly successful, though he must portray himself as eccentric in order to keep from being caught out. It leads him to relationships (of which he takes advantage) and contracts (even more so), all of which are essentially a house of cards. Along the way he finally copies down the machine’s instructions, and sends them off to the Encyclopedia Britannica offices for translation–but of course this is 1958, or shortly thereafter, and the wheels turn slowly. In the end, it all comes crashing down, as Fish’s lies catch up to him, and he is challenged to prove himself with one last drawing. But, the machine has been running down; and as it finally stops, yielding nothing, he finds the translation from the Britannica offices, which tells him that he has been setting the machine to delete its templates after use.

I read this story as a child; but even then I was able to appreciate the horror Fish felt when he realized what he had done. There is, of course, a lesson in it–a lesson about carelessness and greed. After all, Fish had the instruction manual the entire time; he could have sent it off for translation before he started experimenting–and more to the point, before he started trying to cash in.

That lesson wasn’t wasted on me; but rereading “Thing of Beauty” as an adult gave me something else to consider, that wasn’t in place even in my childhood. We live, of course, in the age of the internet, and all of its apps. And among those, of course, are translator apps. Most of them will identify the language for you. Google Translate doesn’t even require that you type in the text you want to translate (which is wonderful, given the diversity of alphabets and scripts in existence). You can simply open the app, give it access to your phone’s camera, and point it at the text. And so, now, sixty years after this story was published, along comes a technology that renders its entire twist moot!

But, Damon Knight couldn’t have known. In 1958, no one had any real concept of what computers and related devices would look like today. A few years down the road, Star Trek would famously come up with a few concepts that have only recently become reality, such as handheld communication devices and computers that respond to voice commands–and remember that Star Trek was set three hundred years in the future from its era of production! (Indeed, there’s an argument to be made that those real-world inventions were inspired by Star Trek–but that’s a talk for another time.) Knight was already being a bit visionary in this story; his machine has no wires inside, no obvious moving parts, which perhaps foresees the existence of solid state electronics. There’s no way he could have foreseen instant translation software as well.

And that’s really the thing, isn’t it? Science fiction never predicts things the way they really turn out, because there’s a fundamental hurdle that has to be overcome: The hurdle of the unanticipated need. Science fiction tends to predict by extrapolation–that is, it looks at what currently exists, and projects the same realities out into the future. Think, for example, of Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451, where it’s noted that billboards are now two hundred feet long so that the passengers in speeding cars could read them–an extrapolation regarding the speed of traffic in that then-future era.

Real science doesn’t always work that way. While it’s true that science builds on itself, the progression comes just as much from taking that acquired knowledge and applying it to problems that were never expected at the time of the original research. Those translator apps may be a product of years of research, but they solve a problem that wasn’t even perceived to exist in the past. Translation required a trained translator, or a lengthy period of instruction, or a reference book, and that was that. Or, going back to Star Trek: The original series had buttons–actual physical, clicking buttons–on all its control panels. It all looked terribly futuristic at the time, but now it’s clearly dated, because no one anticipated the need for control panels to be variable–which, in turn, is the problem that led to the existence of touchscreens. And now we have them in our pockets and on our wrists, and Star Trek looks terribly primitive.

I didn’t come to this post with a lesson in mind, only an observation. However, there is a lesson to be had as a writer, and that lesson is: Don’t worry about it! And it’s a lesson especially applicable to me, because I love to be right. More than that, I love to be believable in my writing. I research things as thoroughly as I can. But there’s a degree to which that’s missing the point; because I’m never going to get it all right. I don’t need to get it all right. Just like everyone else, I can’t reliably anticipate the unanticipated need; and so my predictions, too, will be just extrapolations. It’s great when it lands correctly; but when it doesn’t, well, that’s just the nature of the craft.

For more reading on Damon Knight, visit Wikipedia or The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Galaxy Magazine can be found at the Internet Archive, or from various resellers. The September 1958 issue of Galaxy, including “Thing of Beauty”, can be found here. Robin Hood: Men In Tights can be viewed or purchased at many streaming services and retailers.

The Contradiction of Fandom

Posted on September 13, 2022 by Timewalkerauthor

What are you watching these days? For the moment, let’s settle on television and leave the movies and YouTube videos aside (though, full confession, I probably watch more YouTube than actual television and movies combined). Which shows have your attention these days?

I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of all television, of course. There’s bound to be plenty of quality–or at least popular–shows out there that I’m only peripherally aware of, if at all. But I try to keep my eye on the ones that make the pop-culture headlines, at least. Currently, I’m watching The Rings of Power, Amazon’s Lord of the Rings adaptation (that doesn’t actually adapt Lord of the Rings at all, and explicitly can’t, but who’s counting?). I’m also keeping up with Disney Plus’s Star Wars offerings as they become available; most recently that would be Obi-Wan Kenobi, which I might add was excellent, and you should go watch it.

Most recently of all, I started watching She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, the latest offering in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (though, should they really say “cinematic” if there’s no cinema? Hmm). And while I think it’s one of the weaker television entries, I am still enjoying it. I imagine a lot of people are.

You wouldn’t know it, though, if you go by Twitter and other forums! She-Hulk had been out for about two weeks before it started to get flak over–of all things–a picture of Captain America on the titular character’s cell phone. (Need I remind you, that is America’s ass?) Not much later, it happened again, this time over She-Hulk twerking with Megan Thee Stallion. I personally think twerking looks stupid, but I have no problem with someone’s right to do it (the bigger crime here is that Megan spells “Thee” with two e’s–drives me crazy every time I see it). But apparently a show that centers a female character in a powerful position (both as a superhero and in the ordinary world) is mixing it messages if it shows that character doing something that, y’know, women all over the world actually do.

It’s the same pattern over and over again, though. Media franchise is highly anticipated; franchise appears; self-proclaimed fans rip it to shreds. What gives?

I keep coming back to this topic–If you’ve been with me awhile, you know I’ve discussed it several times. And the reason I keep coming back is because I’m still looking for an explanation. Why is it that the fans of a piece of media can’t enjoy the thing they claim to love?

This is a real struggle for me, because I don’t feel that way myself–but you would be forgiven for thinking the entire world does. And maybe that’s just an example of the squeaky wheel getting the grease–the complainers certainly can be the loudest voices. But it still demands an answer to the question of why people behave this way in the first place. Don’t you love this fictional universe? Don’t you consider yourself a fan?

Your tweets and Reddit posts would argue differently. (And by “you”, I don’t mean this audience specifically; I’m generalizing to all those who engage in this behavior.) Everybody wants to complain about something.

Maybe it’s just that everyone wants to be heard. If it’s true that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, then why wouldn’t you do some squeaking? Twitter is a sea of voices; only so many get heard. Reddit is the same, plus anonymity! 4Chan and other more toxic forums, even more so. And it’s true that we all rely on this to some degree, because drama is a driving force for interest. I’m complaining right now, about this particular issue. So maybe the prevalence of toxicity and bitterness and complaint is simply due to a desire to be heard. (And on the personal level, maybe that’s partly why I don’t feel the urge to criticize as much. By and large, I don’t care if the things I post here are heard. Sure, on some level I want to be heard; but if I’m not heard here, well, I’ve still written it for my own benefit. I don’t post on Twitter, except for the automatic tweets of these posts. I do participate on Reddit–but as I said, it’s anonymous. So, anecdotally, there’s definitely a correlation between “desire to be heard and recognized” and “desire to trash the things I love”.)

Maybe, instead, it’s a desire to see a good thing be better. I think this is where a lot of the “book purists” start. For the best current example of this, we’ll turn to The Rings of Power. It’s had its share of criticisms over the course of its three episodes, and even before launch. Did you know that, apparently, to some fans, it’s a really big deal that the show’s dwarf women don’t have beards? Because apparently that’s a thing in the books. (I’ve read most of them more than once, and somehow I must have passed over that part, because–hate to break it to you–it’s an insignificant detail. But it is, allegedly, in there.) I’m ridiculing this particular detail, of course, but it does illustrate that some fans are coming from an ostensibly good place. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see an adaptation be faithful to the books–though, here’s another bitter pill to swallow: Most adaptations are badly served by trying to be too faithful, and benefit from some deviation. Books are, after all, a different medium, and not everything translates well to screen. Nevertheless, those fans’ hearts are in the right place; they love the source material, and they want to celebrate it.

(Now, if you’ve been following the Twitterverse at all, you may be saying at this point that I’m glossing over the biggest complaints, and you would be right. Bear with me, I’m getting there…right about now.)

I sat down to write this post, intending first of all to talk more about the history of the MCU Disney+ shows. You can see I got diverted, so we’ll come back to that in another post. Secondly, I sat down intending to formulate a theory of toxic fandom that didn’t make us all look like terrible people…and on that point, I have failed.

It pains me to say it, but the more I dwell on this, the more it appears to me that the toxicity in fandom is all too often rooted in the same old problems that our civilization has been struggling with for centuries: Racism and misogyny. In other circumstances I might also include class struggle, but I don’t see as much of that here. I also acknowledge that LGBTQ+ issues are involved, but I’m not going to address it because I don’t feel well versed enough to give it the attention it would require. But that’s okay; racism and misogyny give us enough to chew on.

I mean, it’s everywhere:

Rings of Power: Black dwarves? Black Elves? Black HOBBITS?! How could you?
Also Rings of Power: You’re not portraying Galadriel right! This woman is too strong/tough/assertive/you name it!
She-Hulk: Twerking?! How dare you?
The upcoming The Little Mermaid film: A Black mermaid?? I must clutch my pearls!
Star Wars: Fortunately Kenobi was fairly free of this (though not from more general criticism). But the sequel trilogy sure had its share. Daisy Ridley’s Rey has been a neverending target of bile. Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico) was driven to therapy by online harrassment (checking off the racism and sexism boxes).
Ms. Marvel: Not just racism, not just sexism, but religious hate as well!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Received flak for recasting Uhura, a character who–and I can’t stress this enough–was already Black, and was a historically significant Black character.
Apple TV+’s Foundation: Recast a major character as a woman and caught hell for it.

And those are just the handful that immediately leaped to mind. There’s a neverending parade of this sort of thing.

I’m not suggesting that all fan toxicity is based in racism and misogyny. Nor am I suggesting that every example of criticism is toxic, or even that every example is unmerited. I hope I’ve been clear about that.

But I am suggesting that this is a problem that isn’t going away anytime soon. Because racism and misogyny in society aren’t going away anytime soon–though rest assured, it’s by no means universal! Many people–I’d argue it’s the majority–are fighting these fronts. But these are stubborn problems. And when you pour them into fandom, and couple them with that drive to be heard, to make your mark…well. Settle in for the long fight.

I hope we win that fight. Because it means more than just the love or hate of a fictional universe, no matter how much I’d like it to just be that. Which means, in turn, that it impacts all of us–no matter if you call yourself a fan or not.

Revisiting Star Wars: Dark Empire II

Posted on August 17, 2022 by Timewalkerauthor

Picking up where we left off last time, we’re skipping around again in our reread of the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe (EU, which I use herein to mean the continuity now known as Legends). Previously we covered 1991/1992’s Dark Empire comic book miniseries; today we’re covering the sequel series, 1994/1995’s Dark Empire II. (A third and final entry of the series, Empire’s End, will be covered at a later time.) If you missed the last post, you can find it here; it will be helpful in understanding where we’re going today.

Before we jump in, you may be wondering, why are we skipping ahead? Weren’t we covering the Thrawn trilogy? Well, yes, and we’ll get back to it soon! But I decided to break sequence briefly because, to put it simply, Dark Empire and Dark Empire II fell into my hands. Star Wars comics stay in frequent circulation at my local library, and I happened to catch these as they were coming back in. (I know, I know, it may shock you to learn I don’t own every book I cover here–maybe someday, but for now both shelf space and funds are at a premium, so here we are.) Knowing we’d be in need of them soon, I checked them out; but they have to go back eventually, and today is the day. Why not get the word out while it’s still fresh? With all that said, we’ll get back to Thrawn shortly.

As I mentioned last time, Dark Empire takes place about one year after the Thrawn trilogy, in and around 10 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin), or about six years after Return of the Jedi. Dark Empire II follows shortly thereafter; it’s not stated, but it seems to begin only weeks after the end of Dark Empire. The clone Emperor is dead at Leia’s hands; Luke has returned to the light; and the Emperor’s World Devastators have been destroyed. So, with that, let’s jump in!

Spoilers ahead! A discussion of the plot of Dark Empire follows. Some spoilers may occur in other sections, but the discussion ahead will contain many more spoilers. For a less spoiler-filled read, skip to the line divider below.

In the aftermath of the Empire’s Operation Shadow Hand, it is revealed that the Emperor trained several “Dark Jedi” to be his personal servants, in a similar vein to Darth Vader. They are led by Executor Sedriss, who now seeks to tie the remnants of the Empire together and take the fight back to the rebels. To that end, he leads an attack on the nominally Imperial world of Balmorra. The planet makes a deal with Sedriss: Its freedom in exchange for a new line of large, autonomous battle droids that can outmatch an AT-AT. The planet’s governor then communicates this information to the rebels at Pinnacle Base, where Mon Mothma spearheads a plan. As the new droids are transported to the Imperial fortress world of Byss, a commando team led by Lando Calrissian and Wedge Antilles will be smuggled in with them, and take the Imperial citadel by surprise.

Luke, meanwhile, has been busy. Following information found in the holocron, he has traveled to an abandoned space station at Nespis VIII, where he met one of the Dark Jedi, a former Jedi named Kam Solusar. Luke frees Kam from the influence of the Dark Side and brings him back to join his new Jedi order. As the infiltration mission departs for Byss, Luke and Cam depart for a world called Ossus, on the direction of the holocron. Ossus was once a stronghold of the Jedi, though it fell to ruins many years ago; the holocron suggests its libraries may still be intact. Meanwhile, Leia–well into her pregnancy with her third child–has had a vision suggesting that she will need the assistance of Vima-Da-Boda, the old Jedi woman she previously met on Nar Shaddaa; she departs with Han, Chewie, Salla Zend, and Shug Ninx to find the old woman. And on Byss, it is revealed that the Emperor’s last few clones survived Luke’s attack, and he rules again.

Apparently the rebellion has spies; for Palpatine is aware of the situation at Nar Shaddaa, and sends two of his Dark Jedi to capture Leia. A battle erupts, and quickly gets out of hand, as the bounty hunters of Nar Shaddaa–including Boba Fett–interfere in an attempt to capture Han and Leia. The two Dark Jedi are killed in the fight. Shug and Salla flee the moon en route to Byss to try to recover the ship they left there on their last incursion. Han, Leia, and Chewbacca manage to locate Vima and take her aboard the Falcon, before blasting their way out, inadvertently causing the Star Destroyer in orbit to crash into the moon. They battle again with Fett, who disables the Falcon’s hyperspace engine; they flee into a large interstellar gas cloud to hide. Inside, they find an entire isolated civilization on the world of Ganath, which gives them shelter; there they meet the Ganathans’ leader, an Old Republic Jedi named Empatojayos Brand. Brand arranges for the repair (with modifications) of the Falcon, and leaves the planet in the hands of his lieutenant, opting to join the fledgling Jedi order and the rebels.

