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3.1 AVERAGE
3.1 AVERAGE
Alright, so this is pretty much a disaster. On one level it's not Foster's fault: Splinter was published after A New Hope was released but before either Empire or Jedi were out, and plot points from the last two are obviously not included. This means that here we get an undercurrent of romantic tension between Luke and Leia which is now just icky. It also means that Vader finds out who Luke is but simultaneously doesn't, if you get my drift, which makes no sense in retrospect. As I said: not Foster's fault.
What is his fault is the hideous portrayal of Leia. In fairness, I do appreciate his attempt to show her trauma after the torture session of A New Hope though the associated trauma of seeing her planet blown to smithereens gets nary a mention and that seems almost worse. But Leia here exists primarily to scream, be beaten, and need (multiple) rescues. She has essentially no other skills, and every skill she plausibly should have is taken away and given to Luke. Let's be realistic: Leia is the daughter of a senator, and is involved in politics herself. Her education and training in politics, history, and diplomacy is likely to be extensive. Yet when faced with a species unknown to her (the Yuzzem) she cowers and panics while Luke, who has been all of six months off Tatooine, recognises them and can speak their language because he read some books back on the farm. I am all for self-taught education, but come on. This tendency becomes particularly egregious later on, when Leia has another screaming fit because she can't swim - AND LUKE CAN!!!! Luke, who has spent his entire life on a world so devoid of water that his family business was moisture-farming, dragging water molecules out of the atmosphere because there's so little on the ground, learned in this desert hellhole to swim. And the highly educated daughter of a planet that we can see from A New Hope has plenty of ocean, cannot. This is just ridiculous elevation of one character at the expense of another. Foster's description of her as a "steel kitten" says it all really. *gags*
And just in case I wasn't irritated enough, this throwaway line was the final straw. "Grammel eyed the man [a stroppy miner] the way a botanist would a new species of weed". As a botanist: fuck off. One, "weed" is a cultural construct. A plant called a weed in one context might be a wildflower or a valued resource in another. "Weed" is not stamped on leaf or stem so the plant can be so classified at the moment of discovery, and the reaction of any of my fellow botanists on discovering a new plant would not be contempt. It would be OMG new plant! OMG new paper!!! What name can I give this awesome new plant in my awesome new paper?!!! In short: fuck off again, and this is the kind of thoughtlessness that absolutely permeates this book, with its "as you know" infodumping and unnecessary attempt at sexual assault (on Leia, OF COURSE) and so forth. I have read good books by Mr. Foster, but this is not one of them.
What is his fault is the hideous portrayal of Leia. In fairness, I do appreciate his attempt to show her trauma after the torture session of A New Hope though the associated trauma of seeing her planet blown to smithereens gets nary a mention and that seems almost worse. But Leia here exists primarily to scream, be beaten, and need (multiple) rescues. She has essentially no other skills, and every skill she plausibly should have is taken away and given to Luke. Let's be realistic: Leia is the daughter of a senator, and is involved in politics herself. Her education and training in politics, history, and diplomacy is likely to be extensive. Yet when faced with a species unknown to her (the Yuzzem) she cowers and panics while Luke, who has been all of six months off Tatooine, recognises them and can speak their language because he read some books back on the farm. I am all for self-taught education, but come on. This tendency becomes particularly egregious later on, when Leia has another screaming fit because she can't swim - AND LUKE CAN!!!! Luke, who has spent his entire life on a world so devoid of water that his family business was moisture-farming, dragging water molecules out of the atmosphere because there's so little on the ground, learned in this desert hellhole to swim. And the highly educated daughter of a planet that we can see from A New Hope has plenty of ocean, cannot. This is just ridiculous elevation of one character at the expense of another. Foster's description of her as a "steel kitten" says it all really. *gags*
And just in case I wasn't irritated enough, this throwaway line was the final straw. "Grammel eyed the man [a stroppy miner] the way a botanist would a new species of weed". As a botanist: fuck off. One, "weed" is a cultural construct. A plant called a weed in one context might be a wildflower or a valued resource in another. "Weed" is not stamped on leaf or stem so the plant can be so classified at the moment of discovery, and the reaction of any of my fellow botanists on discovering a new plant would not be contempt. It would be OMG new plant! OMG new paper!!! What name can I give this awesome new plant in my awesome new paper?!!! In short: fuck off again, and this is the kind of thoughtlessness that absolutely permeates this book, with its "as you know" infodumping and unnecessary attempt at sexual assault (on Leia, OF COURSE) and so forth. I have read good books by Mr. Foster, but this is not one of them.