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Star Wars: The Callista Trilogy #1
Star Wars: Children of the Jedi
Callista is a brave Jedi warrior who gave her life to save a sanctuary for wives and children of Jedi knights from obliteration by the Empire. Suddenly, a dreadnought is rearming itself for shelter destruction. Only Luke Skywalker can feel the evil presence and the influence of believed decades-dead Callista.
416 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 1, 1995
About the author
Barbara Hambly
193 books1,493 followersaka Barbara Hamilton
Ranging from fantasy to historical fiction, Barbara Hambly has a masterful way of spinning a story. Her twisty plots involve memorable characters, lavish descriptions, scads of novel words, and interesting devices. Her work spans the Star Wars universe, antebellum New Orleans, and various fantasy worlds, sometimes linked with our own.
"I always wanted to be a writer but everyone kept telling me it was impossible to break into the field or make money. I've proven them wrong on both counts."
-Barbara Hambly
Ranging from fantasy to historical fiction, Barbara Hambly has a masterful way of spinning a story. Her twisty plots involve memorable characters, lavish descriptions, scads of novel words, and interesting devices. Her work spans the Star Wars universe, antebellum New Orleans, and various fantasy worlds, sometimes linked with our own.
"I always wanted to be a writer but everyone kept telling me it was impossible to break into the field or make money. I've proven them wrong on both counts."
-Barbara Hambly
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 256 reviews
May 17, 2022
Wow, do fans hate this book! It has so many negative ratings and foaming at the mouth reviews. Clearly, it's not for everyone but it was DEFINITELY for me!
One thing I really loved is that Hambly wrote a sci-fi novel in a fantasy universe. What do I mean by that? I've thought about the difference between the two genres for a long time, and here's what I've come up with: fantasy novels are about Good vs Evil, heroes and villains, and a sense of morality. Sci-fi on the other hand is more concerned with questions of ethics and philosophy, especially the most common one: what does it mean to be human? The original trilogy was explicitly written as modern mythology; to me, it is a fantasy story in a sci-fi setting.
Hambly's novel is most definitely sci-fi. Thematically, it is about the question of "who is human?" Is a droid programmed with a dying man's knowledge human? How about the opposite of that: a girl who is all ghost and no shell, a soul without a body? What about non-humans who are brainwashed to think that they are human? What about a droid--can a droid be brave or heroic like a human, or is that just its programming? Or a supercomputer AI, who can act with near human intelligence?
I also loved the setting: a creepy, desolate planet with subterranean memories and monsters and a derelict, haunting, empty dreadnaught. Both contributed to a sense of loss, of darkness tinged with nostalgia, that I hadn't read before.
It was clever of Hambly to injure Luke so that he couldn't just literally wave his hand out of things; it also made him vulnerable, physically and emotionally. I'm not sure a perfectly healthy Luke at peak prowess would've fallen in love with a ghost.
Speaking of ghosts, oh my gosh did I love, love, LOVE Hambly's take on Leia, who is still very much haunted by the ghosts of Alderaan lost. Leia who is Chief of State and early 30s, yes, but still has nightmares about trying to save Alderaan, still traumatized by the interrogator droid and Vader, still tempted to get revenge. Through Leia's memories, we see Alderaan not just as a prop, but as a real place with people she cared for but will never see again. Intellectually, we all know this, but in the film it's a little abstract (or maybe we're just numb to seeing it at this point). Hambly made it emotionally real, and gave Leia major Anastasia Romanov vibes, which I am totally here for.
It's not your typical Star Wars book, I'll grant you that. But for me, there was an intellectual richness that was unexpected and refreshing. I didn't love everything: the prose was purple at times, awkwardly heavy with description, and I could practically hear the 80s synthesizers during the subconscious make-out scene. The resolution only makes sense if you know up front this is a trilogy, which I did not. But still, minor quibbles.
My typical Star Wars review:
Threat of the Day: A dreadnaught from the Jedi purge days kicks to life again, controlled by a malicious AI called the Will, and is coming for a mining planet that used to have Jedi on it and currently has Leia, Han, and Chewy. Planetside, there are carnivorous molds, pseudo-zombies, and an ex-Imperial who would like to get back on top. The spaceship I liked a lot (7/10), but the political enemies were much weaker (3/10). So I'll split the difference and call it 5/10.
Thirsty for Skywalker, You Are: Oh yes, the romance was strong with this one. 10/10 Nerfs Herded
Best part: Leia remembering Alderaan: "She wondered what they'd think now, those aunts, if they could see her married to a man who'd started life as a smuggler, whose parents had been nobody-knew-who. If they could see her as Chief of State, after years of dodging around the galaxy in the company of a ragged gang of idealistic warriors with a price on her head. She honestly didn't know whether they would have been aghast or proud. When she was eighteen, she hadn't known them well; hadn't known them as adults know other adults. And they had all died before she could."
