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A review by jaredkwheeler
The Approaching Storm by Alan Dean Foster
1.0
Star Wars Legends Project #98
Background: The Approaching Storm was written by [a:Alan Dean Foster|11735|Alan Dean Foster|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207233026p2/11735.jpg] and published in January 2002. Foster has a long history with Star Wars. He ghost wrote the novelization of the original film for George Lucas, and he wrote the first ever EU novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, as a sequel to it. He also wrote the novelization of The Force Awakens, but this novel was his first return to the Star Wars universe in almost a quarter century.
The Approaching Storm is set 22 years before the Battle of Yavin, immediately before the events of Attack of the Clones. The main characters Anakin, Obi-Wan, Luminara Unduli and Barriss Offee. It deals with the mission that Obi-Wan and Anakin have just returned from at the beginning of Attack of the Clones and sets up some of the rising threat from the Separatist Crisis.
Summary: A growing group of discontented corporate entities within the Republic are hoping to improve business by forcing a galactic change. To enact this change, they've set their sights on Ansion, an insignificant, backwater world stymied by conflict between the modern city-dwellers and the traditionalist nomads that roam the plains. If Ansion can be convinced to secede, a web of interlocking alliances and agreements will take dozens of worlds with them. To forestall this, the Jedi have dispatched Obi-Wan and Luminara, along with their apprentices Anakin and Barriss, to do whatever it takes to keep Ansion in the Republic . . . a task far more daunting than the backwardness of Ansion would initially suggest, particularly with dark forces working to block them at every turn.
Review: I hate to speak ill of someone with roots as deep in the EU as Foster's, but this is a terrible book. Not only is the story dull and poorly conceived, it's also badly written. It feels padded and repetitive and darn near interminable. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural and the exposition is awkward and flavorless. The characters are flat and drab and not at all likable.
Our protagonists conform to the worst stereotypes of the emotionless, stick-in-the-mud, stick-up-the-butt Jedi, and Foster has no sense of how to write a story around their Force abilities. He spends most of the time trying to pretend their powers are limited in ways that they clearly aren't in order to try and generate some tension, and the rest of the time allowing them to perform absurd feats that make it clear that the supposedly unattainable outcome could never have been in doubt. Either the Jedi themselves have no idea what they're capable of or Foster is cheating. Given how the book ends, I'm inclined to think the latter.
Barely anything of interest happens in the entire book. It's just an endless trek across a featureless prairie, punctuated by uninteresting encounters with the local fauna that the Jedi Masters are quick to spin into tiresome and cliche lessons for their Padawans. Plus, whoever was in charge of continuity didn't bother to care whether the plot of this book had any significance . . . It doesn't. The entire mission is built around trying to make sure a couple dozen systems don't leave the Republic, and if they do, a whole gaggle of corporate entities (the Commerce Guild, etc.) stand ready to openly declare their allegiance to the Separatists. But as Attack of the Clones begins, immediately after this story ends, we learn that thousands of systems have already left the Republic, and the Commerce Guild, Corporate Alliance, Banking Clan, Trade Federation, et al, are all colluding with Count Dooku to finance and supply the Separatist military. Which means that this book doesn't fit with anything else, and even if it did, nothing that happens in it matters in the long-term, or even the short-term.
Foster also has an odd habit of deploying turns-of-phrase that don't quite make sense, which is a source of frequent annoyance. Like after a dangerous dance involving her lightsaber, Barriss is gently reprimanded by her master, "It would make me unhappy to have to return to Cuipernam with you in less than one piece." How could one be in less than one piece, particularly if one chopped oneself into multiple pieces with one's lightsaber? Or, later on, "Though they watched and listened attentively, neither Anakin nor Barriss paid any particular attention to the welcoming formalities." . . . What do you think "attentively" means, exactly? Are these petty quibbles? On their own, yes . . . but the book is full of them, screaming for a proofread that apparently didn't happen.
And, on its own, none of these complaints is enough to entirely sink the book . . . But together, it makes for a nearly unbearable read. The one saving grace I'll give credit for: Foster clearly put a lot of effort into the worldbuilding for Ansion, which is admirable. I don't think he created a world that was worth spending an entire book in, or at least that he crafted a story worthy of his world, but he did a good job in that particular aspect of the construction. But it's not enough. Avoid!