As the infiltration team break out of their hiding places on Byss, and send the droids to attack the citadel, Palpatine is in orbit, visiting his latest superweapon project: the Galaxy Gun. This massive weapon can fire intelligent projectiles through hyperspace to strike any planet; and he plans to use it on Pinnacle Base, wiping out the rebellion in one stroke. With this in mind, he ignores the assault on Byss, deeming it insignificant. He’s not completely wrong; though the rebels do much damage, they are ultimately forced to flee, with the help of Shug, Salla, and a few other smugglers. They race back toward Pinnacle Base.

Luke and Cam find something unexpected on Ossus: An entire tribe of Force-sensitive people, descended from the Jedi who once lived here. They begin to make inroads, and even find a pair of young women who decide to become Jedi; one of them, Jem, becomes a love interest for Luke. But it is short-lived, as Sedriss and another Dark Jedi arrive and attack them. Kam kills the other Dark Jedi; but Sedriss takes Jem hostage, standing with his back against an ancient, gnarled tree.

Suddenly the tree moves, and seizes Sedriss as Luke and Kam pull Jem away. The tree is more than a tree; it is the ancient Jedi master Ood Bnar, who has waited on this spot for millennia. Now he rouses from sleep to put an end to Sedriss; but Sedriss calls down the Dark Side against the Jedi. In the end, Ood proves stronger; but he sacrifices himself to destroy Sedriss. However, he leaves behind two things: A sapling; and a cache of well-protected ancient lightsabers. Luke follows this lead to a sealed library of Jedi texts; he takes a few, but arranges for the tribe to guard the place until a team of Republic workers can come to shore it up and properly explore it. With Kam, Jem, and her sister, he heads back to Pinnacle Base.

The Jedi arrive just in time to find the Galaxy Gun’s projectile destroying the planet.

Dispirited, the various teams regroup at an even more secret location: New Alderaan, where Han and Leia’s twins, Jacen and Jaina, had been hidden. They compare notes there, resolved to continue the fight even despite the deaths of the rebels. In the night, they are attacked by the final two Dark Jedi, along with a force of AT-ATs and ground troops. Luke’s chamber is infiltrated by small poison-bearing droids, rendering him unable to join the battle. Vima attempts Jedi healing on Luke, and manages to get him on his feet in time to evacuate the village. The assault is repelled; Kam, Jem, and Empatojayos take on and destroy the Dark Jedi–but not before Jem is killed. Luke leads the group into hyperspace, and takes them to the abandoned space station at Nespis VIII, where Luke first met Kam…and there they find that the rebels weren’t destroyed. Mon Mothma, it seems, had been able to evacuate Pinnacle Base prior to its destruction, and regrouped here. Leia goes into labor, and gives birth to her third child: a boy, whom she names Anakin, after her father. Newly encouraged, the rebels begin planning the final end of the Empire.

Much of my commentary about Dark Empire applies here as well, and I won’t repeat it. The series represents a very different view of Star Wars from that of Timothy Zahn and the novelists who followed in his footsteps. It’s a darker, grimmer view; the rebels (no mention of the New Republic here!) are on the back foot again, and many of their earlier victories–the death of Palpatine, the conquest of Coruscant–have been undone.

I can’t help but draw comparisons with the sequel trilogy of films. Now, before this has a chance to turn into the usual mudslinging found in the fandom, I want to say that I did my best to enjoy the sequel trilogy. The Force Awakens was fun; The Last Jedi has one of the best endings I could have imagined. I do feel that things fell apart in The Rise of Skywalker; I don’t like the directions things went. To each his own; if you did like it, that’s fantastic. I’m not into gatekeeping this franchise. I have my preferences, and you have yours, and there’s room for all of us. But I will make the point that the sequel trilogy seems to have drawn some of its points from the Dark Empire series.

Obviously there’s the matter of Palpatine surviving in clone bodies. That being the primary plot hook of the Dark Empire series, it’s impossible to miss. Then there’s matter of the New Republic being reduced to a rebellion again (the Resistance, in the films). Leia and Han have a prominent Force-sensitive child, although the films portray a later point in that child’s life. There’s a superweapon that fires through hyperspace to destroy planets. There’s a secretive resurgence of the Empire in a deep Core world. There’s even a planet reminiscent of the Nar Shaddaa sequences in the sequel trilogy.

The sequels aren’t alone in this, of course. The Mandalorian took the idea of the “Darktroopers” (a concept I didn’t mention in my summary, for the sake of time) from this story, though they’re a different breed. The Dark Jedi here are functionally identical to the Inquisitors as seen in Kenobi and other canon sources. But the sequel trilogy really takes this to a new level.

At any rate: What to make of Dark Empire II? And the bottom line, for me, is that I have mixed feelings about it. It’s not a bad story. It reminds me of the old Marvel comics from the original trilogy era. But, as with Dark Empire, it’s difficult to reconcile it with the EU as we know it now. It very much feels like an alternate universe. I’m grateful to the later EU writers who were able to take elements of this story and incorporate it into the rest of the EU–Kam, we love you, and we’ll see you again soon!–but I don’t envy them the task they had.

What if…? I find myself asking. What if this had been the prevailing vision of Star Wars? Let’s go ahead and assume it would have survived as it has now. Imagine a world where Leia was a Jedi from the start. Where the New Republic didn’t take hold and last. Where Palpatine didn’t just “somehow, Palpatine returned”–instead, he kept returning, over and over, growing stronger each time. Imagine this darker, more shadowy version of the galaxy that we know and love. Maybe that appeals to you; grimdark has its place in modern fiction, certainly. This is as close to grimdark as Star Wars seems to get. It’s though-provoking, and a bit uncomfortable. Personally I like visiting this world, but I wouldn’t want to live here.

Next time: I don’t have a copy of Empire’s End on hand, so we’ll get back to our regular schedule (such as it is). Still next in line: Dark Force Rising, the second entry in the Thrawn trilogy! See you there.

Dark Empire II is available from Amazon and other booksellers.

You can read Wookieepedia’s treatment of the series here.

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Revisiting Star Wars: Dark Empire

Posted on July 20, 2022 by Timewalkerauthor

“My father’s destiny is my own.”

~Luke Skywalker

I’m going to briefly change up the order of my posts in this series, for the second time. In our journey through the post-Return of the Jedi Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU, or “Legends”, if you prefer), we had made it as far as the book that brought the EU back to life: Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire. And we’ll get back there, I promise! We’ll pick up with its sequel, Dark Force Rising, and continue on our way.

But in the meantime, I’ve had another item of interest fall into my hands, if only temporarily. So today, while we have the opportunity, let’s skip ahead and take a look at one of the few comics I intend to cover: 1991/1992’s Dark Empire miniseries, written and drawn by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy.

It’s not a long skip; we were on approach to this story anyway. Since in general I’m only covering novels, selected young readers novels, and a very small number of short stories and comics, there was only one more book to cover between Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy and Dark Empire. (That book is X-Wing: Isard’s Revenge, if you’re curious, and we should get there soon.) However, be warned, there’s a longer skip coming: I also managed to temporarily lay hands on the sequel, Dark Empire II, so I’ll be covering it as well.

“But why?!” I hear you asking. “Why include comic books in this review of the novels??” I’m glad you asked! Maybe, though, a better question would be “Why NOT include comic books?” There are any number of comics set in this part of the EU–so why am I not including them? Aren’t they canon (or, well, EU canon)? Yes! They are! Mostly, anyway–there are exceptions. But the reason I am not iddncluding them is primarily for the sake of focus. You can already see how long I tend to go between posts in general, and Star Wars posts in particular; if I include too much material, I’ll never reach the end. In addition, most comics, while interesting, just don’t affect the canon of the novels very much. They may fit in; but they are rarely referenced, and rarely shape the direction of the novels. I feel safe leaving them out because we’re not going to need them where we going–though you should absolutely still read them if you have the chance.

Dark Empire and its two sequels–along with Union, which I also intend to cover–are exceptions. Their impact on the general direction of the EU is significant. These events will come up again. And so, I feel that they deserve a place in this discussion, right up there with the novels. As well, Dark Empire is a very early contribution to the post-RotJ EU, having been developed alongside–and in terms of development, predating–the Thrawn trilogy. It provides a valuable look into the early shaping of the EU…and gives us a look at a darker route things could have taken.

So, let’s dive in!

First things first: Dark Empire was a comic book miniseries published by Dark Horse comics between December 1991 and October 1992. It ran six issues, with a new issue every other month. It was Dark Horse’s first outing with the license for Star Wars comics; Marvel had previously held the license, and indeed had been publishing Star Wars comics intermittently for years. Its publication was not without drama; initially conceived in 1988, the series took three long years to travel from concept to comic stores, and at one point artist Cam Kennedy even walked away from the project due to the lack of progress (not to mention lack of payment). As mentioned, its beginnings predate the writing of the Thrawn trilogy, and thus all subsequent EU projects. The project changed several times–nothing new in Star Wars–first to accommodate Lucasfilm’s desire to make the prequel trilogy (thus barring this project from taking place prior to the events of Episode IV), and then to accommodate Zahn’s work on the Thrawn trilogy. Zahn and Veitch had quite different views of the Star Wars universe, and couldn’t truly come to an agreement; in the end, it was agreed that Dark Empire would take place a year after the Thrawn trilogy, and reference the trilogy’s events (but only in the opening crawl–yes, it has an opening crawl, just like the films). In the long run, Zahn’s vision of the future (see what I did there?*) would win out; later books would rely more heavily on his continuity than on Veitch’s–though Veitch’s continuity would never be fully expunged or ignored. Zahn, for example, gave us Han and Leia’s then-unborn twins, Jacen and Jaina; Veitch gave us their then-unborn second son, Anakin. All three would be pivotal to the series’ future.

Several books ago, we covered the fall of Coruscant to the New Republic’s forces. Dark Empire begins with a tragic reversal, as Imperial forces retake the capital world–though not in any unified sense, as the Imperials are locked in their own civil war. Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, and others have joined the fight, using the captured Star Destroyer Liberator–but now that ship has been shot down, and has crashed to the planet’s surface. Han and Leia–who is pregnant with their third child–attempt a rescue mission, accompanied by Chewbacca and C-3P0. They fight their way to the surface, and successfully pick up the survivors; but Luke refuses to go with them. Instead, he warns them of something coming; and shortly thereafter, a force storm breaks out through hyperspace, assaulting the planet and carrying Luke and R2-D2 away.

While the battle over Coruscant continues, the Republic forces withdraw to Pinnacle Base, located on a rocky moon. There they get word of a new threat, coming from the Imperial-held deep core worlds: Massive machines called World Devastators have appeared. These enormous constructions have the ability to tear apart planetary surfaces and take in the raw material; inside, enormous factories convert the material to new ships, droids, and armaments. The Devastators appear over Mon Calamari (here called simply “Calamari” in an unusual rendition), taking revenge on the Rebellion’s staunchest allies. Lando and Wedge Antilles take the New Republic’s forces, including the second captured Star Destroyer, Emancipator, and attacks the fleet of World Devastators–but to no avail.

Luke, meanwhile, finds himself transported to the deep core world of Byss, the Empire’s strongest fortress. There he finds something no one expects: The Emperor himself, back from the dead! The Emperor tempts Luke again to take Darth Vader’s place at his side, revealing to him the existence of the World Devastators. Luke is torn, as before; but this time, he chooses to try to undermine the Dark Side of the Force from within, and gives in to the Emperor. Gleefully, the Emperor begins his indoctrination, and places him in charge of the Empire’s forces.

None of this goes unnoticed, though. Leia, who has spent what time she can in training under Luke, is sensitive to his plight; and she insists that he must be rescued. To that end, Han agrees; but how to gain entry to the heavily blockaded deep core? For that is where Leia’s Jedi senses are leading her.

Han has the solution. He takes Leia, Chewie, and C-3P0 to Nar Shaddaa, the “Smugglers’ Moon” over Nal Hutta, which is in turn the homeworld of Jabba the Hutt…who, recall, was killed by none other than Leia. While there, Leia has an encounter with an old woman named Vima, who claims to be a Jedi in exile; Vima gives her a mysterious gift, and warns her of danger ahead. After various betrayals, and an encounter with Boba Fett–who was last seen falling into the maw of the Sarlaac on Tattoine–Han recruits old friends Salla Zend and Shug Ninx to get them to the deep core on a legal transport ship. Taking the Falcon in tow, they make their way to Byss and through its planetary shield. Meanwhile, back at Mon Calamari, the battle against the World Devastators continues–until, mysteriously, they are temporarily shut down. It’s only a short reprieve…but what does it mean?

Han and Leia make their way to the Emperor’s fortress, where they are captured; Shalla and Shug manage to escape with the Falcon, hiding it nearby. Han and Leia are brought face to face with Luke, who coldly assures him he knows what he is doing; then they are presented to the Emperor. The Emperor reveals his secret, and his plan: He maintains his life by transferring his life force into clones of himself. His power with the Dark Side is too great for one body to handle, and so his bodies burn out quickly; his death on the second Death Star only abbreviated the process. But now, he wants a stronger body, with a greater connection to the Force: Leia’s unborn child! Leia uses Vima’s gift–the old woman’s lightsaber–and fights their way free, but the Emperor repels her attacks, and imprisons them. The Emperor attempts to tempt Leia as he did with Luke, enticing her with an ancient Jedi holocron, a teaching tool containing the copied personality of a Jedi Master, Bodo-Baas. She breaks free and steals the holocron, reconnecting with Han, and the two make their way to Luke, in the cloning facility. R2-D2 is also there, and C-3P0 is concerned to learn that much of R2’s programming has been deleted, though the droid still functions. Luke assures them that they have broken the Emperor’s grip on him; he escapes with them, and the group reconnects with Salla and Shug to escape Byss. However, aboard the Falcon, Luke tells them that R2’s memory now contains all the data on the World Devastators; then he fades away, having never truly left Byss at all.

Back on Byss, Luke attempts to kill the Emperor, but is unsuccessful. He instead kills the Emperor’s clones–but the dying Emperor manages to transfer himself into the last of the clones, and overcomes Luke’s resistance.

The crew on the Falcon begin to broadcast the data, hacking into the World Devastators to shut them down. They are successful, but the Imperial crews manage to reactivate the factories inside the Devastators, churning out droid starfighters to renew the fight. In response, R2 compiles a new code, giving him greater control over the World Devastators–and he turns them against each other. As the last of them are destroyed, the Republic forces celebrate.