I also liked this tidbit from Callista (remember, before the Prequels) : "The Masters always had a problem with children born Jedi to non-Jedi parents...the Masters tried to catch those as early as they could, because those were the ones most at risk from the dark side. Those, and the children born of Jedi parents who were only a little Force-strong, who had a tiny bit of what their brothers and sisters and playmates had full strength. Some of those were the most dangerous of all."
Worst line: "Bundled trunk lines of cable and wire brushed Luke's shoulders as he hitched himself laboriously in the Jawa's wake, hoses like glistening black esophagi and thinner lines of rubbery insulated fiber-optic coax crowding close, as if he were indeed ascending the alimentary canal of some monstrous beast." Ok, yes, the prose can be clunky at times...but it's worth it guys, I promise!
Would I revisit in 20 years: Heck yes!
Overall 9/10
One thing I really loved is that Hambly wrote a sci-fi novel in a fantasy universe. What do I mean by that? I've thought about the difference between the two genres for a long time, and here's what I've come up with: fantasy novels are about Good vs Evil, heroes and villains, and a sense of morality. Sci-fi on the other hand is more concerned with questions of ethics and philosophy, especially the most common one: what does it mean to be human? The original trilogy was explicitly written as modern mythology; to me, it is a fantasy story in a sci-fi setting.
Hambly's novel is most definitely sci-fi. Thematically, it is about the question of "who is human?" Is a droid programmed with a dying man's knowledge human? How about the opposite of that: a girl who is all ghost and no shell, a soul without a body? What about non-humans who are brainwashed to think that they are human? What about a droid--can a droid be brave or heroic like a human, or is that just its programming? Or a supercomputer AI, who can act with near human intelligence?
I also loved the setting: a creepy, desolate planet with subterranean memories and monsters and a derelict, haunting, empty dreadnaught. Both contributed to a sense of loss, of darkness tinged with nostalgia, that I hadn't read before.
It was clever of Hambly to injure Luke so that he couldn't just literally wave his hand out of things; it also made him vulnerable, physically and emotionally. I'm not sure a perfectly healthy Luke at peak prowess would've fallen in love with a ghost.
Speaking of ghosts, oh my gosh did I love, love, LOVE Hambly's take on Leia, who is still very much haunted by the ghosts of Alderaan lost. Leia who is Chief of State and early 30s, yes, but still has nightmares about trying to save Alderaan, still traumatized by the interrogator droid and Vader, still tempted to get revenge. Through Leia's memories, we see Alderaan not just as a prop, but as a real place with people she cared for but will never see again. Intellectually, we all know this, but in the film it's a little abstract (or maybe we're just numb to seeing it at this point). Hambly made it emotionally real, and gave Leia major Anastasia Romanov vibes, which I am totally here for.
It's not your typical Star Wars book, I'll grant you that. But for me, there was an intellectual richness that was unexpected and refreshing. I didn't love everything: the prose was purple at times, awkwardly heavy with description, and I could practically hear the 80s synthesizers during the subconscious make-out scene. The resolution only makes sense if you know up front this is a trilogy, which I did not. But still, minor quibbles.
My typical Star Wars review:
Threat of the Day: A dreadnaught from the Jedi purge days kicks to life again, controlled by a malicious AI called the Will, and is coming for a mining planet that used to have Jedi on it and currently has Leia, Han, and Chewy. Planetside, there are carnivorous molds, pseudo-zombies, and an ex-Imperial who would like to get back on top. The spaceship I liked a lot (7/10), but the political enemies were much weaker (3/10). So I'll split the difference and call it 5/10.
Thirsty for Skywalker, You Are: Oh yes, the romance was strong with this one. 10/10 Nerfs Herded
Best part: Leia remembering Alderaan: "She wondered what they'd think now, those aunts, if they could see her married to a man who'd started life as a smuggler, whose parents had been nobody-knew-who. If they could see her as Chief of State, after years of dodging around the galaxy in the company of a ragged gang of idealistic warriors with a price on her head. She honestly didn't know whether they would have been aghast or proud. When she was eighteen, she hadn't known them well; hadn't known them as adults know other adults. And they had all died before she could."
I also liked this tidbit from Callista (remember, before the Prequels) : "The Masters always had a problem with children born Jedi to non-Jedi parents...the Masters tried to catch those as early as they could, because those were the ones most at risk from the dark side. Those, and the children born of Jedi parents who were only a little Force-strong, who had a tiny bit of what their brothers and sisters and playmates had full strength. Some of those were the most dangerous of all."
