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neilrcoulter 's review for:
Star Wars: Leia, Princess of Alderaan
by Claudia Gray
Writing the backstories of iconic characters is probably a bad idea almost all the time. It certainly is for Princess Leia. Claudia Gray's novel about Leia a little before Episode 4 is really bad. I can accept that perhaps Leia was once a ridiculous teenager, going through bland, stereotypical teenager problems; but I don't want to read about it. And now I have anyway--for which I blame myself, of course. :)
Much of the novel feels like a generic YA story with Star Wars characters and locations awkwardly shoehorned in: pathfinder training, adolescent relationship with parents, first crush, and so forth. Not much happens in the novel, and it passes without much spark. Because this is a Claudia Gray novel about teenagers, of course there is a scene where Leia's first love "undoes her braids," so to speak--in both the literal sense and the uncomfortable Alderaanian figurative sense. Yuck. I much prefer to think of Leia as untouched when we meet her in Episode 4. It makes a lot more sense, given her character arc in the original trilogy.
Weird moments: when Leia visits the Naboo system, and talks with a generic queen and the former Captain Panaka--who meets a disappointing fate for no substantial reason at all. I guess that's what happens to a guy named Quarsh. There is no "bad feeling about this" in the novel, but there is a "good feeling about this." There is a corny scene where Leia nearly hires a YT freighter in need of repairs, which I'm sure we're supposed to think is perhaps a near-miss of her first meeting of Han. This is not a particularly large galaxy, apparently. And finally, it seems that Leia's mother is a little bit like Iron Man, which is kind of a strange detail. It's not a convincing reason why she and Bail adopted Leia. Surely in a galaxy that has cloning, Bail and Breha could have created a biological child of their own.
The novel includes at least a couple of small hints about The Last Jedi. Amilyn Holdo and the planet Crait are introduced. That's actually more reveal than the "Journey to..." books have tended to provide in the past. I'll be interested to see the payoff in the film.
Politics in Star Wars novels is always inept, and that's true in this story, too. But this novel includes several scenes with Grand Moff Tarkin, and he is just a fantastic character. For some reason, he works in any format--movie or book. His scenes are the most interesting ones in an otherwise very unremarkable novel. But even so: how dumb can he be? Surely he knows what's going on, and yet does nothing to stop it.
A commitment to reading everything in the Star Wars canon is sometimes more painful than it really ought to be. I'm just thankful to the public library, which has kept me from spending any money on these things.
Much of the novel feels like a generic YA story with Star Wars characters and locations awkwardly shoehorned in: pathfinder training, adolescent relationship with parents, first crush, and so forth. Not much happens in the novel, and it passes without much spark. Because this is a Claudia Gray novel about teenagers, of course there is a scene where Leia's first love "undoes her braids," so to speak--in both the literal sense and the uncomfortable Alderaanian figurative sense. Yuck. I much prefer to think of Leia as untouched when we meet her in Episode 4. It makes a lot more sense, given her character arc in the original trilogy.
Weird moments: when Leia visits the Naboo system, and talks with a generic queen and the former Captain Panaka--who meets a disappointing fate for no substantial reason at all. I guess that's what happens to a guy named Quarsh. There is no "bad feeling about this" in the novel, but there is a "good feeling about this." There is a corny scene where Leia nearly hires a YT freighter in need of repairs, which I'm sure we're supposed to think is perhaps a near-miss of her first meeting of Han. This is not a particularly large galaxy, apparently. And finally, it seems that Leia's mother is a little bit like Iron Man, which is kind of a strange detail. It's not a convincing reason why she and Bail adopted Leia. Surely in a galaxy that has cloning, Bail and Breha could have created a biological child of their own.
The novel includes at least a couple of small hints about The Last Jedi. Amilyn Holdo and the planet Crait are introduced. That's actually more reveal than the "Journey to..." books have tended to provide in the past. I'll be interested to see the payoff in the film.
Politics in Star Wars novels is always inept, and that's true in this story, too. But this novel includes several scenes with Grand Moff Tarkin, and he is just a fantastic character. For some reason, he works in any format--movie or book. His scenes are the most interesting ones in an otherwise very unremarkable novel. But even so: how dumb can he be? Surely he knows what's going on, and yet does nothing to stop it.
A commitment to reading everything in the Star Wars canon is sometimes more painful than it really ought to be. I'm just thankful to the public library, which has kept me from spending any money on these things.