Their victory is short-lived though, as the data inside R2 indicates the full extent of the Emperor’s plans: the cloning, the consolidation of Imperial forces, the drive to retake the galaxy. Suddenly Leia senses Luke much closer to her than before…as a massive new Star Destroyer exits hyperspace above Pinnacle Base. The Emperor demands that Leia be surrendered to him alone, with the holocron, so that he can raise her as yet unborn child in the ways of the Dark Side, and ultimately take the child’s body for himself. Leia uses the holocron, and learns of a prophecy that indicates she and Luke will have to stand together to defeat the Dark Side; and so she allows herself to be taken to the Emperor.

There, she stands against him, and ultimately breaks through Luke’s conditioning. Drawing him back to the light, the two siblings stand against the Emperor. In a rage, he attacks them, but is repulsed, and Luke cuts off his hand. Furious, he summons the Force storm to destroy Pinnacle Base and demoralize the Republic forces; but Luke and Leia cut him off from the Dark Side. The storm, now out of control, turns back on him and destroys him with his ship; Luke and Leia escape in a shuttle.

In the aftermath, they talk about the future of the Jedi, and resolve to see the order restored.

So, just what is it about Dark Empire? This story remains controversial; fans remain divided on not only whether it is any good, but also on whether it should be considered (Legends) canon at all. What’s the big deal?

Dark Empire is a vision of the then-future of Star Wars that is quite different from that of Timothy Zahn (who was the only active EU author at the time–though others would follow in his steps). If one has read the Thrawn trilogy first–which was to be expected, given the respective release dates–then this story will feel regressive in many of its details:

Control of Coruscant is still contested (I expect Veitch would rather have depicted its conquest by the New Republic, but Zahn beat him to the punch, so he depicted its fall instead).
Luke is still open to temptation to the Dark Side by the Emperor, a battle he had long since won.
Leia’s children are mentioned, but not seen.
Han’s behavior and speech are much rougher than we usually see.
The New Republic only has two Star Destroyers, and loses them both here.
The bare surface of Coruscant is depicted, something confined to a very small area in Zahn’s version. (One wonders on what planet this story would have opened in the original version, as Coruscant was introduced by Zahn.)
Wedge Antilles appears, but Rogue Squadron does not (at least not by name).
Leia is much more a Jedi here than depicted in any other early stories.

But, more than anything, Dark Empire feels like fanfiction. Its scene changes are abrupt. It throws out allusions to the original trilogy almost at random, without proper reasons to include them beyond “He said the thing!” Dialogue is cumbersome and overly explicative.

Fortunately, I love fanfiction, and I respect it. It’s not a dealbreaker for me. But it does mean that enjoyment of this story requires a bit of poetic license, so to speak. I can imagine the characters doing the things they do here; I just can’t imagine them doing them in quite the way they do them here (or say them, in the case of dialogue). It stretches the imagination; it doesn’t break it. And what is imagination for, if not stretching?

There’s a certain feeling that Star Wars has when it’s done right. I can’t nail it down, but if you’re a fan of the original trilogy…you know it when you see it. Dark Empire doesn’t have that feeling; the Thrawn trilogy does. Dark Empire feels more like Star Wars’ edgy goth phase. There’s a place for that, certainly, but it is a bit harder to fit it in with everything else. It’s a good story; but it’s not your typical Star Wars story.

And yet, its impact cannot be overstated. For one, there’s Anakin Solo. He isn’t named here–Leia hasn’t been pregnant for long–but his existence is established, and he will go on to be hugely important to the EU. For another, there’s Luke’s fall to the Dark Side. This will be a cautionary tale for Luke and his students for years to come–that even the mighty can fall; even a Master can be vulnerable to darkness. It will shape Luke’s approach to the Force and to the Jedi for decades. Salla Zend and Shug Ninx will reappear all the way into the New Jedi Order series. Boba Fett’s survival will be a topic of hot debate both in and out of universe. The E-Wing Fighter is introduced. The Emperor’s return will take a long time to expunge; the deep core will remain the stronghold of the Empire; the memory of the World Devastators will be a long one. All of this, we owe to Tom Veitch, Cam Kennedy, and Dark Empire.

I’d say that’s worth a little deviation from the norm.

I remember buying a few issues on sale at Waldenbooks circa 1995, when they were already several years out of date (probably even a reprint). But I didn’t get them all, and I never read them until now, nearly three decades later. That’s a shame; I wish I had got there sooner. Don’t make my mistake. If you want the full story of the post-RotJ EU, don’t skip Dark Empire. It’s worth your time. (And now available in a collected one-volume edition!)

Next time: Either Dark Empire II, or Dark Force Rising–we’ll see. See you there.

Dark Empire is available from Amazon and other booksellers.

You can read Wookieepedia’s treatment of the series here.

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Doctor Who Unbound: Zero Sum

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Timewalkerauthor

“Unbound” is a term coined by Big Finish Productions, the creators of many Doctor Who audio dramas. It refers to stories in alternate universes, where something happened differently–and then, what happens next? An Unbound story in Doctor Who terms is equivalent to Marvel’s “What If…?” stories, or Dark Horse Comics’ “Star Wars: Infinities” comics (for the oldtimers like me in the crowd).

I wrote this story a few years ago for a charity anthology of Unbound stories, but that didn’t pan out for me, so I’m posting it here. Zero Sum asks the question, “What if the Fifth Doctor’s sonic screwdriver hadn’t been destroyed?” Sometimes it only takes a small event to change a life. I hope you’ll like it.

Several Classic era stories are referenced here, and familiarity with them will help, but is not required; those stories include Logopolis, The Visitation, Castrovalva, Earthshock, Mawdryn Undead, and the six stories in the “Key to Time” arc: The Ribos Operation, The Pirate Planet, The Stones of Blood, The Androids of Tara, The Power of Kroll, and The Armageddon Factor.

This story has also been posted to my Who-centric blog, The Time Lord Archives, and to Reddit’s brand new community, /r/WhovianFanfiction (come out and contribute!).

London, September 1666

One could be locked in a lot of cells in five lifetimes. The Time Lord called the Doctor knew it firsthand; he’d been locked up more times than he could count. This one, located in a particularly grimy cellar, was not one of the better cells he’d experienced, but it was hardly a time to be choosy. If only he wasn’t wearing manacles…

He fumbled in one of his voluminous coat pockets, searching for something to help his predicament. The sonic screwdriver? No, not at the moment—but it tumbled to the floor as he searched. “Oh, for a proper key!” Still, he couldn’t afford to be without it; and he quickly knelt and scooped it up, transferring it to the other pocket before resuming his search. He was still searching when the Terileptil leader entered the room and ordered him to remain still.

Earth Orbit, circa 65,000,000 BC

“Please hurry, Doctor,” Nyssa shouted. “We must get Adric off the freighter!”

“The console’s damaged,” the Doctor replied. “Working on it, though!” He pulled his sonic screwdriver from his coat pocket and leaned into the fissure in the console. “Ahh!” he yelled, shaking his hand as sparks flew.

“There’s not enough time!” Tegan said.

“There will be!” The buzz of the screwdriver came from inside the gap between console and time rotor. “Nyssa, set the coordinates, quickly! Tegan, grab—“ “ —This?!” Tegan shouted, and brushed past the Doctor, cyber-gun in hand. The Doctor managed a quick glance toward the inner doors, where the final Cyberman aboard was staggering in, just in time to see Tegan dispatch it with the weapon. She threw the gun down before stumbling back toward the console, but there was a look of triumph on her face.

“Coordinates in!” Nyssa said. No sooner had she spoken than the Doctor shoved her out of the way and threw the dematerialisation switch.

In the vortex, Time is everywhere and nowhere, and as a consequence it means very nearly nothing. Before the TARDIS could materialize at its destination, the Doctor slapped a control, bringing the time rotor to a halt, leaving the ship hanging in the vortex. He let out a sigh of relief, and took a moment to look over his companions. “Is everyone alright?” He helped Nyssa to her feet from where she had fallen, murmuring an apology; then he gave Tegan a cursory examination. Satisfied that no one was injured, he turned back to the console. “We successfully removed ourselves from events before the, well, the inevitable conclusion,” he said, “and as a result we’ve bought ourselves some time.”

“But what about Adric?” Tegan said. “That freighter will have crashed by now!”

“Yes, I’m quite sure it has,” he said, “for someone, somewhen. But for us, it has yet to happen, until we emerge from the vortex again. We can’t go back and change anything we’ve already experienced, but we can try to land at just the right place and time to change what we haven’t.”

Tegan frowned, not grasping it yet; Nyssa stepped in to explain. “He’s saying that we can’t, say, go back to twenty minutes before we left and prevent Adric from staying on the freighter, because we’ve already seen it happen. For us, it’s set in stone. But we can land on the freighter in the same minute in which we dematerialised, and rescue him off it, because for us, his fate isn’t sealed yet.”

“Correct,” the Doctor said. “And the spatial coordinates you laid in are correct, or close enough; but to land with that type of temporal precision, I’ll need to finish these repairs. I don’t dare try it with this much damage.” He glanced down at his sonic screwdriver. “I’ve no idea what I would do without this thing.” Looking up, he gestured at a nearby roundel. “Tegan, there is a toolkit in that storage bin, if you wouldn’t mind; and Nyssa, I could use your help.”

Adric leaped back as the console before him exploded, then turned to see the last Cyberman on the freighter collapse to the deck. He sighed, and turned back to the monitor. “Now I’ll never know if I was right.”

He tore his eyes away from the screen as, behind him, a wheezing, groaning sound filled the air. As the TARDIS materialised with its familiar thump, he was already moving; Tegan met him at the door, slamming it behind him. Seconds later, the freighter, minus one TARDIS, exploded.

Earth Orbit, circa 1983

It still baffled Adric that there could be two of this old soldier-turned-schoolteacher, the Brigadier; but there was no question that it was true. And at the moment, it was all that he and the strange (and apparently non-human) schoolboy, Vislor Turlough, could do to hold this younger version back. “I say, let go of me!” the Brigadier said. “Didn’t you hear that?” Showing surprising strength for his age, he shoved Adric off of his right arm; then he twisted and got a lock on Turlough’s wrist, and sent him rolling across the deck of the starship. Before they could recover, he hurried through the nearby laboratory door.

Adric and Turlough cleared the threshold just in time to see the younger Brigadier and his older counterpart raise their hands, and touch. A blinding flash of light and force sent them flying.

Some time later

The lights of the console room were low; even a time capsule sometimes must bow to the needs of its inhabitants, and maintain some form of day and night. Tegan, Nyssa, and Turlough were elsewhere, presumably asleep in their quarters, when Adric entered the room. The Doctor sat in an old, oak chair near the entrance door, one piece of the odd collection of furniture which seemed to appear and disappear in the room at the Doctor’s whim. He was deep in a thick, leatherbound book, but set it aside when Adric arrived. “You’re up late, Adric. What can I do for you?”

Adric seemed hesitant to speak; he glanced around at the room before leaning against the console. “You don’t sleep much yourself, Doctor.”

“Oh, here and there, when I need to, but sometimes I forget when that is,” the Doctor said. “But I don’t think you came to ask me about my sleeping habits.”

“Right to the point, eh?” Adric took another look around, and then nodded. “Alright then. I suppose that’s just as well.” He paused. “Doctor, I haven’t brought it up lately, but…I still want to go home. You know… to Terradon, or… or wherever my people landed. In E-Space.”

He expected the Doctor to shut him down, but to his surprise, the Doctor only nodded, looking thoughtful. “You’ve given more thought to how to make it happen, I suppose.” The charged vacuum emboitment, or CVE, which led to E-Space had been destroyed with most of the others at the Master’s destruction of Logopolis. The memory was always fresh in the Doctor’s mind; fully a third of the universe, including Nyssa’s home in the Traken Union, had fallen to runaway entropy at that time. No mass murderer in the history of the universe could hold a candle to his old friend-turned-enemy the Master now. Regardless, E-Space was closed; perhaps the Time Lords could create a route to the minor universe, but the Doctor was in no position to ask them.

Adric grew more confident at once; he had prepared for this. “It’s a matter of mathematics,” he said. The calculations… well, they aren’t easy, but… but, they’re just numbers! It can be done. And I’m close! I know I am!”

The Doctor nodded again, thinking. When he spoke, it seemed to be a new topic. “Adric, why do you want to leave the TARDIS?”

Had he said it with any kind of hurt, or pleading, or anger, or resentment, Adric might have bristled. Instead, the question held only one feeling: honest curiosity. The Doctor, it seemed, really wanted to know the answer—and now Adric paused, wondering if he himself knew the answer. “Because… well… it’s getting a little crowded here, isn’t it?” His meaning was clear; but again, the Doctor only nodded, and waited. Finally Adric looked away. “I don’t really belong here anymore.”

“Adric,” the Doctor said, “you’ll always have a place here, as long as you want it.”

“But it’s not the same, is it?” The sudden outburst seemed to startle even Adric, but he kept on. “When I first came aboard, it was you and me and Romana and K9, and you were…”

“—Different,” the Doctor completed. “I may have been a different man, but I haven’t forgotten him. Go on.”

“Alright,” Adric said, “you were different. And you’re a genius, and so was Romana, and of course K-9, when I was the only one I’d ever known. And suddenly I had so much to learn, and it was… it was…” He faltered.

A moment passed, and then the Doctor saw it. “Adric… we were like a family to you, weren’t we? Romana and I, you saw us as, sort of, your—“

“I never really knew my real parents,” Adric interjected. “Not well, anyway. So, yes, I guess… anyway. And then Romana stayed behind, and K9 went with her, and then you… changed…”

“I see where this is going, I think,” the Doctor said. “It was at the same time that Tegan joined us, and Nyssa—and now we’ve added Turlough to the mix. I suppose it is getting a bit crowded.” He stood up, and stepped over to the console, then put a hand on Adric’s shoulder. “Adric, you will always have a place here. I told you that, and I meant it. And, though you may not see it now, Tegan and Nyssa both care for you very much. You weren’t here to see their reaction when we nearly lost you, but they would have made you quite proud, I think. Turlough… well, he has a lot of growing to do.” He frowned for a moment, then went on. “But, regardless, I want you to choose a path that will make you happy. If you are happy here, so be it—but I won’t try to compel you to be happy here. If your happiness means going back to E-Space, then I will do whatever is in my power to take you there.” He met Adric’s eyes, and the boy managed a smile. “Now, what do you need to finish your calculations?”

Adric had the answer ready. “I want to go back to Logopolis.”

“But Doctor,” Tegan objected, “Logopolis was destroyed! Along with—“ She faltered, and glanced at Nyssa.

“Oh, go ahead and say it,” Nyssa said. “Along with Traken. It hurts, of course, but there’s no dancing around it. And, Doctor, she’s right! How can we go back there when it doesn’t exist anymore?”