Worst line: "Bundled trunk lines of cable and wire brushed Luke's shoulders as he hitched himself laboriously in the Jawa's wake, hoses like glistening black esophagi and thinner lines of rubbery insulated fiber-optic coax crowding close, as if he were indeed ascending the alimentary canal of some monstrous beast." Ok, yes, the prose can be clunky at times...but it's worth it guys, I promise!
Would I revisit in 20 years: Heck yes!
Overall 9/10
June 13, 2021
Probably the worst SW book I've read. Lame, derivative, pointless. Hambly tosses the usual SW suspects into a moonlet; introduces the obligatory Palpatine clone/hand/minion/offspring; starts the ticking clock, and it still comes out with a hodgepodge of seemingly plagiarized elements.
Did Hambly read other SW novels before writing this? No, did she see the movies? She apparently doesn't understand what the Force is or how it works (or doesn't). She included the cliches, but not the spirit of Star Wars.
That said, this book has one of the best SW covers I've seen yet. The portrayal of Callista is perfect. (Too bad Hambly didn't do as well with Callista's character.)
Did Hambly read other SW novels before writing this? No, did she see the movies? She apparently doesn't understand what the Force is or how it works (or doesn't). She included the cliches, but not the spirit of Star Wars.
That said, this book has one of the best SW covers I've seen yet. The portrayal of Callista is perfect. (Too bad Hambly didn't do as well with Callista's character.)
July 24, 2010
The great Jedi Master Luke passes out - Times Four!
Han, Luke, and Leia are on Ithor, enjoying the beautiful Time of Meeting, when an old associate of Han's appears and leaves them with a cryptic message. This message leads Han and Leia to the mysterious world of Belsavis, and Luke and his students, Cray Mingla, brilliant scientist, and her fiancee, Nichos Marr, head to the Moonflower Nebula. Both quickly uncover a plot by a former Emperor's Hand to destroy Belasavis.
NOTE: I read this book years ago and recently listened to the audiobook.
I Liked:
This time around I caught a small line that said that no one was quite sure who the Eye of Palpatine was created to attack, but it was a large enemy. Could that be the Yuuzhan Vong, whom Palpatine may have seen? Did he rise to power to prevent the galaxy from falling into their hands? No one knows, but it's interesting.
Another tiny part that recurrs is the Emperor's Hand. In the Thrawn Trilogy, Thrawn tells Mara she wasn't the only Emperor's Hand. Here, we get to see another, Roganada Ismaren.
Seeing Callista and Altis reminds me of the books by Traviss where they make cameo appearances. Kinda interesting to see how they have been tied in. I hope we get more stories of Callista from the prequel era.
Lastly, Han and Leia's investigation of Belsavis isn't that bad.
I Didn't Like:
On one hand, I didn't feel the revulsion for this book that I had felt for it when I read it as a teen (surprise, I know!) or for the Jedi Academy trilogy. On the other hand, it doesn't mean it was an amazing book.
The first thing I noticed was the pervasive flowery language. I've noticed audiobooks can cut out some of that (which I appreciate), but this book opened with a particularly flowery passage that I had to listen to more than once to get an idea what the heck was going on. There are several other parts where things are happening, and Hambly just stops to detail everything in the scene. And really, for this story, there is no need for over-describing.
I appreciated how Hambly didn't try to shoehorn everyone into the book, but none of the characters quite felt themselves. One of Han Solo's first lines is a particularly nasty line about Cray, which comes out like "you mean the blonde with legs?" Uh, excuse me? What Han is this? Not the Han Solo that is happily married to Leia. Speaking of Leia, I don't think she would be particularly impressed with Han buying her a dress that cost 30% of most planet's incomes. Leia has never been that kind of woman at all. Luke Skywalker is nasty, honestly, but I want to talk about him separately. The choice to continue the Mara and Lando subplot is hideous (at least it is easily retconned by Zahn--thank you!!). Nichos Marr feels too much like Data--a man with his own hands and head, but everything else is robotic? And they couldn't transfer his personality so he acted like a droid? What about Darth Vader? That guys was almost all robot and he still could love and think and emote. Cray was a stereotypical scientist, hot and sexy, yet brilliant and Force-sensitive too! And Callista, while good...well, let me talk about her separately too.
The concept of the Eye of Palpatine is one that has seen too much exposure in the novels of this time: the Empire creating superweapons. Number one, how did they have the money, after the TWO Death Stars, to build this? Number two, why so many superwepaons? If the Death Star was the ultimate power, why have the Sun Crusher, the Eye of Palpatine, the Galaxy Gun? And Number three, why make something as unwieldy as the Eye of Palpatine? Supposedly it is so big and secretive...only, how could something that big be so secretive? Why send your troops to random planets for this big, huge superweapon to pick up and attract attention to itself? Why make this thing so stupid it can't tell the difference between stormtroopers and Jawas, Gamorreans, and Tusken Raiders? If I were Palpatine, I would be getting my money back on this thing.