D-
Background: The Approaching Storm was written by [a:Alan Dean Foster|11735|Alan Dean Foster|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207233026p2/11735.jpg] and published in January 2002. Foster has a long history with Star Wars. He ghost wrote the novelization of the original film for George Lucas, and he wrote the first ever EU novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, as a sequel to it. He also wrote the novelization of The Force Awakens, but this novel was his first return to the Star Wars universe in almost a quarter century.
The Approaching Storm is set 22 years before the Battle of Yavin, immediately before the events of Attack of the Clones. The main characters Anakin, Obi-Wan, Luminara Unduli and Barriss Offee. It deals with the mission that Obi-Wan and Anakin have just returned from at the beginning of Attack of the Clones and sets up some of the rising threat from the Separatist Crisis.
Summary: A growing group of discontented corporate entities within the Republic are hoping to improve business by forcing a galactic change. To enact this change, they've set their sights on Ansion, an insignificant, backwater world stymied by conflict between the modern city-dwellers and the traditionalist nomads that roam the plains. If Ansion can be convinced to secede, a web of interlocking alliances and agreements will take dozens of worlds with them. To forestall this, the Jedi have dispatched Obi-Wan and Luminara, along with their apprentices Anakin and Barriss, to do whatever it takes to keep Ansion in the Republic . . . a task far more daunting than the backwardness of Ansion would initially suggest, particularly with dark forces working to block them at every turn.
Review: I hate to speak ill of someone with roots as deep in the EU as Foster's, but this is a terrible book. Not only is the story dull and poorly conceived, it's also badly written. It feels padded and repetitive and darn near interminable. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural and the exposition is awkward and flavorless. The characters are flat and drab and not at all likable.
Our protagonists conform to the worst stereotypes of the emotionless, stick-in-the-mud, stick-up-the-butt Jedi, and Foster has no sense of how to write a story around their Force abilities. He spends most of the time trying to pretend their powers are limited in ways that they clearly aren't in order to try and generate some tension, and the rest of the time allowing them to perform absurd feats that make it clear that the supposedly unattainable outcome could never have been in doubt. Either the Jedi themselves have no idea what they're capable of or Foster is cheating. Given how the book ends, I'm inclined to think the latter.
Barely anything of interest happens in the entire book. It's just an endless trek across a featureless prairie, punctuated by uninteresting encounters with the local fauna that the Jedi Masters are quick to spin into tiresome and cliche lessons for their Padawans. Plus, whoever was in charge of continuity didn't bother to care whether the plot of this book had any significance . . . It doesn't. The entire mission is built around trying to make sure a couple dozen systems don't leave the Republic, and if they do, a whole gaggle of corporate entities (the Commerce Guild, etc.) stand ready to openly declare their allegiance to the Separatists. But as Attack of the Clones begins, immediately after this story ends, we learn that thousands of systems have already left the Republic, and the Commerce Guild, Corporate Alliance, Banking Clan, Trade Federation, et al, are all colluding with Count Dooku to finance and supply the Separatist military. Which means that this book doesn't fit with anything else, and even if it did, nothing that happens in it matters in the long-term, or even the short-term.
Foster also has an odd habit of deploying turns-of-phrase that don't quite make sense, which is a source of frequent annoyance. Like after a dangerous dance involving her lightsaber, Barriss is gently reprimanded by her master, "It would make me unhappy to have to return to Cuipernam with you in less than one piece." How could one be in less than one piece, particularly if one chopped oneself into multiple pieces with one's lightsaber? Or, later on, "Though they watched and listened attentively, neither Anakin nor Barriss paid any particular attention to the welcoming formalities." . . . What do you think "attentively" means, exactly? Are these petty quibbles? On their own, yes . . . but the book is full of them, screaming for a proofread that apparently didn't happen.
And, on its own, none of these complaints is enough to entirely sink the book . . . But together, it makes for a nearly unbearable read. The one saving grace I'll give credit for: Foster clearly put a lot of effort into the worldbuilding for Ansion, which is admirable. I don't think he created a world that was worth spending an entire book in, or at least that he crafted a story worthy of his world, but he did a good job in that particular aspect of the construction. But it's not enough. Avoid!
D-