“Well, to be perfectly correct, she’s wrong,” the Doctor said. He worked his way around the console as he spoke, not meeting anyone’s eyes, instead checking settings and flipping switches. He was in a state of excitement—any challenge always had that effect on him—but one could tell he was anxious about their reactions as well. “Logopolis, the planet, still exists. The city, and the people, ceased to exist due to the increasing entropy as the Master closed the CVEs. But, when the mass inrush of entropy took place, it was directed outward from Logopolis onto the rest of the universe.”

“Okay,” a new voice said, “so what?” Turlough had kept silent during most of the Doctor’s revelation of his plan to return to Logopolis, but now he spoke up. “If that’s true, then going there won’t accomplish anything. And if I understand this correctly, then we can’t go back to when the Logopolitans were still alive, because we—well, the four of you anyway—have already been there. We can’t change events.”

“Very good, Turlough,” the Doctor said. “And you are correct. Violations of the first Law of Time tend to create dire circumstances, paradoxes. We can’t risk it. But!” He made a final adjustment and then stopped, resting his hands on the console. “There is a way around it. Honestly, it’s so simple, I’m surprised you haven’t seen it already.” He glanced at Adric, who waited against the wall. “Do you want to explain it?”

For his part, Adric was subdued; but there was excitement in his eyes. “We go back to an earlier time, before our first visit to Logopolis. Probably several years earlier, at least.”

“Exactly!” the Doctor interjected. “We want the Logopolitans at the height of their powers, but before any hint of their upcoming… well, their demise.” That thought seemed to bring him back to reality a bit, and he looked at them soberly. “But they absolutely must not be told what is coming. I don’t need to tell any of you how knowing the hour and the manner of your own death could be a problem. Don’t you think it would be easy for me to find that out, using the TARDIS? But I shield you from that knowledge, because no one should have it. Not even me. Now, extrapolate that notion to the Logopolitans. Their deaths had an enormous impact on the universe. What would happen if they knew enough to prevent it?” At that last, his gaze lingered on Nyssa’s face.

Nyssa caught his expression. “Don’t worry, Doctor. As much as I would give anything to bring back Traken, I understand. We don’t know the ramifications for the rest of the universe.”

“Or time itself,” the Doctor replied. “Or even for us. We may not be visiting our own history directly, but our actions on this trip have the potential to change our own past. We may not directly violate the Laws of Time, but we can certainly do so indirectly.” He looked at each of them in turn. “We must be very careful.”

With that, he threw the dematerialization switch, sending the TARDIS into the vortex.

The TARDIS stood, half-hidden behind a rocky crag, on a hillside a mile from Logopolis. Tegan, Nyssa, and Turlough sat on the boulders scattered in the vicinity, watching as the Doctor and Adric, tiny in the distance, headed for the oddly helical arrangement of low stone buildings that comprised the city. Something was odd about the view; Tegan had caught it and remarked on it at once upon their arrival. “Where’s the radio telescope?”

“Remember that we’ve come to an earlier point in the city’s history,” the Doctor had said. “The universe’s entropy hasn’t reached critical mass yet, though surely the Logopolitans are aware that it is impending. They won’t have constructed their replica of the Pharos project yet—in fact, the original telescope on Earth has yet to be built. That, of course, means we’ve landed as we expected; the current Monitor of the Logopolitans is, I believe, the grandfather of the Monitor we previously encountered. With any luck, Adric can get what he came for, and we can keep the Logopolitans from handing down word of our visit to the next generation.” With that, he had planted his hat on his head, and made his way down the hill with Adric following.

“And so we wait,” Turlough said, scowling. “For how long? Weeks? Months? This block transfer thing, if it’s so complicated, we could be here for years.”

“Oh, you have someplace you need to be?” Tegan sneered. Despite the Doctor’s odd faith in Turlough, she had yet to grant him any trust.

“Tegan,” Nyssa scolded her. “It’s a valid question. We’re talking about mathematics so complicated and variable that they can’t be done by a computer.”

“Exactly,” Turlough said. “Clearly not even the Doctor understands it, or else he would teach Adric himself. Who knows if this will work at all, let alone how long it will take?”

Tegan scowled. “Adric is no normal person when it comes to mathematics. If anyone can grasp it, it’s him. You’ll see.”

Sensing that the conversation was not going to get any better, Turlough gave it a moment, and then stood up. “Well. If you need me, I’ll be in my room, I suppose.” He turned toward the TARDIS. Tegan made a motion as if to stop him, but Nyssa interrupted her with a look.

“The Doctor,” she said when Turlough had closed the door behind him, “says he has the same privileges as the rest of us. Besides, it’s not like he can fly away without us.”

Tegan’s frown deepened. “Nyssa, there’s something about him, I tell you. I can’t put my finger on it, but eventually I will.” She sighed. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

The TARDIS corridors never confounded Turlough the way they seemed to do to the others. Perhaps sensing this, the Doctor had given him a room further from the console room, down several winding corridors. Turlough wasn’t certain, but he suspected the corridors moved, somehow; but so far he had always found his way.

This time, he had barely closed the door when the floor–the deck? What did one call it in a time ship?–lurched beneath his feet. He felt a wrenching sensation in his stomach, and his vision narrowed as green light sparkled around its edges. For a moment he lost track of time. When his senses reasserted themselves, he found himself on the floor (definitely a floor; too neat for a deck). He clambered to his feet–and found an unwelcome but familiar figure surveying him. “Guardian,” he breathed. “What do you want?”

“Watch your tone, Turlough,” the Black Guardian said. “I’ve come to set you back on track with our arrangement.”

Turlough swallowed, suddenly nervous. This was a being of great power indeed–outside time and space, maintaining the order of the universe, but doing so as a force of eternal darkness and chaos. Turlough wasn’t sure whether to call him evil, but it certainly worked out to the same thing. It was true that he had struck a deal with the enigmatic Guardian: freedom from his exile on Earth in exchange for the task of killing the Doctor. Turlough neither knew nor cared what had led to the Guardian’s frenzied desire for revenge, but he knew one thing: the Doctor had proven to be a difficult man to kill. Turlough remained committed to the cause, perhaps, but he had quickly lost his stomach for the task. “Why should I kill him now?” he demanded. “I’m already free of my exile. Earth is behind me now.”

“But you haven’t returned to your world, have you?” the Guardian said. “You’ve seen the way the Doctor operates his TARDIS. It’s a miracle he ever lands where he intends. He won’t get you to Trion–and that’s if you tell him about it. But you haven’t done that, have you?” Turlough was silent. Some things, like the truth of his homeworld and his own past, couldn’t be shared, even–especially–with the Doctor and his companions. “Only I can finish our bargain and get you to Trion,” the Guardian continued, “and only–only!–if you uphold your end.”

Angrily, Turlough relented at last. It was a trap, and he remained caught in it, if he ever wanted to see his home again. “Fine. I suppose you have a plan? If you haven’t noticed, the Doctor isn’t here at the moment.”

“He’ll return. And he will take you and his pets to the city of the Logopolitans.” Turlough didn’t question it; the Guardian seemed to have as much grasp of time as the Doctor, and possibly more. “Your task will be simple this time. I won’t even ask you to attack him directly. You will simply wait until the right moment… and deliver a message.”

“A message?” It sounded simple, but… “What message? And to whom?”

The Guardian told him.

Adric’s training took eight days. The Doctor returned during the night of the second day, and moved the TARDIS into the city. At the urging of the Monitor–a bald man with the features of his future grandson, but much younger–the group took guest rooms in the city, and attended a reception dinner before being given freedom to roam. The Doctor, however, caught each of them in turn and admonished them to stay close to the TARDIS. “I’ve spoken with the Monitor and urged him to keep our visit off the records,” he said, “but remember that every encounter we make here, and every person to whom we speak, increases the chance that we may change the future. They’ve given us hospitality, and I won’t insult them for it, but… stay close.” He quickly disappeared again, off to audit Adric’s lessons.

On the final day, the Monitor escorted the Doctor and Adric back to the TARDIS. Nyssa and Tegan met them in the surrounding courtyard as they said their goodbyes. “It’s been quite a pleasure,” the Doctor was saying, “and I have to say that I’ve rather enjoyed the lessons as well. Even if,” he added, “they were over my head. It’s not often I can say that, you know.”

“Humble to a fault, Doctor, as always,” the Monitor said with a grin. “And the pleasure is all mine. We Logopolitans have spent centuries shaping our minds toward the thought patterns necessary for these calculations. Even so, you have seen that we require many minds in concert to make our calculations effective. It is a rare and surprising event when we encounter a mind like young Adric’s, born to the ability to grasp it all on his own. He is quite exceptional.” He paused, then added, “Of course, he won’t be able to maintain a steady state of computation for long periods. We manage this by working in shifts, but he is one alone. Still, he can create temporary structures, and permanent ones which do not require maintenance. That should be sufficient for your purposes, I think.”

“Quite,” the Doctor said, a bit hastily. He had made a point of not telling them exactly what Adric intended to create; had he done so, they would surely have insisted on creating the CVE for him, which would have had a much greater chance of upsetting history. “Well, at any rate, we thank you again, Monitor, both for the lessons and for your generous hospitality. But, we really must be going.” He shook hands with the Monitor, and turned toward the TARDIS; then he frowned. “Where is Turlough?”

“He went out walking…” Tegan began.

“I’m here, Doctor!” Turlough interrupted. The group turned to see him entering the courtyard from one of the many passages, flanked by two Logopolitans. The Logopolitans stopped at the entrance, and Turlough crossed to the TARDIS; but a look passed between the duo and the Monitor, who gave them a quizzical frown. “Sorry, I lost track of the time,” Turlough said as he joined the others.

“No harm done,” the Doctor said, and opened the police box door. “Monitor, we’ll be off now, I think. And it looks like those fellows want a word with you.”

“Yes, quite,” the Monitor said; but the Doctor and his companions were already disappearing into the TARDIS. The Monitor shrugged, and went to confer with his subordinates.

The Doctor threw the dematerialization switch the instant the inner doors closed, sending the TARDIS groaning into the vortex. “In a bit of a hurry, Doctor?” Nyssa said.

“Well,” he said, “yes, I suppose so. Oh, no, nothing’s wrong, precisely,” he said, forestalling her next question, “it’s just that… Nyssa, I’ve explained that we Time Lords can perceive the flow of time as a sort of sense, not as clear as most, but a sense nonetheless. And the longer we stay in Logopolis, the more I feel the weight of our every action on the timestream. I think we’re alright, as planned, but it’s best we get away quickly.” He circled the console, setting coordinates.

“So, what now?” Turlough said. “How long until Adric makes his attempt?”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel quite refreshed after the last week. It’s almost been like a holiday. So, if you’re ready,” he said to Adric, “we can get started right away.”

Adric’s usually sullenness was gone, for once, and he nodded. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he said.

“Right! No time like the present,” the Doctor said. “Or rather,” he added, “the future. Since we’ll need to do this at a time after the closure of the Logopolitan CVEs.” He hit a final control, and the time rotor began to rise and fall.

No one’s eyes were on Turlough as he tugged at his tie and grew pale.

The time rotor slowed, but didn’t stop. “We’ll get a better result if I start while we’re still in the vortex,” Adric had said. “I can set the temporal elements, then build the spatial and dimensional elements on top of them. This CVE will be more stable than the Logopolitan version, because they were forced to work from the spatial components first. I won’t have to work as hard to maintain it, either.”

Now, as the TARDIS slid closer to its target–a point in space far from any civilization, some three hundred years after the destruction of Logopolis–Adric stood with his hands on the console, and closed his eyes. His lips moved, subvocalising, but no sound could be heard. “Is that all?” Turlough whispered to Tegan, who stood for once beside him, against the wall; she shushed him.

On the other side of the console, the Doctor winced. “Are you alright?” Nyssa said, moving to his side so as not to disturb Adric.

“Yes, I… I’m fine, thank you.” He shook his head. “For a moment I felt something… it’s nothing.” He returned his attention to Adric’s face. Long minutes passed, and the Doctor winced again, putting a hand to his temple. “Oh!”

“What?” Nyssa said. Tegan and Turlough had noticed his discomfort by this time, but remained by the wall.

“Nothing, I just… I think I may be feeling some cast-off effect of our journey. Nothing serious, I think.” He straightened. “It will pass.”

At that moment, Adric looked up at him. “Ready, Doctor!”

“Right! Here we go, back to reality!” The Doctor pulled back on the dematerialization switch, and the time rotor picked up speed, sending them careening out of the vortex and back into space.

Everything happened at once. The ship shuddered, hurling Tegan and Turlough to the floor; the three around the console grabbed on and maintained their footing, but only just. The lights dimmed and began to pulse, and the time rotor began to spark and flash red as the TARDIS’s familiar groaning grew loud. Over it all, the cloister bell–the TARDIS’s warning of catastrophic danger–began to toll.

Worst of all–though it took Nyssa a moment to see it–was the Doctor. With the last toss of the floor, the Doctor lost his grip on the console and fell, rolling away from Nyssa. As she watched, light–pale, shot through with sickly prismatic shifts, but pervasive–surrounded him. It was different from last time, perhaps, but it only took a moment to recognize it: the Doctor was regenerating. “Adric!” she shouted. “What are you doing! What’s happening!”

Adric’s eyes were wide now, staring in horror at the Doctor. “It’s not me! I’m not doing this! My calculations were clean, I swear!”

On the floor, the Doctor moaned in apparent agony, and began to writhe. “Well, something’s happening!” The cloister bell’s volume increased, and smoke began to pour from several roundels on the walls; Nyssa recognized them as compartments which housed electronics of various types.

“I don’t know!” Adric shouted. “It’s not me!”

“No,” a new voice said, “It’s me!” All eyes swung toward the scanner, where the Black Guardian’s face could be seen.

“Who are you?” Tegan demanded. “What are you doing to the Doctor?”

The Black Guardian assumed a hurt expression. “The Doctor hasn’t told you about me? How offensive. I am the Black Guardian of Time. Once, your Doctor wronged me in a manner that your mortal minds won’t comprehend. I’ve pursued him since, and now, my revenge is accomplished!” He smiled, an expression made more cruel on his severe face. “And you have none other than Turlough to thank for it!”

Nyssa and Tegan turned to Turlough. He glared at the Black Guardian. “So much for keeping your end of the bargain, Guardian. Throwing me to the wolves, eh?”

“Turlough,” Nyssa said, “you struck a bargain with this monster?”

“Oh yes,” the Guardian said. “In exchange for passage off of the Earth, he agreed to kill the Doctor for me! Shall I tell them what you’ve done, Turlough?” He laughed. “While you were preparing to leave Logopolis, Turlough did a favor for me. Such a small thing… he simply passed a message.”

“What message?” Tegan demanded.

“It should be obvious,” the Guardian said. “He went to the Logopolitans and gave them a warning. He told them what will become of them in two more generations.”

“The Master!” Nyssa exclaimed. “Turlough, you warned them about the Master? The Doctor warned us all not to let them know the future!”