Another big beef I have with this book is the Luke Skywalker plot. He goes searching in the Moonflower Cluster, at the beckon of the Force, and basically does nothing but hobble around on the superweapon, getting into fights between two opposing Gamorrean (!) clans, and having literal cybersex with a computer. Actually, not a computer. This is Callista, who was a Jedi, but somehow learns to get into a computer (I have never met anyone who was actually able to explain how the heck this happens in Star Wars, but it must be related to how Palpatine keeps coming back as a clone). Luke meets her and two seconds later, they are in lurve, and he can't bear to part from her, and he is calling her "Baby" (BABY?!?! Not even Han says that to Leia!). What. The. Heck??? Talk about love at first sight! Their relationship is so slapshod, so hasty, so chemistry-less that I was gagging whenever I had to hear these two together.
Another part that really gets my goat is this:
Lastly, and I promise this is it, Luke Skywalker, the only Jedi Master, the man who destroyed the first Death Star, fought with the Emperor, and saved Darth Vader, passes out FOUR times in this novel. Almost every scene with him ends with him getting knocked unconscious or blacking out! It almost makes Eragon look tame (at least Eragon was an idiot and not a Jedi Master!).
Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
A few cases of d*** and h***.
Cray and Nichos are lovers. Callista and Luke have cybersex (tee hee).
Lightsaber duels, explosions, violent Gamorreans, Luke walking around all day on a broken leg.
Overall:
Probably more like a 1.5 or even (pushing it) a 2, this book has a good, solid idea and flounders in flowery writing, out of character experiences, and a horrendous love story. Fortunately, little to nothing in this book (or series) has any factor on later books, so I recommend you skip this one all together.
Han, Luke, and Leia are on Ithor, enjoying the beautiful Time of Meeting, when an old associate of Han's appears and leaves them with a cryptic message. This message leads Han and Leia to the mysterious world of Belsavis, and Luke and his students, Cray Mingla, brilliant scientist, and her fiancee, Nichos Marr, head to the Moonflower Nebula. Both quickly uncover a plot by a former Emperor's Hand to destroy Belasavis.
NOTE: I read this book years ago and recently listened to the audiobook.
I Liked:
This time around I caught a small line that said that no one was quite sure who the Eye of Palpatine was created to attack, but it was a large enemy. Could that be the Yuuzhan Vong, whom Palpatine may have seen? Did he rise to power to prevent the galaxy from falling into their hands? No one knows, but it's interesting.
Another tiny part that recurrs is the Emperor's Hand. In the Thrawn Trilogy, Thrawn tells Mara she wasn't the only Emperor's Hand. Here, we get to see another, Roganada Ismaren.
Seeing Callista and Altis reminds me of the books by Traviss where they make cameo appearances. Kinda interesting to see how they have been tied in. I hope we get more stories of Callista from the prequel era.
Lastly, Han and Leia's investigation of Belsavis isn't that bad.
I Didn't Like:
On one hand, I didn't feel the revulsion for this book that I had felt for it when I read it as a teen (surprise, I know!) or for the Jedi Academy trilogy. On the other hand, it doesn't mean it was an amazing book.
The first thing I noticed was the pervasive flowery language. I've noticed audiobooks can cut out some of that (which I appreciate), but this book opened with a particularly flowery passage that I had to listen to more than once to get an idea what the heck was going on. There are several other parts where things are happening, and Hambly just stops to detail everything in the scene. And really, for this story, there is no need for over-describing.
I appreciated how Hambly didn't try to shoehorn everyone into the book, but none of the characters quite felt themselves. One of Han Solo's first lines is a particularly nasty line about Cray, which comes out like "you mean the blonde with legs?" Uh, excuse me? What Han is this? Not the Han Solo that is happily married to Leia. Speaking of Leia, I don't think she would be particularly impressed with Han buying her a dress that cost 30% of most planet's incomes. Leia has never been that kind of woman at all. Luke Skywalker is nasty, honestly, but I want to talk about him separately. The choice to continue the Mara and Lando subplot is hideous (at least it is easily retconned by Zahn--thank you!!). Nichos Marr feels too much like Data--a man with his own hands and head, but everything else is robotic? And they couldn't transfer his personality so he acted like a droid? What about Darth Vader? That guys was almost all robot and he still could love and think and emote. Cray was a stereotypical scientist, hot and sexy, yet brilliant and Force-sensitive too! And Callista, while good...well, let me talk about her separately too.
