Book Review: 'Star Wars: I, Jedi'

Cover art by Drew Struzan. (C) 1998 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)

One of the side effects of creating a literary "expanded universe" of a popular movie or television series is the studio's licensing division coming in and saying to a diverse group of authors something like Okay, go ahead and write novels based on our characters and situations and carry the story forward, even though what counts as the Official Story is what we show on movie screens or TV shows. We will vet almost anything so long as it doesn't seriously contradict or affect any past or future project we may have later on.

Lovely idea, this, since it keeps the fans happy with new stories set in their favorite universes and gives them new insights into the offscreen lives and "further adventures" of such characters as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the captains and crews of the various starships named Enterprise, and, of course, the heroes and villains that populate George Lucas' "galaxy far, far away."

The problem with this concept is that although all the writers are professionals who have an impressive resume and are known within their given genres, each one has his or her own style and way of looking at characters and situations created not only in another medium, but usually by someone else. And even, as in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, when such a diverse group of authors is told to write the novels in their own style yet somehow maintain a sense of continuity, the results are, for the most part, very uneven.

Take, for instance, Michael A. Stackpole's I, Jedi, a stand-alone novel that isn't part of any series (not even Stackpole's own X-Wing narrative) yet is connected to no less than four other authors' works, if you want to include Tom Veitch's Dark Empire graphic novels. Not only are there references to or characters derived from the X-Wing novels (in which the main character/narrator, Corran Horn, was introduced), but the story begins just as Timothy Zahn's The Last Command is ending, and most of the novel rejiggers events from Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy by using a literary technique known as retroactive continuity.

In I, Jedi, Stackpole uses retroactive continuity (or retconning) to insert former Corellian Security officer and now Rogue Squadron pilot Corran Horn (Rogue Nine) into Anderson's three novels about Jedi Master Luke Skywalker's attempts to start rebuilding the Jedi Order at a "praexeum" on the fourth moon of Yavin.

Although it begins with the final showdown between the Galactic Empire's forces commanded by Grand Admiral Thrawn and the New Republic, most of I, Jedi takes place within the time-frame of Anderson's Jedi Academy novels; Corran, who in the X-Wing series of novels is established as having strong but latent Force abilities, is forced by circumstances to reconsider his earlier decision to not take Luke's offer of joining the new Jedi Order and stay in the crack fighter unit known as Rogue Squadron instead.

Perhaps, as in both the cases of Anakin and Luke Skywalker, it's Corran's Force-guided destiny to follow in his dead grandfather's Jedi footsteps, but on the surface, Corran is motivated by purely personal reasons, his wife, Mirax, has vanished from their home on Coruscant while he was away on a risky mission against a band of pirates known as the Blackstars, who are themselves an offshoot of a larger group based on the former Imperial Star Destroyer Invidious.

Corran hopes that honing his Jedi skills will add to his already formidable talents as an investigator and a fighter pilot, and that when he completes his training, he can use all his talents to disrupt the so-called Invids and save his wife....all while avoiding the temptations of calling on his anger and aggression to tap into the dark side of the Force.

Of course, many of the characters and situations from Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy, including the doomed Jedi apprentice Gantoris and the evil Sith Lord Exar Kun, appear in I, Jedi, and most of the big plot points from those novels are revisited. Yet, since Stackpole's insertion of Corran into the plot is more than mere re-editing the story somewhat, with some elements now taking on a darker and more menacing hue than in Anderson's original tale. 

My Take

Unusually for a novel set in the Star Wars universe, Stackpole's 1998 book is the first book told from a first-person perspective. This is a somewhat interesting if rather hard feat to accomplish, considering that Star Wars stories - whether they are films, radio dramas, or literary renditions - always have various parallel plot strands that weave back and forth and converge at the very end. This usually requires the narrative to be told from an omniscient third-person point of view, but I, Jedi somehow manages to do it from one person's vantage point.

Although I enjoy I, Jedi a great deal and have to give Stackpole credit for actually improving upon another author's established storyline, I do have a few quibbles about some of the characterizations and continuity issues that pop up in this otherwise very readable entry in the Expanded Universe saga.

First off, having complimented Stackpole on his improvements on Anderson's earlier novels, most of the book's first half is a rehash of The Jedi Academy's storyline. Unless die-hard Star Wars fans somehow missed reading the Anderson novels back in the 1990s, they'll probably skim over the Yavin training chapters and head on over to the book's second half, which is where Corran truly gets to shine as he infiltrates the Invids and attempts to rescue Mirax from their clutches.
Additionally, Stackpole's better rendition of the earlier books' narrative makes readers wish he had written the Jedi Academy trilogy.

Now, perhaps I should cut Stackpole some slack because the novel came out one year before Episode I: The Phantom Menace premiered, but I'm not sure I, Jedi fits well in the universe George Lucas establishes in the films.

For instance, Corran and Luke have a long discussion about the Jedi Master's training style and philosophy, and Corran theorizes that Luke's own Masters, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, had deliberately baited Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine by allowing Luke's surname, Skywalker, to be known on Tatooine and thus make his existence known to the Sith somehow. This runs counter to the evidence exhibited in the films, but Stackpole was not privy to Lucas' ideas about the Jedi Order and the origins of the Skywalker twins. It's an interesting notion, though, even if it sounds a bit off.

For all that, though, I, Jedi is an entertaining novel, written in a crisp and clear manner that is full of detail and wit. Particularly refreshing is the fact that it focuses like a blaster beam on only a few characters and follows one main storyline, rather than showing us all the major Dramatis Personae scattered hither and yon across the galaxy like so many probe droids, each one with a complex story thread of his/her/its own. Stackpole proves, in I, Jedi, that his success with the X-Wing novels and comics wasn't a fluke; he takes a gamble by retconning another writer's work and telling the story from Corran's point of view, and it pays off.