“He said it would be a fair exchange!” Turlough said. “Think about it. If they knew the Master was coming, they would be ready for him. He would never shut down their Pharos project, and the CVEs they created would still be there. That means the universe would still be intact!” He looked at Nyssa. “Nyssa, that means your home would still be there. Traken will still exist! And all it costs is one life.”

“Turlough, you idiot!” Nyssa shouted. “Didn’t you think about how it would cost his life? Even if you overlook the rest of the things the Doctor told us… he only regenerated last time because of what happened at Logopolis!”

Turlough turned his gaze to the Doctor, who continued to twist in pain. The light had grown more intense around him, and was now shot through with red. To everyone’s horror, his hair had gone from short and blonde to curly and dark, and he seemed to have become taller. His face seemed to be in flux; now the gentle mien of the familiar fifth incarnation, now the chiseled features of the fourth. “He’s… he’s de-regenerating?”

“Oh, it’s worse than that, young friend,” the Guardian said. “Your actions have created quite the paradox! The battle with the Master, which you have now prevented, caused the Doctor’s regeneration; but events since that time led you back to Logopolis, and allowed you the opportunity to prevent those very same events. Do you see what you’ve done? The Doctor will stabilize in neither form–and the paradox will tear his TARDIS apart! I applaud you, Turlough. You’ve done something not even I could accomplish!”

Turlough gave another glance at the Doctor, then turned back to the Guardian. “Undo it,” he said. “Undo the paradox! This isn’t what we agreed to!”

“Vislor Turlough, it is exactly what we agreed! And I cannot undo this paradox even if I wished to. My powers do not lie that way. Nor,” he added, “do I have the power to pluck you from the paradox, of which you are now a part. I’m afraid I will not be able to keep my promise to you. But consider, the universe you are bringing about is a better place–” he glanced at Nyssa– “worth the Doctor’s life to you. Isn’t it also worth your own?” His face faded from the scanner.

“Wonderful,” Turlough said, “What do we do now–” He turned toward the others, just in time to see Tegan do a very unladylike thing: she swung a spanner at him, catching him just above the temple. A blinding flash exploded behind his eyes, and then all went dark.

“Damn, but that was overdue,” Tegan said.

“Doctor!” Nyssa shouted. “Doctor!” She hovered over him, afraid to touch him in the throes of regeneration. “Can you hear me? We need you!”

He twisted again, stifling a scream; and then his eyes flew open. Disconcertingly, they were two different shades of blue. “No,” managed to say, in a voice that carried an odd harmonic, as if also in flux. “You don’t need me–” and this time it was the fifth Doctor’s voice– “You need Adric!” Fourth Doctor’s voice. “It’s up to him!” The harmonic flux returned. He let out a piercing shriek that echoed from bass to tenor, and closed his eyes. The regeneration energy seemed to swirl over him.

“Adric?” Tegan said. “What does he mean?”

Adric took a step back from the console. “I don’t know exactly,” he said, “but I know what I can do. I can keep the paradox from tearing us apart, at least for awhile. Block Transfer Computation can do that. Do you know it’s a part of creating a TARDIS?” He shook his head, realizing the urgency of the situation. “It means abandoning the CVE.”

“Adric, if the paradox destroys us, you won’t need a CVE!” Nyssa said. “You’ll be dead with the rest of us!”

He nodded. “Right.” He stepped back to the console and took a deep breath. “I’ll get us back to Logopolis. If anything can overturn this, it’s there. And I can hold us together in the meantime… but I don’t know what to do when we get there. We’re already part of events.” He closed his eyes and began to mutter calculations. Shortly the ship’s shuddering ceased, and the lights ceased their pulsing; but the red glow remained in the time rotor, and the cloister bell continued to sound. Adric reached for the navigation panel, and made a few adjustments; then he threw the dematerialization switch.

No smooth materialization this time–the TARDIS careened out of the vortex and into reality like a grenade into a wartime trench. The battered police box–perhaps more battered than usual–slalomed into the atmosphere of Logopolis at a severe angle, its outer shell heating up until it glowed, then burst into open flame. Inside, Nyssa hauled on the stabilizer controls, desperately trying to drag the crashing ship into a stable flight path, while Adric clung to the console and did his best to hold the ship together. The cloister bell thundered through the console room, louder and faster than before. The TARDIS fell toward the city, then leveled off–but not enough, not enough. Its base struck a Logopolitan house hard enough to tear a hole in the roof; the TARDIS skipped off and tumbled end over end. Internal gravity held its inhabitants on the floor, but inertia sent them skidding around; Nyssa lost her grip on the controls just in time for the ship to crash into an alley. By some miracle, it righted itself in the final impact and fetched up against a wall, sending a cloud of dust and stone into the air.

“Is everyone alright?” Nyssa shouted, picking herself up from the floor. She didn’t wait for an answer, but ran to the Doctor, ignoring her own bruises. He had slid nearly to the exit doors. His features continued to flux, and now his height had begun to shift as well. Energy ran in a mad swirl of colors all over him. “Doctor!” she called as she knelt beside him. “Doctor, stay with us! We’re back at Logopolis, but we don’t know what to do!”

The Doctor only groaned, thrashing about on the floor. In the opposite corner, Turlough and Tegan were picking themselves up; Tegan angrily shoved herself away from him. “Ow…” Turlough moaned, rubbing his head, and then glanced at the scanner. “We’re back at Logopolis? So… we’re, what? Going to prevent the paradox?”

Tegan turned on him. “YOU stay out of this!” she shouted. “You’ve done enough already!”

“Nooo….” the Doctor groaned. “No, he’s… he’s right. Have to stop… but mustn’t… first law!” He collapsed back from the effort.

“The First Law of Time,” Adric said without opening his eyes. He was visibly sweating from the effort of maintaining his calculations. “But… we’ve already broken the First Law! Or rather, Turlough did. He gave the Logopolitans knowledge of their own futures. That’s what caused this.”

“Paradoxes…” the Doctor muttered. “One problem… at a time. Fix!”

Nyssa looked at the others, doubt in her eyes. “I don’t know what he’s suggesting! If we interfere here, we’ll be breaking the First Law again. Won’t that create another paradox?”

“I don’t know,” Tegan said. “But we have to do something!”

“What is the First Law?” Turlough said.

Nyssa gave him an annoyed look, but then realized that he hadn’t been with them long enough to hear it explained. “It’s a law that the Time Lords enforce for the sake of keeping time intact and preventing paradoxes. It says that they mustn’t meet themselves out of order, or meet other Time Lords out of order, or pass on information about the future that has the same effect. It’s that last part that you broke on the Doctor’s behalf by telling the Logopolitans about the Master.” She paused, seeing a strange look on his face. “What?”

Turlough stepped toward the console, thinking. “Time Lords can’t meet out of order, or pass on information.”

“That’s what she said,” Tegan said.

“Adric,” he said, “when have we arrived?”

Adric didn’t have to check the console; he could feel it through his grip on the TARDIS. “About five minutes before you talked to the Logopolitans. If we’re going to do something, it has to be now.”

“Turlough, what are you thinking?” Nyssa demanded.

“I’m thinking,” he said, “that he’s a Time Lord… but I’m not.” Suddenly he slapped the switch that opened the inner doors; and he bolted out, leaving them stunned behind him.

It was Tegan who recovered first. “Come on! I know what he’s going to do. We have to catch him!” She ran for the door. Nyssa glanced at the Doctor, then Adric, and jumped up to run after her.

“Adric,” the Doctor moaned. His voice was more like that of his fourth incarnation now, though his body was more like the fifth. “Adric, can… can you hear me?”

“I’m here, Doctor,” Adric called. “I… I can’t spare the energy to come to you. Too busy concentrating.”

“Adric, you have to… to trust me… do what I say. Ahhh!” He gasped and bent double, then regathered his strength to continue. “The Bl… the Black Guardian… won’t let them… interfere. You… you have to stop him.”

“What? Me?! How?” Adric said. “I can’t–”

“You’re the… the only one… who can,” the Doctor managed. “Block Transfer… it works in… all dimensions… at once. It’s… it’s the only thing that can… can hold him!”

Adric knew it was true. “That makes sense, but… Doctor, if I let go of the TARDIS, it will come apart! And I can’t do both!”

“Trust me! Not all… at once. There will be… a little time… just enough. Do it, Adric… now!”

Adric nodded, and closed his eyes again.

Turlough raced through the narrow streets. Nyssa and Tegan pounded after him. Had they known where he was going, they would have tried to intercept him; but only he knew where he had met the Logopolitans. They narrowed the gap, but it wouldn’t be enough.

He came to a halt as a green swirl formed in the air ahead of him… and the Black Guardian stepped into the street. “Back to play the hero, Turlough? I can’t allow that. You’re too much the villain!” He raised a hand, power swirling around it–and walls of what appeared to be glass appeared around him, trapping him. “What? Impossible! No power in your possession could… Adric,” he said, realizing. “Fool boy! I’ll–”

“No time for that now,“ Turlough said as Tegan and Nyssa rounded the corner behind him. He darted past the imprisoned Guardian, and raced toward the next intersection. At the same moment, another version of Turlough stepped from an angled passageway into the intersection, facing away, and headed down the opposite street. “Just have to catch–”

He didn’t get to finish, as the combined weight of Tegan and Nyssa piled on top of him, driving him to the ground. “Let me go!” he managed. “It’s about to happen! I have to stop him!”

“You can’t!” Nyssa said. “The First Law–”

“It can’t get any worse!” Turlough said. “At least we’ll cure this paradox! It’ll buy us time, and maybe the Doctor or the Time Lords can figure out the rest!” Suddenly the street shook beneath them. A glance back revealed the Black Guardian, surrounded in a nimbus of darkness that thundered against the walls of his prison. He was pouring everything into his attempt to break free–and the city felt his rage. Stones fell from the nearby walls.

“And what were you going to do to him?” Tegan demanded.

“The same thing you did to me!” he grunted. “Tackle him! Stop him from talking to them! Anything!”

Exhausted at last, they released him and fell back on the ground. “Turlough,” Nyssa said, “you can’t do that either!”

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Even if you’re right about the paradox,” she said, “you can’t touch your other self. Remember the Brigadier, on Mawdryn’s ship? The… oh, what did the Doctor call it?” “The Blinovitch Limitation Effect,” Tegan said.

“Right! If you touch your other self, there will be a temporal energy discharge. With time so fragile already, it might be catastrophic! We can’t risk it!

“Then you take him! You already know you can!” He jumped up and started running again as the street shook again, more violently this time. Nodding, they climbed to their feet and ran after him.

They made it only a half dozen paces, before an unearthly screech sounded behind them, and the street shook with its greatest tremor yet. The building to their left collapsed in a roar, filling the street, cutting them off from Turlough. They could just see over the rubble pile; but as they tried to climb, it shifted, sending them back to the ground. “Damn that guardian!” Tegan shouted. “Turlough, do… something! Just don’t touch him! Go!”

He gave them a final look, and ran.

Turlough stopped at the end of the street, where it made an L-turn to the left. Just around the corner, he caught a glimpse of himself, standing in front of the building out of which the two Logopolitans would shortly come. It was only a few paces… but what to do?

Behind him, another building fell in an explosion of dust and stone. His other self looked back; Turlough ducked aside, avoiding being seen. Perhaps the explosion would scare his past self away… but, no such luck.

“Turlough!” a voice called behind him. He turned… and saw the Black Guardian, near the previous intersection. He was still encased in the computational walls, but as Turlough watched, the Guardian flickered and vanished, and reappeared ten paces closer, dragging his prison with him. “It’s too late, boy! Even now they come. You can’t undo this paradox!”

Turlough stared at him for a long moment. “I’m through serving you,” he said. “The Doctor is a thousand times the man you’ll ever be. I trust him to know what’s best for the universe, and for Logopolis, and… and for me. I won’t do what you want again.” He paused. “Or even the first time!” Darting back toward the intersection, he snatched up a fist-sized, jagged rock from the rubble of the fallen building, and stepped around the corner toward his other self.

“No!” the Black Guardian shouted.

“Goodbye,” Turlough said through clenched teeth. Then he drew back his arm, and hurled the stone at his other self.

He had one final moment of clarity, in which he saw the Black Guardian vanish in a scream of rage and a burst of flame. Then the stone struck the back of his other self’s head, and everything went dark again.

Tegan’s head swam as the world coalesced around her. She couldn’t recall passing out, but she saw that Nyssa was waking up as well. What had happened?

Rubble still filled the streets, but the Black Guardian was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Turlough; but from the direction of the TARDIS, a figure in cricketing clothes picked his way around the stones and came toward them. Adric trailed behind him.

“Doctor,” Tegan said, “you’re back to normal!”

“Quite,” he said. “And it’s a good thing, too. As much as I enjoyed being my old self–well, when I was him–one must always look forward, not backward.” He offered a hand to each of them in turn, lifting them to their feet. “And I daresay the Logopolitans will agree. They just saw us off, you know–the past version of us, that is. Since we’ve managed to tear down part of their city, they’ll be glad to see this ‘us’ gone as well.”

“That’s a bit unfair,” Tegan said. “This was the Guardian’s work, not ours.”

“True,” he said, “and a nasty bit of work it was, too.” He glanced back at Adric. “But, thanks to Adric here, it was not as nasty as it could have been. A job well done, Adric.”

“So, what happened, exactly?” Nyssa said. “And where’s Turlough?”

“Well,” the Doctor said, “I think Adric can answer that better than I can. After all, by way of his battle with the Guardian, he was here, after a fashion.” He nodded at Adric.

“It’s…” Adric started, then paused. “Well, maybe we’d better look. I want to be sure of what I saw.” He led the way over the rubble, and past a second pile further down the street, to an L-turn. Rounding the corner, he stopped. “I was afraid of that.”

Nyssa made the turn, and stopped short. “Oh. Oh, no.”

Tegan came after her, with the Doctor following. When she saw what awaited them, she stopped, and made as if to speak, then closed her mouth. Finally she said, “So that’s how he fixed it.”

Ahead of them, Turlough–the past version of him–lay still on the ground. Blood pooled around his head, and stained a large, jagged rock beside him. Of the present version of Turlough, there was no sign. “Yes,” the Doctor said gently, “it seems our Turlough sacrificed himself to stop the former Turlough from doing the Black Guardian’s task.” He paused. “Quite noble of him, wouldn’t you say? I think we all underestimated him.” At his side, Tegan nodded, and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

“Doctor…” Nyssa said. “I know it was all in the moment, and we all barely had time to think, but… couldn’t he have talked to himself, or something? We didn’t let him tackle himself, because of the energy discharge–”

“Which was the right decision,” the Doctor said. He closed his eyes and concentrated. “A paradox, you understand, is a closed time loop. It repeats itself, ad infinitum. This paradox has been transformed into an open loop by Turlough’s sacrifice. It circles back on itself only once, and then rejoins the normal flow of time. It’s hard for me to feel the flow of that loop, now that we’re on the other side of it, but… I sense that it could have worked out no other way.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Turlough instinctively grasped something that there was no time to explain. You see, Time seeks to close paradoxes. It can’t tolerate them, as a rule. And also as a rule, violations of the first Law of Time tend to create paradoxes. There are some exceptions, but that’s what generally happens. I tried to warn all of you not to violate the first law. That could have created a second paradox on top of the first, and time would have come apart catastrophically here. If Turlough had talked to himself, it would have created such a violation. Similarly, if he had touched his other self, the discharge of temporal energy would have torn time apart, as you rightly assumed. The only safe course was to take action that didn’t pass knowledge to his past self… and that’s what he did. Rather violently, I’m afraid, but I hardly see that he had any alternative.” He fixed both women with a stare. “And lest you go to blaming yourselves, remember that had you communicated with past Turlough, it would also have transmitted information, and been a violation of the first law.”