The concept of the Eye of Palpatine is one that has seen too much exposure in the novels of this time: the Empire creating superweapons. Number one, how did they have the money, after the TWO Death Stars, to build this? Number two, why so many superwepaons? If the Death Star was the ultimate power, why have the Sun Crusher, the Eye of Palpatine, the Galaxy Gun? And Number three, why make something as unwieldy as the Eye of Palpatine? Supposedly it is so big and secretive...only, how could something that big be so secretive? Why send your troops to random planets for this big, huge superweapon to pick up and attract attention to itself? Why make this thing so stupid it can't tell the difference between stormtroopers and Jawas, Gamorreans, and Tusken Raiders? If I were Palpatine, I would be getting my money back on this thing.
Another big beef I have with this book is the Luke Skywalker plot. He goes searching in the Moonflower Cluster, at the beckon of the Force, and basically does nothing but hobble around on the superweapon, getting into fights between two opposing Gamorrean (!) clans, and having literal cybersex with a computer. Actually, not a computer. This is Callista, who was a Jedi, but somehow learns to get into a computer (I have never met anyone who was actually able to explain how the heck this happens in Star Wars, but it must be related to how Palpatine keeps coming back as a clone). Luke meets her and two seconds later, they are in lurve, and he can't bear to part from her, and he is calling her "Baby" (BABY?!?! Not even Han says that to Leia!). What. The. Heck??? Talk about love at first sight! Their relationship is so slapshod, so hasty, so chemistry-less that I was gagging whenever I had to hear these two together.
Another part that really gets my goat is this:
Lastly, and I promise this is it, Luke Skywalker, the only Jedi Master, the man who destroyed the first Death Star, fought with the Emperor, and saved Darth Vader, passes out FOUR times in this novel. Almost every scene with him ends with him getting knocked unconscious or blacking out! It almost makes Eragon look tame (at least Eragon was an idiot and not a Jedi Master!).
Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
A few cases of d*** and h***.
Cray and Nichos are lovers. Callista and Luke have cybersex (tee hee).
Lightsaber duels, explosions, violent Gamorreans, Luke walking around all day on a broken leg.
Overall:
Probably more like a 1.5 or even (pushing it) a 2, this book has a good, solid idea and flounders in flowery writing, out of character experiences, and a horrendous love story. Fortunately, little to nothing in this book (or series) has any factor on later books, so I recommend you skip this one all together.
May 23, 2010
I've read quite a few Star Wars books in my time and not all of them were great. But Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly is without question the worst Star Wars book ever written. I had to fight to get through the book and found the story to be quite lacking in every department. The romance between Luke and Callista seemed forced and was a complete turn off. Children of the Jedi is easily one of the worst books I've ever read and is a black eye on the Star Wars franchise. I don't know how this book ever saw the light of day. The only thing worse than the clumsy writing is the ridiculous ending. What a tragedy.
1/2 star.
1/2 star.
May 7, 2009
Here's the thing: I have an upchuck reflex just thinking about this book. I know that I should say, "HATEY HATE HATE SO BAD!" because that's what I'm doing without even thinking about it. I remember laughing at this and ranting about how bad it was, and I remember it being one of the few SW books I gave away.
... and unfortunately, now, eight years or so after I read this, I have no idea why. So, ah, take it with a grain of salt.
... and unfortunately, now, eight years or so after I read this, I have no idea why. So, ah, take it with a grain of salt.
January 6, 2024
I am giving this a 1.5 stars in my review. This was challenging to read. I’ve never taken so long to read a 400 page book - and I was even stuck in the house in isolation for part of this near month period.
My concerns around this book are not unlike others as this regularly receives negative feedback. The opening to this book feels like starting a tv show in the second or third season. We’re introduced to new characters who are treated like long standing characters and thrust into a situation we are wholly unfamiliar. My complaint with some Star Wars novels is that some start too slow but this one has almost the opposite problem. You jump right in with almost no explanation or exposition.
I will say, there is an interesting premise in the idea of finding the titular “children of the Jedi” as well as the idea that the Emperor had multiple hands. There are glimmers of hope for this “series” but I think this book ultimately fell flat. For every positive idea, something like Luke’s dead lover body swapping a living Jedi Knight takes its place.
I have not heard many positive things about the series as a whole but I hope now that I’ve read this that it there is at least more provided backstory.
My concerns around this book are not unlike others as this regularly receives negative feedback. The opening to this book feels like starting a tv show in the second or third season. We’re introduced to new characters who are treated like long standing characters and thrust into a situation we are wholly unfamiliar. My complaint with some Star Wars novels is that some start too slow but this one has almost the opposite problem. You jump right in with almost no explanation or exposition.
I will say, there is an interesting premise in the idea of finding the titular “children of the Jedi” as well as the idea that the Emperor had multiple hands. There are glimmers of hope for this “series” but I think this book ultimately fell flat. For every positive idea, something like Luke’s dead lover body swapping a living Jedi Knight takes its place.
I have not heard many positive things about the series as a whole but I hope now that I’ve read this that it there is at least more provided backstory.
Read
January 17, 2009Unless you are a SW completeist, avoid this book (and all others by Hambly) like the plague! Hell, even if you MUST have every SW book printed, just don't read it-put it on the shelf with your collection and never touch it again.
Barbara Hambley's books are filled chock full with fail and aids-I've even tried reading her non-SW fic, and it's like reading bad fan fiction online. I won't even deign to give this book a single star. Blech!
Barbara Hambley's books are filled chock full with fail and aids-I've even tried reading her non-SW fic, and it's like reading bad fan fiction online. I won't even deign to give this book a single star. Blech!
March 30, 2012
If you ever get your hands on a copy of this book. This is your only warning. Burn It!!!!
July 24, 2015
Of the many Star Wars Expanded Universe novels I have read, Barbara Hambly's "Children of the Jedi" ranks somewhere in the middle. I've certainly read much better books in the series, but I've also read worse. Coming off the heels of reading Dave Wolverton's horribly cheesy "The Courtship of Princess Leia", this book was superb.
Hambly is a talented writer who clearly has a knack for developing character depth. In this book, in particular, she gives the character of Princess Leia much more characterization and play within the story than other books I have read in the series. Hambly delves deeper into Leia's emotional life, especially in regards to her grief and mourning over the loss of her entire home planet, Alderaan, an aspect of her character that I have never adequately seen displayed in either the films or other novels prior to this.
Set several years after the events of "Return of the Jedi", "Children of the Jedi" sees Han and Leia married, with three children. Leia is President of the New Republic. Luke has set up the Jedi Academy on Yavin, and has been scouring the galaxy searching for young recruits. They are all on a diplomatic mission to the planet Belsavis when one of Han's old smuggler buddies shows up with a strange warning. His message is almost indecipherable, as he has clearly gone mad, but he manages to elicit a few understandable words: "children of the Jedi" being the most clear.
Apparently, long ago, several Jedi, after the Purge, brought their children to this planet to escape the Jedi Massacre that was led by Emperor Palpatine. Rumors of their settlement persist, but no one has any memory of them.
Luke, in his separate investigation in another part of the galaxy, has discovered an Imperial Dreadnaught called the Eye of Palpatine, left to rot in a forgotten corner of space. Unfortunately, no one remembered to give the abort orders to the ship's computer, which seems to have developed into a powerful Artificial Intelligence calling itself the Will, that has a telekinetic control over the remaining life forms on board the ship. It is still intent on its original mission, which is the destruction of Belsavis.
Meanwhile, Han and Leia's investigation uncovers the existence of a former spy of the Emperor's living amongst the people of Belsavis. They, unfortunately, aren't sure who the spy is. All the while, weird inexplicable mechanical "accidents" are occurring all over the planet.
Overall, this was a decent and very readable Star Wars adventure.
Hambly is a talented writer who clearly has a knack for developing character depth. In this book, in particular, she gives the character of Princess Leia much more characterization and play within the story than other books I have read in the series. Hambly delves deeper into Leia's emotional life, especially in regards to her grief and mourning over the loss of her entire home planet, Alderaan, an aspect of her character that I have never adequately seen displayed in either the films or other novels prior to this.
Set several years after the events of "Return of the Jedi", "Children of the Jedi" sees Han and Leia married, with three children. Leia is President of the New Republic. Luke has set up the Jedi Academy on Yavin, and has been scouring the galaxy searching for young recruits. They are all on a diplomatic mission to the planet Belsavis when one of Han's old smuggler buddies shows up with a strange warning. His message is almost indecipherable, as he has clearly gone mad, but he manages to elicit a few understandable words: "children of the Jedi" being the most clear.
Apparently, long ago, several Jedi, after the Purge, brought their children to this planet to escape the Jedi Massacre that was led by Emperor Palpatine. Rumors of their settlement persist, but no one has any memory of them.
Luke, in his separate investigation in another part of the galaxy, has discovered an Imperial Dreadnaught called the Eye of Palpatine, left to rot in a forgotten corner of space. Unfortunately, no one remembered to give the abort orders to the ship's computer, which seems to have developed into a powerful Artificial Intelligence calling itself the Will, that has a telekinetic control over the remaining life forms on board the ship. It is still intent on its original mission, which is the destruction of Belsavis.
Meanwhile, Han and Leia's investigation uncovers the existence of a former spy of the Emperor's living amongst the people of Belsavis. They, unfortunately, aren't sure who the spy is. All the while, weird inexplicable mechanical "accidents" are occurring all over the planet.
Overall, this was a decent and very readable Star Wars adventure.