“So, why did this not cause another paradox?” Adric said. “I mean, if Turlough prevented himself from telling the Logopolitans, then the events that led us to come and stop him never would have happened. We shouldn’t exist here, now.”

“Yes, well… remember that I said that time seeks to close paradoxes–or open them, as the case may be. In doing so, it can’t tolerate a violation of the first law–but it can tolerate violations of lesser laws. Our being here, as relics from a timeline that ceased to exist with the opening of the loop, is a violation of one of those lesser laws; but time is quite happy to put up with it, in order to correct the greater paradox. The only concession is that the present version of Turlough ceased to exist. Well, and also, the moment of correction to the timeline was a bit much for the two of you, being outside the TARDIS as you were. That’s why you passed out.”

“You make it sound like time is alive,” Tegan said.

“Hmm… I suppose after a fashion, it is,” the Doctor mused. “At the very least, it’s non-linear… and it holds mysteries that even the Time Lords have yet to uncover.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder, and turned her toward the TARDIS. “Let’s be going, then.”

The Doctor held the TARDIS door for Nyssa and Tegan. “We’ll swing around and collect Turlough’s body before the Logopolitans move it,” he called after them. “He deserves a proper burial… but not here, where it might risk more paradoxes.”

As Adric made to step inside, the Doctor stopped him. “Adric… what do you think? Do you still want to construct a CVE? Return to E-Space?”

Adric dropped his eyes for a moment. “I think,” he said, “that the things I wanted have caused us enough trouble for now.” He paused. “Maybe someday, when we can be sure the Black Guardian won’t try to interfere. But not today.” He ducked past the Doctor, and inside.

The Doctor watched him go, and smiled. “Good answer.” Then he stepped inside, and closed the door… and with a familiar groan, the TARDIS slipped away.

Revisiting Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

Posted on December 10, 2021 by Timewalkerauthor

Here we are, nearing the end of the year! And as always, Christmas is a great season for nostalgia, so let’s indulge ourselves!

I didn’t set out to read this Star Wars novel, Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry; it doesn’t quite fall into the era that we’ve been discussing. But, I went in search of a few scenes I recalled, and one thing led to another…and here we are! But it’s a worthy diversion, and I think it’s a fun read as well, so we’ll take a look at it.

Released in ~~April 1997–just a few months before my high school graduation–~~ May 1996 (corrected–see end of post) Shadows of the Empire is unique for its time in that it was released as a multimedia event. In addition to the novel, there was a video game for the Nintendo 64 game system; several comics; a soundtrack; and merchandise such as toys and trading cards. The story as presented in the novel disagrees in some particulars with the video game and the comics; but for our purposes, I’m going to treat the novel as canon.

However, as I recall events at the time, it was the video game that garnered the most attention–in fact, it was released first, in time for Christmas 1996. The game was big news at the time; although there was never really a shortage of Star Wars games, the last console game was 1994’s Super Return of the Jedi for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (which is still one of my lifelong favorite games, but I digress). Shadows of the Empire was much hyped; although I’ve never played it myself, I hear it held up well. As a result of the game’s importance to the project, the book includes some conceits that fit a video game much better than a novel; it focuses largely on the character of Dash Rendar, the game’s protagonist (even though he isn’t the main character of the book), often shoehorning him in where he really doesn’t seem to belong; other characters seem to fade, if not into the background, at least toward it.

Where does Shadows of the Empire fit in?

We’ve been covering the post-Return of the Jedi era–but here, we’ve just missed it. This novel takes place just before that film–literally; it ends with Luke programming his holographic message to Jabba the Hutt in R2-D2’s recorder. And that’s exciting! Or at least it was at the time. Present (Disney-led) canon, I understand, has filled the gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi with comics and related stories; but in 1997, no one had covered that period. We had no idea what went on in the approximately six months between Han’s capture at Bespin, and his rescue on Tatooine. All we knew was that Luke grew in confidence as a Jedi; built a new lightsaber; and coordinated the plan to rescue Han.

Shadows of the Empire begins midway through that period. While Luke retreats to Tatooine to work on his Jedi skills–not to mention replace his lightsaber–Leia and Lando search for Boba Fett, who has not yet delivered the frozen Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt. Their search leads them to recruit the help of freelance mercenary Dash Rendar, the insufferably arrogant–but highly skilled–Corellian who briefly fills the gap of Han’s absence. (I’m certain that was a consideration in the creation of Dash; he dresses and acts much like Han, has a similar history with the Imperial Academy, is from the same planet, and flies a ship that, for all its stated differences, looks very much like the Millennium Falcon.)

The novel also introduces Black Sun, the premier criminal organization in the galaxy, led by the charismatic Falleen Prince Xizor (pronounced “She-zor”, or “sheeee-zor” if you’re his furniture–long story, read the book). Xizor is positioned as a rival to Darth Vader, and therein lies the major conflict of the book. Recall that this book takes place shortly after Vader’s battle with Luke at Bespin; Vader is determined to recruit Luke to the Dark Side. Therefore Xizor sets out to kill Luke instead, and thus undercut Vader in the eyes of the Emperor. The plot threads come together when Leia–unaware of Black Sun’s involvement–seeks out Xizor to gather information on who is attempting to assassinate Luke. But Vader is seeking the same information; and as soon as he has it–conveniently at the end of the book–he destroys Xizor with prejudice.

And that’s the plot! For all that the book is a few hundred pages long, the plot can be boiled down to a few broad strokes. But, no one comes to this book for the plot–no, it has better selling points.

Character Studies

When I read this novel twenty-plus years ago, I had neither the resources nor the experience to properly assess the characters. We can do better now–and what I found is that there’s some surprisingly good work here.

Newly established characters are a bit shallow. It’s noticeable with Xizor and his servant, the human replica droid Guri; it’s far more egregious with Dash Rendar. But I don’t blame the author here; I expect that he was tied to the video game portrayals. Dash is all ego; Xizor is all confidence and seduction. (Xizor is a Falleen, a reptilian-descended humanoid species, and there’s a great abundance of references to his cold demeanor and self-control, until suddenly he turns on the seduction with Leia.) Guri is more of a blank slate; she’s portrayed as having a personality composed chiefly of impatience and disapproval, but the portrayal is much more sparing than with the others.

But, the movie characters! Ah, there Perry is allowed to give his best, and he does. Vader especially is portrayed well; we get a rare and welcome look into his inner world. He’s moody, impatient, disdainful toward Xizor, guarded toward the Emperor, alternately proud and overconfident toward Luke…and he’s a surprisingly good leader. It’s a bit of a cliche that Vader kills underlings that fail him–but he doesn’t do that here (although he does choke at least one); and he is indulgent and rewarding toward those that serve him well. We see his frustration with Xizor’s interference, his anger at himself for his inability to heal himself (more on that later), and his respect for the Jedi (for their skills if not their morals). Vader here isn’t just snark and violence; he’s thoughtful, calculating, and human. He still experiences the full range of feelings, not just the darker impulses.

Luke is portrayed as the young Jedi he still is. We’ll soon get used to seeing him be more confident, and progressively more powerful; but this is not Grandmaster Luke Skywalker. This is a young Jedi who’s been hurt for the first time, and is learning caution. He’s still impulsive and sarcastic, but he’s growing. It’s a refreshing change from the later renditions we’ve been covering.

We see Leia at an uncertain moment in her life. She’s backed away from the leadership of the Rebellion in order to locate Han; and she’s uncertain where their relationship is headed. She thinks often of the last exchange she had with him–Leia: “I love you”; Han: “I know”. Her resolve is tested by Xizor, who has the unfair advantage of powerful nature pheromones (in hindsight, it’s a bit squicky, but in true Star Wars fashion it’s subdued). Give her credit, though–as soon as she’s made aware of what is happening, she’s able to resist Xizor.

Lando has a good showing here as well. He’s almost a father figure to Leia for much of the book, or rather, somewhere between “father figure” and “reluctant accomplice”. It’s a good look for him, and he’s able to show off his talents with regard to piloting, and to navigating the criminal underworld. I could do with more of this Lando.

All in all, not a bad portrayal for our heroes!

Set Pieces

But for me, the highlights of the novel are found in certain scenes that I’d consider iconic. The first is Luke’s construction of his lightsaber (actually divided into a few scenes over the first half of the book). Disney canon has done much to change the lore surrounding lightsabers: introducing the term “kyber crystal” (a corruption of “Kaiburr crystal” from Splinter of the Mind’s Eye), giving us the concept of “bleeding” a crystal, and removing the idea that Sith used synthetic crystals. But, in the late 1990s, this book gave us much of what we knew about how lightsabers were constructed. Luke retreats to Obi-Wan Kenobi’s home on Tatooine, where he uses items left behind by Obi-Wan to construct first the saber, then its synthetic crystal. He worries that he’s done it wrong, until he successfully activates the green blade for the first time. Twenty-four years later, those images stay with me.

The second scene that stuck with me is of Vader. We find him sitting in one of his hyperbaric chambers, like the one seen in The Empire Strikes Back, stripped of his armor and helmet. Only here can he breathe in the ambient environment. Then…we see him embrace the Dark Side of the Force, and open the chamber. With the power of the Force, he forces his lungs to return to their undamaged state, smoothing out burned tissue…and he takes a breath of free air. But his elation at succeeding is so strong that it overrides the rage that connects him to the Dark Side, and his power slips away, and his lungs return to normal. But by the end of the novel, he can maintain for several minutes, and he is determined to restore himself fully.

This scene, I remind you, was written years before we watched Anakin fall to Obi-Wan’s blade on the burning stone of Mustafar. And yet, it captures perfectly everything that would one day inform that scene. I’ve never forgotten it. What if Vader had succeeded? What if he had healed himself? Later stories would show that the Force can indeed be used for healing. What if he had succeeded? Would this, perhaps, have eventually been key to bringing him back to the light? We’ll never know…but we can wonder.

Overall, I recommend this book. It’s going to feel like light reading; but it’s pleasurable reading. It’s worth it for the things I’ve mentioned above, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. So, check it out! And if you can, pick up the game and the comics. Star Wars is meant to be an experience, and this story more so than others.

Next time: The next book in our lineup is still Dark Force Rising; I’ll see you there. Happy reading!

Edit: I stand corrected on one detail: The novel launched in 1996, not 1997, and was released prior to video game. However, I stand by my suggestion that the novel was written based on the game, not the other way around.

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire can be purchased from Amazon and other booksellers.

You can read Wookieepedia’s treatment of the novel here.

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Stephen King’s The Gunslinger: Then and Now

Posted on November 24, 2021 by Timewalkerauthor

Here in the year 2021, I’m not particularly given to rereading books. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that I can only seem to fit in so many books in the course of a year–my cap seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 52 books, an average of one per week. That’s a far cry from the likely hundreds I would read in a year as a child and teenager, back when a decent book would last me a day or two; and I definitely feel the difference! So, with so little room in the calendar (not to mention the crushing weight of my own mortality), it usually feels like a waste of time to go back and read a book again.

But, balance that against the realization–too late in life–that there are no rules for this sort of thing. Add in the additional realization that it’s okay to do things that make you happy. Put that together, and sometimes I find myself making exceptions. So, each year, if you look at my list of books read, you’ll see a few rereads. I’ve even made it a thing here on this blog; my “Revisiting Star Wars” series consists mostly of books that I read back in the 1990s and early 2000s.

And that’s where we are today. Last week I was wandering through the Raleigh County library, looking for something to read, trying to take a break from the stream of politics and nonfiction I’ve been digesting lately. I found myself looking through their collection of Dean Koontz novels, trying to locate a particular novel that had come up in a conversation (I’m still not sure which book; they didn’t have the one I suspected, so I couldn’t verify). No dice there–but my eyes strayed down the same shelf to Koontz’s sometime rival, Stephen King. Before I even realized it, I had checked out two old favorites: The Gunslinger, and The Drawing of the Three.

Over many posts on this blog, I’ve talked about the various fandoms that make up the tapestry, if you will, of my childhood. I never set out to be comprehensive about it, only to mention things as they came up; and so I’ll add another one today: From about age ten or eleven on, I was a huge fan of Stephen King. (Now, I can already hear someone saying it–“You shouldn’t be reading Stephen King at that age!”. And you know what? You might be right. Maybe I shouldn’t have. And maybe my parents shouldn’t have allowed it. But they did, and here we are. As well, I’m generally of the belief that if a child is old enough to understand a book, they’re old enough to read it; it’s my job as a parent to give them the framework to assimilate and properly handle the information they find. My parents took the same path, and I think I turned out alright.) That fan status eventually led me to The Gunslinger, the first book in his Dark Tower series.

There’s a lot, and I mean a lot, that can be said about this series. Eventually I’ll dig deeper into it; the series is an entry on my Great Reddit Reading List, and once I’ve finished this reread I’ll add a post for the series as a whole. But, a few points are important from the start. First, Stephen King himself considers The Dark Tower to be his life’s work, his magnum opus. If you read the introduction from the later books in the series, he’ll talk about the development of the series over the years, and how for years he was very concerned that he might die without finishing it. Ironically, it was a brush with death–in the form of a Plymouth van that hit him while he was walking–that got him to finish the series. Second, the overwhelming majority of King’s works are interlinked in subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways; and The Dark Tower is the lynchpin (his word, not mine) that holds them together. (If I may toot my own horn for a moment, some time ago I created a subreddit devoted to that very topic, /r/StephenKingdom, which could use a little love and attention–check it out, if you’re so inclined!)

In the grand and ancient year of 1990, I knew none of those things. (And full disclosure: I’m not certain I read it in that year. It had to be close, though.) All I knew was that my mom handed me this novel, titled The Gunslinger, and it caught my attention. It was purely visual at first glance; this copy was (as I have since learned) the 1988 Plume edition, gorgeously illustrated by Michael Whelan. Those illustrations, as much as the text, shaped my image of the gunslinger Roland’s world for years to come–still do, if I’m being honest. (That copy, long gone now, came from the same library where I checked out today’s edition; but years later, I finally obtained my own copy of the Plume edition.) And then I opened it to that line, that famous opening line, that thousands of fans around the world can quote:

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

So simple, and yet so arresting! Those words have stayed with me, and probably always will.

The gist of the story is simple. Roland is the last gunslinger, the last of a line of knights who bear guns rather than swords. His world is dying; his nation fell long ago, and all his friends are gone. He is on a quest to seek the Dark Tower at the center of the world, where he will do he knows not what, to set the world right again and arrest its decay. But for now he hasn’t found the path to the Tower yet; to that end, he seeks the mysterious sorcerer known as the Man in Black. Along the way he will meet–and lose–a child from another world, our world, a boy named Jake Chambers. In doing so, he must choose between the Tower and his own soul.

The Gunslinger as written originally (a process that took King twelve years, from 1970 to the first publication date in 1982) is a good story; but it doesn’t quite fit with the later entries in the series. King often says he doesn’t write by outline; he has a general idea of where he’s going, but fleshes the story out live, in the course of the writing. That older edition is the only edition I had ever read–until now. The copy I picked up this week is the final revision of the story, released after the end of the series in 2003. Upon completion of book seven, King decided that the original novel needed a refresher for the sake of consistency; and so he brought the text in line with the rest of the series. The changes are not substantive in the sense of new scenes–there are only perhaps two or three of those, and none of them large–but are mostly details corrected, or hints of Roland’s past added.

The Gunslinger wipes out the village of Tull. Art by Michael Whelan.

I had the leisure of sitting down with both texts at hand, the original and the revision, and making comparisons as I went along. I didn’t read word-for-word in both texts; I limited my examination to those parts where the revised text seemed to strongly indicate there had been revisions.

And what did I find? Well…I found that it was anticlimactic at best. King didn’t make substantial changes. And there’s a strong argument that his revisions made the story better. But, I didn’t expect that; because I remember when this version launched, and I remember the brief hubbub that resulted. You see, there are fans–you’ll find them in any fandom, not just here–who would scream at changes like this. There were fans who did exactly that when this revision came out. How dare you mess with the sacred texts! How dare you change anything about this thing we know and love!

But that’s the issue, isn’t it? Are the texts sacred? Just who does a text belong to, once it’s released into the world? Does the author get to retain creative control once the creation goes public? Should they?

That’s a complex question. In a legal sense, the author usually retains the right to adapt, revise, edit, and reissue the work as long as it’s in compliance with whatever contract they had with the original publisher. But let’s be honest: We’re not talking about someone’s legal rights, are we? The only court we’re concerned with here is the court of public opinion. And, well…the public can be fickle! Two examples spring to mind:

First, there’s George Lucas. Now, let’s not even get into the matter of what Disney’s Lucasfilm has done with Star Wars; no, I’m going further back. Are you a longtime Star Wars fan? Back to the 90s and early 2000s? Alright, brace yourself. I’m going to speak a phrase that will likely give you flashbacks. If you were in the trenches back then, you know. Ready? Here goes:

Han shot first.

I know, I know! Seek therapy if you must. But for a certain generation of Star Wars fan, that phrase brings back thoughts of horrible infighting within this fandom–all because George Lucas made one tiny change to a movie. When he released the Special Edition of Episode IV, A New Hope, he altered the cantina scene so that Greedo, the Rodian bounty hunter, shot at Han Solo right before Han shoots Greedo. In the original film, only Han shot; Greedo never got the chance (which is why, when someone says “Han shot first”, my usual answer is “Han shot only“). Now, I get it. Lucas did this to make Han not look like a freaking murderer. That’s important, given that Han is one of the heroes of the story. But the revision is a product of its time; no one in 1978 thought Han was a murderer. They knew it was a gunfight, even if Greedo wasn’t fast enough. And yet this sent ripples through the fandom that persist to this day. Did Lucas have the right?

The gunslinger on the beach. Art by Michael Whelan.

Example number two: Harry Potter. After the seven books (and movies!) of the series were finished and released, author J.K. Rowling took to the internet to begin a long series of retcons to the material, most of which was absolutely unnecessary. It flew largely under the radar until the changes became more random and bizarre (wizards used to defecate on the floor wherever they were, then magically get rid of the evidence, did you know?). Since then, though, there’s been a huge debate in that fandom over whether Rowling’s changes are to be considered binding, and whether she even has the right to do so at all. (This is separate from the often-intertwined issue of Rowling’s politics and beliefs on sexuality, which is yet another highly charged issue in the fandom–but it’s irrelevant to my point here, so I’m not getting into that.)

It’s not an issue that will be resolved easily, in part because there doesn’t seem to be an across-the-board answer. What works in one fandom is not guaranteed to work in another. It’s tied up with the issue of how the fans feel about the author in general; and it hinges sometimes on how substantial the changes are, sometimes on the age of the work, sometimes on the level of popular consciousness of the work (Harry Potter, for example, pulls in huge numbers of fans due to having been very successfully adapted to film). With all these variables, what’s a fan to do? What’s an author to do?

I’m far from an authority, but I’d suggest the following:

If you’re a fan, don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Absolutely you have the right to expect an author or creator to maintain the standard or level of work that they promised you (looking at you, Game of Thrones television creators). But if you’re not pleased with something in a work of fiction, maybe don’t destroy the author for it. Criticize if you must, but try to keep it civil. Remember that it’s the author’s work, not yours; if you want to write your own, you can–that’s why fanfiction exists–but you can’t expect that the author will do everything the way you would do it. Otherwise, what do you need him for?

If you’re an author, use a gentle hand when revising. If the work has been published, and especially if it’s grown popular in its current form, consider that to a degree, it belongs to the world now. Of course you still own it, but you’ve sent it out to live its life now, and you should if at all possible let it do so. Where sequels or related works may require changes to the released work, by all means make them–but strive to keep it as subtle and close to the original work as you can.

I for one am glad that Stephen King took this route with his revisions. I think his work is stronger for it, and I know that he retained most of his fans. Things could have gone very differently.

Instead, we continue on our own search for the Tower.

I’ll see you there.

The Gunslinger is available from booksellers everywhere.

Revisiting Star Wars: Heir to the Empire

Posted on November 3, 2021 by Timewalkerauthor

At long last! We’ve come to something truly exciting! (Well, for me, at least.)

A long time ago, in ~~a galaxy far, far away~~ the year 1991, Star Wars was dead. Not dead dead, perhaps, but close enough. The last movie, Return of the Jedi, released in 1983. There had been a decent run of comics, but the last issues had released in 1988. The two animated series, Droids and Ewoks, had run in 1985. The most recent novels were 1983’s The Adventures of Lando Calrissian. A few video games came out, but they were adaptations of the films, not original material. Toys still existed, but the river had become a stream, and then trickle. The only ongoing piece of Star Wars media was the tabletop roleplaying game. For all practical purposes, Star Wars had run its course; and we fans were watching it fade into the sunset.

Enter Timothy Zahn.

I have not taken the time to delve into just how Zahn’s first Star Wars novel came to be commissioned. My perspective, rather, has been that of a fan, and that’s how I’ll address it here. But I can still remember, late 1991 (or perhaps early 1992), visiting my local libary’s bookmobile, and coming upon a blue hardback book…with Star Wars across the top. Already a huge fan, I remember my heart leaping into my throat at the discovery of this new–this new!–novel, Heir to the Empire. I was twelve years old.

In the years since, I’ve seen many other fans recount similar stories. As well, I’ve seen many new fans come along and discover Heir to the Empire for the first time–something that is especially gratifying here in the era of Disney’s Lucasfilm and its new canon. Timothy Zahn continues to write for Star Wars, even bringing into canon many characters and concepts from his Expanded Universe work; but here we have the one, the only, the original. And now, after thirty years, here I am again, at this oldest of old friends.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this novel, and its two sequels in what has come to be called the “Thrawn Trilogy” (after its villain), saved Star Wars from oblivion. The Expanded Universe, such as it was, was long in its grave when 1991 came around. Heir to the Empire changed all of that, and breathed new life into this franchise, sparking off a veritable horde of books, comics, and then games, and ultimately television. I would argue that it’s not beyond belief to say that without the Thrawn Trilogy, we might never have had the Special Edition films, the prequel films, and everything that has come with the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm–no Rogue One, no The Mandalorian, no Clone Wars, no sequels (well, that might not have been so bad, but I digress). Or possibly we would have eventually had new material–but what form would it take? It’s impossible to predict.

So, let’s dive in! We’ll take a look at this novel, and then talk about the effect it had on everything that came after. Let’s get started!

As always, there will be spoilers ahead! For a less spoiler-filled review, skip down to the second line divider–but no portion of this review is completely spoiler-free!

It is five years after the destruction of the second Death Star and the death of the Emperor and his apprentice, Darth Vader. The Rebellion has become the New Republic, and has taken control of much of the Empire’s territory, including the capital world of Coruscant. Led by the Provisional Council under Mon Mothma, Admiral Ackbar, and the Bothan Borsk Fey’lya, the new government seeks the good of the galaxy, but is not without its own infighting. Former Rebellion heroes seek the future in their own ways: Luke Skywalker seeks information regarding the Jedi in his quest to reestablish the order; Han Solo and Leia Organa have married and are expecting twins; and Lando Calrissian has established a mobile mining operation on the superhot world of Nkllon. Leia continues her diplomatic work on behalf of the Republic; and Han, having resigned his military commission, seeks out smugglers to help the Republic with much-needed shipping capacity.

The Republic labors under the idea that it has the much-reduced Empire on the back foot; but the tenuous peace is about to break. From the depths of the Unknown Regions, the last of the Empire’s Grand Admirals has returned. The Chiss named Mitth’raw’nuruodo, or Grand Admiral Thrawn, has assumed control of the fleet, and is prepared to take the fight back to the Republic. Thrawn is a genius of nearly unparalleled military acumen; and he has discovered a secret: An Imperial technology storehouse on the planet Wayland, defended by the mad Jedi Joruus C’baoth.

Thrawn wastes no time assembling his advantages. From the planet Myrkr, he obtains native creatures called ysalamiri, which can repel the Force in large bubbles around themselves. Using this ability to contain C’baoth, he recruits the dark Jedi to coordinate the efforts of his forces, much as the Emperor himself did before his death. He then finds a prototype of a working cloaking shield inside the facility on Wayland…and one other, “almost inconsequential”, bit of technology. But it is not without give-and-take; and in return, C’baoth demands something Thrawn may be challenged to provide: new Jedi students in the form of Luke Skywalker, his sister Leia, and her unborn, Force-sensitive children.

In the course of her diplomatic duties, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca are nearly kidnapped by Thrawn’s servants, the deadly Noghri. A second attempt occurs, this time with Luke present. Han formulates a plan to hide Leia away; but to keep her connected to the situation at home, he needs a slicer (the Star Wars equivalent of a hacker) who can penetrate diplomatic sources. For that he turns to Lando on Nkllon. They arrive just in time to fend off a raid from Thrawn’s forces, who manage to steal a number of Lando’s “mole miner” machines. Lando agrees to help, and connects them with a talented slicer. They decide to secretly send Leia with Chewbacca to Chewie’s home planet of Kashyyk; meanwhile they modify C-3PO to imitate Leia’s voice, and Lando accompanies Han and C-3PO on the Millennium Falcon. With Lando’s help, Han is able to approach arch-smuggler Talon Karrde at his base on the planet Myrkr.

But Myrkr is more pivotal to events than anyone knows. It holds a secret: the Force-repelling ysalamiri; and unknown to Karrde, Thrawn’s forces are returning for more. Meanwhile, Thrawn locates Luke and sets an ambush for him; with his X-Wing crippled, Luke is stranded in deep space. He is picked up–captured, in fact–by Karrde’s lieutenant, a woman named Mara Jade–who has her own personal vendetta against Luke, for reasons she holds very close. On Myrkr, Luke manages to escape into the forest, with Mara in pursuit, just as Han and Lando arrive–and just after Thrawn’s troops arrive.

Meanwhile, on Kashyyk, Leia and Chewbacca are stunned to learn that Thrawn has seen through their ruse, and has sent assassins again. The formidable Wookiees fight off the Noghri; but one survivor is captured, and Leia interrogates him. She is caught off guard when the Noghri realizes she is Darth Vader’s daughter; it names her the Mal’ary’ush, a figure of importance to his people, and swears not to harm her. It reveals that the Noghri consider Vader the savior of their world, due to events during its conquest by the Empire, and now they will transfer that respect–and service–to her. Or they will, that is, if she will come and present her case on their world, alone. Against her better judgment–but perhaps with a nudge from the Force–she agrees.

Luke and Mara fight their way out of the jungle, battling their own suspicion of each other, as well as the Empire’s troops–and all without the aid of the Force. When the Imperials have gone, they are able to rendezvous with Karrde, Han, and Lando back at the base–only to find that Karrde has decided to abandon Myrkr. Karrde sets Luke free with Han and Lando, and warns them that Thrawn has unwittingly revealed he has plans for the shipyards at Sluis Van. They head for the shipyards to try to intervene; on their way out, they receive alarming news: Leia has returned to Coruscant. She swears that she has resolved the matter of the assassinations, though she doesn’t explain how; and she reveals that there is a suspected leak in Republic intelligence, currently referred to as Delta Source. She also reveals that a potential “civil war” is brewing inside the provisional council, with Borsk Fey’lya grabbing for power.

When the battle erupts at Sluis Van, Thrawn’s plan becomes clear. The stolen mole miners will be used to breach the hulls of several capital ships, allowing troops to board and steal the ships while their manpower is limited. Unfortunately for Thrawn, by way of a mishap in scheduling, Rogue Squadron is present, and holds off the Grand Admiral’s fighters. Meanwhile, Lando–who still has the master codes for the mole miners–is able to slice into their command systems and adjust the settings. Several ships are crippled, but not stolen. Quietly enraged, Thrawn aborts the mission–interrupted, but not defeated.