May 21, 2011
I had a sort of mixed reaction in reading Children of the Jedi, because it didn't work for me on a literary level and it frustrated me just due to the contradictory nature of most of its entirety. The timeline is crazy wrong, which normally can be forgiven because it predates the prequel trilogy, but at the same time the author can't manage to get the continuity from the previous Jedi Academy series which precede the events of this book. She somehow manages to switch up who destroyed the Sun Crusher, and makes some pretty glaring errors with the physiology of Gamorreans. All of this sounds like crazy fanboy ranting but considering the majority of the people who read these books are hardcore fans, I can't imagine it would do anything for them either.
May 18, 2020
For 2020, I decided to reread (in publication order) all the Bantam-era Star Wars books that were released between 1991 and 1999; that shakes out to 38 adult novels and 5 anthologies of short stories & novellas.
This week’s focus: Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly.
SOME HISTORY:
Kevin J. Anderson approached Barbara Hambly at a convention about writing a story for Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, and when Bantam heard she was interested they asked her “why not a novel?” Hambly was told by her editor to make “the story of the great love of Luke’s life.” By 1995, she had published a number of fantasy novels (I have fond memories of her 1985 novel Dragonsbane), as well as three Star Trek books. Her background was definitely more heavy on the fantasy rather than the science fiction side, though, which makes her choice an interesting decision on Bantam’s part. (And additionally, might explain why the Callista books feel more fantastical and esoteric than your usual Star Wars story). Children of the Jedi made it to number six on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of April 30, 1995, and was on the NYT list for four weeks.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I actually remembered most of the book. People may decry Hambly’s purple prose, but so many elements of this book—the various aliens brainwashed into thinking they’re stormtroopers on the Eye of Palpatine, Han and Leia and Chewbacca investigating the Lovecraftian beauty of Belsavis—stuck with me. I hadn’t read it in over fifteen years, but everything was familiar for once.
PRINCESS LEIA COSTUME CHANGE COUNT:
I have to hand it to Hambly: she gave me enough outfits for Leia! From her silk tabard and gown that she wears on Ithor, to the practical clothes she sported on Belsavis, we got a number of outfit descriptions in this one. I’m not sure I agree with her description of Leia’s hair as auburn or cinnabar, though; at least in the original trilogy, Leia’s hair seemed more chocolate brown to me, and didn’t appear to have a ton of red tones.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
An old smuggler buddy of Han Solo crashes the Time of Meeting on Ithor with a message: someone is coming to kill them all. Princess Leia, Han, and Chewbacca head to Belsavis to investigate the mysterious “children of the Jedi,” while Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, and two of Luke’s students head to mysterious coordinates in the Moonflower Nebula and become trapped on the Eye of Palpatine, a 30-year-old Dreadnaught reawakened on its deadly mission to Belsavis.
THE CHARACTERS:
I thought Hambly did a nice job portraying Leia and Luke in this book. Ambush at Corellia had a weird throwaway part about how Leia’s family is important to her because she was always aware that she was just a foster daughter to the Organas, which struck me as an odd sentiment—everything we have seen up to this point implied that the Organas loved Leia and treated her like she was their own. So it was interesting to see how Hambly developed Leia’s backstory further. We learn about Bail’s three sisters, her aunts, who Leia had both fond and frustrated feelings about. We get further insight into her role as a Princess of an Ancient House. Leia also plays a pivotal role in their investigation on Belsavis: her tedious digging in the municipal archives uncovers the first hints of Irek’s powers, she immediately picks up on Roganda’s ill intentions, and she sneaks into their secret base. She’s caught, of course, but she accomplishes a lot!
Past books have struggled with how to make Luke an interesting character, since inherently good people can sometimes be...well, boring. Hambly accomplishes this, perhaps (controversially) by stripping Luke of most of his advantages. There’s no opportunity for him to pull Superman feats when he’s concussed and hobbling around with a broken leg. It makes him feel more human, and his trials feel more real and understandable—navigate the ship without being killed by Sand People or the warring Gamorrean tribes, rescue Cray and Nichos and destroy the ship without being thwarted by the Will. And yet he’s still kind, which makes Callista first reach out to him.
Han’s fine. He’s not wildly out of character, but he doesn’t have as complete an emotional arc as Leia or Luke. It was fun, though, to learn that he likes sports (he bets on smashball games with Lando!) and that he had a personal connection with some of the missing smugglers from Belsavis.
I very much appreciated that while the Solo children were present in the beginning, Hambly didn’t have them running through the whole book. Luke senses that it’s not safe for them to be on Belsavis, so Winter takes them back to Coruscant. I have nothing against the Solo kids, but I don’t really enjoy reading about toddlers and babies.