Ah, nostalgia, what a drug! I will admit that it’s hard for me to look past my feelings for this story and evaluate it based on its merits. Every line felt like an old familiar friend, even though my last reading of it was nearly three decades ago. Still, let’s look at some of the best characters of this novel:

Grand Admiral Thrawn: Without a doubt, Timothy Zahn’s greatest contribution to Star Wars–both EU and Canon–is the character of Grand Admiral Thrawn. The Chiss officer, Mitth’raw’nuruodo, is the highest-ranking officer in the Imperial Navy, and thus the de facto leader of the Empire at this point. Our heroes make a point of saying that “we thought we got them all”, referring to the Empire’s Grand Admirals; but Thrawn was a unique case. Previously stationed in the Unknown Regions of the galaxy, his return now bodes ill for the infant New Republic. Thrawn is a master of tactical and strategic acumen, but that alone wouldn’t distinguish him from the likes of, say, Ysanne Isard. What makes him distinctive–his “gimmick”, if you will–is his skill at analyzing a culture’s art in order to determine the best strategies for defeating them. He deploys this skill to great effect at the battle of Sluis Van.
Joruus C’baoth and Mount Tantiss: I’m being cautious here not to reveal things we’ll only cover in the next two books. Joruus C’baoth is a Jedi Master from the era of the Old Republic–or is he? Thrawn insists he isn’t, because Thrawn claims to have killed the original C’baoth during a decades-old mission called Outbound Flight. Either way, the insane Jedi has secrets still to reveal–but for now, Thrawn wants him for his ability to engage in battle meditation, the Force skill the Emperor previously used to coordinate his forces and make them more effective in combat. C’baoth comes as a package deal with the Imperial storehouse at Mount Tantiss on the remote planet Wayland, which has its own secrets, pivotal to Thrawn’s plans. He also has an ambition: He wants to train Luke, Leia, and Leia’s children as his own disciples in the Force.
Borsk Fey’lya: This Bothan is one of the more enduring contributions to the EU from this novel. Building off a single line in Return of the Jedi (“Many Bothans died to bring us this information”, Mon Mothma), Zahn gives us Fey’lya, who will continue to be a foil and minor antagonist to the Republic for years to come. He sits on the Provisional Council, the ruling body of the Republic, and is setting up for a power grab by the end of the book. He’s also a world class asshole, but you won’t find that phrase in the book! We’ve seen him before, but only because books were written out of order; this is his first appearance in print, but not his first appearance in universe.
Talon Karrde: This smuggler boss will be a prominent recurring character well into the New Jedi Order series. I consider him a counterpart of sorts to Booster Terrik, with a similar skill set.
Mara Jade: Ahh, Mara Jade. Great adventures lie ahead for this character! For most of the book, we’re told that Mara has a strong grudge against Luke Skywalker, and even fantasizes about killing him. It’s only near the end that we find out why: She was previously the “Emperor’s Hand”, his personal assassin–Force sensitive, but only minimally trained in it, which distinguishes her from a Sith apprentice such as Vader. When the Emperor died, her life collapsed around her; she blames this solely on Luke. However, when she is confronted with the reality of Luke, she begins to question her stand.
The Noghri: These assassins and bodyguards will be in the background for years to come. Currently serving Thrawn, they previously served Vader and the Emperor–but they’re about to experience a crisis of loyalty.
Gilad Pellaeon: This Imperial captain is very underused here; chiefly he serves as the point of explanation for Thrawn’s actions. However, he too has a bright future ahead, and much fame to be had. As Imperials go, he’s one of the good guys; you can decide for yourself how much that’s worth, but eventually many of our heroes will come to accept him as an ally. Just, not in this trilogy. But it all begins here!

Far more important than any single, character, though, is the tone of the novel. Zahn is reopening the EU here; and he sets the tone for most of the post-RotJ era. Things are optimistic, and not at all gritty or dark. (There’s an argument to be made that Star Wars has some grit as part of its aesthetic, that whole “lived-in future” feeling; but within that framework, things look quite bright!) Zahn establishes several elements of the setting which will help shape the future and its entire tone. We have Luke’s search for the history of the Jedi, and his dream of reestablishing the order; Han and Leia’s children (as yet unborn), who will be major figures going forward; the various remnants of the Empire and their various leaders (including mentions of characters such as Warlord Zsinj, years before their respective stories would be written!); the struggles of the Provisional Council as it reestablishes the Republic; Lando’s various business ventures; Han and Leia’s marriage (an issue that we’ve already seen, but which was established here, and which will be the center of some upcoming stories); the heritage of Darth Vader; the prominence of Rogue Squadron; and a history of the Republic and Empire which differs somewhat from the version we would eventually receive in the prequel films (but not so substantially that it can’t be reconciled!).

Worthy of particular note: This novel is the first time we would see the capital of the Empire, the planet Coruscant, sometimes known as Imperial Center or Imperial City. The idea that the Imperial capital would be an ecumenopolis–a world-spanning city–is not new; it dated back to the earliest drafts of notes for Episode IV in the 1970s. However, Zahn’s vision of the capital world is very different from Lucas’s original notes; and it was Zahn’s vision that won out, right down to the name. When the planet made its first onscreen appearance six years later–a brief appearance at the end of 1997’s Special Edition release of Return of the Jedi–it was the view imagined by Zahn, or something very like it. And in The Phantom Menace, released in 1999, the planet was called–you guessed it!–Coruscant. (We’ll have to wait a few novels for an in-universe explanation of the name of the planet–see you in Dark Apprentice!)

And that’s where we’ll stop for now. If I continue, I’ll end up spoiling the next two books! Overall, it’s difficult to find fault with this book. Prior to the change in canon in 2014, it was practically universally considered to be the continuation of Star Wars canon (along with at least portions of the rest of the post-RotJ EU); and even today it maintains a high level of respect in the fandom. If you’ve come here from Disney-era canon, you are in for a treat! And if you’ve been here all along, well, welcome home–because that’s what it’s going to feel like when you reread it.

Next time: We’ll continue the Thrawn Trilogy with its own personal The Empire Strikes Back moment: Dark Force Rising! See you there.

Heir to the Empire is available from Amazon and other booksellers.

You can find Wookieepedia’s treatment of the novel here.

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Revisiting Star Wars: Tatooine Ghost

Posted on September 28, 2021 by Timewalkerauthor

We’re back! And today we come to the next book in our reread of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (or EU for short, now known as Star Wars Legends). If you’re new to this series, know that we’re revisiting the post-Return of the Jedi era of the EU, with the occasional necessary side trip into other eras. So far we’ve covered The Truce at Bakura, by Kathy Tyers (opening within hours of the end of Return of the Jedi); the Dark Forces novella trilogy, by William C. Dietz; Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, by Matthew Stover; the first seven novels of the X-Wing series, by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston; and The Courtship of Princess Leia, by Dave Wolverton. I have unintentionally omitted the collection Tales from the New Republic–I was unaware of it when I compiled my list, but intend to pick it up at some point. Also I have skipped a few relevant short stories, but plan to pick them up in a later post.

We’ve been at this for awhile, so a quick review is in order.

What is the Expanded Universe? Like many media franchises, Star Wars has long since made the leap from its initial medium (that is, film) to various other media–from television to novels to comics to video games, and others. Star Wars media beyond the films is typically referred to as the Expanded Universe.
What is Legends? In 2014, Star Wars was acquired by Disney along with its parent company, Lucasfilm. At that time, Lucasfilm terminated all projects still in the works, to make room for new projects initiated under Disney’s leadership. As the Expanded Universe was quite large and involved at that time, the decision was made to remove its content from canon. Thereafter only the then-existing six films (Episodes I-VI), the Clone Wars television series (not completed at that time), and a very few bits of print material were considered canon. Since then, a new version of the Expanded Universe has grown up, consistent with current canon and expanding on it, but separate from the original Expanded Universe. That original EU was rebranded by Disney as “Star Wars Legends”; however many fans, myself included, prefer the terms “EU” and “Expanded Universe”, as Disney’s Lucasfilm has not so far actively adopted the terms; and so generally, when in these posts, I say “EU” or “Expanded Universe”, I’m referring to Star Wars Legends materials.
What’s the big deal? Fan reaction to the change in 2014 was mixed, and became even more so with the release of Episodes VII-IX, which many fans consider to have been disrespectful to the legacy of the older works (to put it mildly!). Many fans do in fact like and enjoy the newer canon EU; but many fans, myself included, still prefer the older EU/Legends content.
What about this series of posts? I was a fan of the EU from its earliest revival in the early 1990s. At that time most material coming out was set in the post-RotJ era, and so that’s what I read, from the earliest releases (the Thrawn Trilogy, which we haven’t covered yet) to the end of the New Jedi Order, which takes place some thirty years after A New Hope. So, it’s largely for nostalgia’s sake that I decided to revisit this era; and I thought I would share the journey with you.
What’s new, and what’s not? Good question! “Back in the day”, as it were, I read every novel I could lay hands on, but that was not by any means all of them. I missed out on several prominent entries, mostly due to unavailability–not having internet access until later, I was limited to what I could find at my local library and bookstores. I missed out on the X-Wing series, Dark Forces, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, and today’s entry, Tatooine Ghost, as well as some others to come. I also never made it past the final novel of the New Jedi Order series; there have been quite a few novels after that. For those entries, this will be a first read rather than a reread!
So, what, exactly, are you including? Generally, all the adult-level novels in the post-RotJ era. I will not be including anything aimed at young readers, with the exception of the Young Jedi Knights series, which I consider to be essential to understanding some later novels. I will occasionally pick up a few other vital entries, as necessary. You can find a full list at this page, which is also linked in the sidebar menu!
Great! Now do the other eras! Haha, not likely! I love Star Wars, but as long as it’s taking me to do this series, I doubt I’ll get to the others in any organized way.
Why do you take so long? I’m an avid reader, but I have a lot of irons in the fire, including other reading and writing projects, a busy home life, and a full time job. I appreciate everyone’s patience, and I do try to pick up the pace here and there, but this is probably as fast as I get.

With all that said, let’s look at today’s entry: Troy Denning’s second Star Wars novel, Tatooine Ghost!

As always, there are spoilers ahead! These reviews are not spoiler-free! However I will try not to reveal major plot details as much as possible.

The year is 8 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin in Episode IV), and Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo are recently married. But there’s no rest for the weary, and Leia has led them on a covert mission to a very familiar (to us, that is) planet: Tatooine.

The desert world has a deep family connection for Leia; in addition to being the childhood home of her brother, Luke Skywalker, it is also the childhood home of her father, Anakin Skywalker–or as the galaxy knows him, Darth Vader. But now a new connection has arisen: A famous painting from her homeworld of Alderaan has surfaced at an auction in the Tatooine city of Mos Espa. The Killik Twilight would be enough to draw Leia’s attention anyway, but there’s more: The painting contains an electronic key to the Rebellion’s covert Shadowcast communication network, still in use for vital missions by the New Republic. It must be recovered at any cost–or if not recovered, then destroyed.

Things look promising–until the arrival of the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera and its disturbingly well-disciplined troops. As the situation devolves into chaos, the painting is stolen; and more, the thief is an old friend of none other than Anakin Skywalker. Han and Leia head off in pursuit, the Empire close behind them as always–and along the way, Leia must come to terms with the legacy of her father, and the leading of the Force.

One issue–perhaps the issue–with the EU is that it is not a series, per se. Rather, it’s a shard continuity. Many authors contributed to it over the years, but moreover, its books were not written in order. As of this novel, we’ve only made it as far as 8 ABY; however the first books released in the post-RotJ era, Heir to the Empire and its sequels, are set in 9 ABY. The early authors, perhaps, had it easy; broad swaths of time were unfilled, and only the barest of plot points in existing novels had to be respected. It’s fine to write a Truce at Bakura, set in 4 ABY, when the only future events you have to respect are four years later. But, as the universe became more deeply described, and events began to fill up the history and the calendar, it became much harder to work in a meaningful story. After all, when the next thirty years have been fleshed out, it becomes impossible to make any significant changes to the universe–you already know how things will work out.

That’s the situation in which we find ourselves with Tatooine Ghost. While the general trend of the era had been to move forward into progressively later years, Tatooine Ghost is one of several novels that were inserted into an earlier year, bookended by other existing stories. As a result, it’s interesting, but it all feels a bit…inconsequential.

It must be a fine line to walk. For example, Leia experiences visions from the Force in this novel. In the end, she reflects that she needs to talk to Luke about learning to harness the Force–but we already know that it will be a long time before she actually acts on that desire. And so, no real action can happen on that front. The entire book proceeds in similar fashion.

But, I don’t consider that to be a weakness on the part of the author. Denning was, as I said, quite constrained by the era for which he was writing, and to be honest he did the best that the situation would allow. I should mention that there are many fans who do take issue with Denning’s work–apparently he was able to largely shape the direction of the EU in its later years–but we’ll put off covering that until we get there. This novel, in the meantime, is an earlier work, and it’s acceptable, if hamstrung by its timing. (Denning’s first Star Wars novel, the New Jedi Order’s Star By Star, is nothing short of fantastic–check it out if you want a view of what he’s capable of when not constrained by surrounding stories.)

What does this novel do well? More than anything, it ties together the prequel era and the post-RotJ era. Leia meets or otherwise discovers several characters and locations from Episode I, The Phantom Menace. She discovers a video journal put together by her grandmother, Shmi Skywalker Lars; visits Shmi’s long-empty home and the shop formerly owned by Watto; meets Anakin’s childhood friend Kitster Banai; visits Luke’s family homestead (now owned by the Darklighters, previously seen in the X-Wing series); and meets Dama Whitesun Brunk, the younger sister of Luke’s aunt Beru. She also visits Obi-Wan Kenobi’s abandoned hermitage, and finds a datapad left by him (a thread left tantalizingly unpulled!). The overall effect is to bring the two eras together; because, frankly, if one only watches the films, they feel unconnected. The universe of the original trilogy doesn’t feel as though it has much connection to the universe of the prequel trilogy. For this, I’m grateful to this novel.

Further, it fleshes out the lives of characters that previously only existed as part of Anakin’s story–and brief parts at that! We get, for example, a thorough look at the romance between Cliegg Lars and Shmi Skywalker Lars, and at the complicated relationship between Shmi and her owner, Watto. We get to see hints of Anakin’s friends growing up, and of the vacuum he left behind in his absence. It goes a long way toward changing these people from objects to characters, rich and lively–even if sometimes long dead.

And, most of all for our purposes, it gives us insight into the early days of the marriage of Han and Leia–though this almost feels like an afterthought. When we next see the Solos, they’ll be embroiled in the battle with Grand Admiral Thrawn (who makes a covert appearance in this book–see if you can spot him!), and on the way to parenthood, and we’ll rarely ever get to see them focus on each other without such concerns again. This is, for all practical purposes, as close to a honeymoon as we’ll get to see them be. Though hectic, this story feels like a vacation of sorts for them. (Full disclosure: They do get an actual honeymoon in the short story Corphelion Interlude, which we’re skipping for now–but in typical Solo fashion, you can bet it’s not much more relaxing!)

Overall: It’s not a bad story–but I could say that it’s also not a necessary story. If your chief concern is the progression of the overall plot, you might skip this one. Tatooine Ghost is introspective, thoughtful, and not of particularly great consequence for the larger story. But, if–like me–you like having a well-established and deep background for your stories, with unique and varied and most of all well-drawn characters, then you may want to read this one. Check it out!

Next time: The next novel in our chronology is Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, the first entry in the Thrawn Trilogy and arguably the father of the modern EU, as novels go–so we’ll pick up there! But, it will be a while before I can begin; I have some other projects that need attention first. In the meantime, read along and share your thoughts! See you there.

Tatooine Ghost is available from Amazon and other booksellers.

You can find Wookieepedia’s treatment of the novel here.

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A literary journey

Category Archives: General

Older Than Old School: Stephen King’s “The Bachman Books”

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Revisiting Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

Stephen King’s The Gunslinger: Then and Now

Revisiting Star Wars: Heir to the Empire

Revisiting Star Wars: Tatooine Ghost

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