Mara Jade appears to be in a relationship with Lando, which some readers hated. But I didn’t mind, and it makes sense coming off of Champions of the Force that they might have gotten involved. I also like the moment when she realizes that Roganda Ismaren was another Hand; Thrawn raised the possibility of more Hands in Dark Force Rising, but Mara was not willing to even entertain the notion. Here, she’s absolutely, coldly furious at the revelation, and that frigid anger drives her actions at the end of the book. I’m a little confused about how her past visit to Belsavis fits into the timeline of her service to the Emperor—she says that she visited Plawal around the time of the Battle of Hoth, and seems to know many of the past smugglers by name. But she didn’t join Karrde’s service until one year before Heir to the Empire, so I’m not sure how that worked out (other than Hambly assumed that she was working for smugglers much sooner than she actually was).
I loved Callista at first. She’s an Old Republic Jedi, with a different training history than Luke. In a way, she’s the platonic ideal of a Jedi: trained by her Master on Bespin, then sent forth into the galaxy to do good. She’s smart, she has a good sense of humor, and she develops a great rapport with Luke. But I have major issues with her ending…
HAMBLY’S SETTINGS:
This is a contentious opinion, but I think Hambly excels at creating unique settings. Belsavis is like a Lovecraftian version of Iceland: we have the kretch, but we also have beautiful blossoms. The valleys are lush, there are hot springs, but there’s also creepy crypts haunted by maddened smugglers. Outside of the valleys, the snow and ice could kill you of frostbite. Her lush descriptions work in her favor here.
Likewise, the Eye of Palpatine is completely disorienting. Between the friendly and unfriendly aliens and the malicious Will (reminiscent of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey), Luke is stuck in an environment that is actively trying to kill him. But unlike Belsavis, this is a very modern, technological kind of danger—Imperial gray versus Plawal’s brighter colors. It’s hard to remember where Luke is, and where he’s going; but that confusion is shared by Luke, who is actively thwarted in his attempts to maneuver and get his bearings.
ISSUES:
We’re introduced to Luke’s students Cray Mingla and Nichos Marr in media res. It seems natural to me that our main characters would know people who are completely foreign to the reader. But as the reader, it’s a confounding experience. We jump right into the last bit of Cray and Nichos’s story, so everything that came before (Cray was a researcher at the Magrody Institute, Nichos was dying of a degenerative disease, Cray used Ssi-Ruuvi technology to upload his consciousness and memories into a droid body) has to be info-dumped on us. Hambly explores some intriguing ideas with Nichos: he has the same memories as the human Nichos, he has the same face, but as his core he’s just a droid, and he can’t overcome his programming.
But the conclusion she reaches is troubling. Cray realizes that the human Nichos is gone, and the droid Nichos is just his memories and nothing more. Nichos’s soul never made the transfer. And without the human Nichos, Cray decides that she would rather die and give her body over to Callista.
WHAT?!
In the end, Cray feels less like a developed character and more like a plot device for Callista’s reincarnation. She can’t live without her lover, so she essentially commits suicide. Callista, a character who seemed to have accepted her fate and DID NOT want Luke to try to get her off the ship in computer form, is apparently perfectly taking over the body of his former student. And Luke and co. have no problem with this either??
While I like the Eye of Palpatine as a setting, I am less impressed by its role as the superweapon of the week. A dreadnaught disguised as an asteroid, that has the power to raze a whole planet. It’s no Death Star, but OK.
Roganda is interesting, because she offers a glimpse into Imperial Court politics. Her son Irek is much less so. He’s basically Darth Vader 2.0, with a brain implant that lets him manipulate droids and other electronics. It’s hard to make a fifteen year old frightening, though, so he mostly comes across as a petulant child.
IN CONCLUSION:
There were aspects of Children of the Jedi that I absolutely loved, and parts that horrified me. Your mileage may vary whether this book works for you. Do you like purple, ornate prose with complicated passages that you might have to reread? Or do you prefer a more straightforward prose style like in the Thrawn trilogy? If it’s the latter, you probably won’t like this book—in fact, you might not even finish it. But if it’s the former, go ahead! Hambly creates such a strong sense of place that even taking into account the nightmare fuel of Cray & Nichos’s plotline and Callista’s ending, I’m still really glad I reread this one.
Next up: the second book in the Corellian trilogy, Assault at Selonia by Roger MacBride Allen.
My YouTube review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4ePY...
--Interview with Barbara Hambly about the Callista books: http://jedicallie.tripod.com/bhinterv...
--A great fanfic by deaka about Callista, afterwards: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7052260/...
This week’s focus: Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly.
SOME HISTORY:
Kevin J. Anderson approached Barbara Hambly at a convention about writing a story for Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, and when Bantam heard she was interested they asked her “why not a novel?” Hambly was told by her editor to make “the story of the great love of Luke’s life.” By 1995, she had published a number of fantasy novels (I have fond memories of her 1985 novel Dragonsbane), as well as three Star Trek books. Her background was definitely more heavy on the fantasy rather than the science fiction side, though, which makes her choice an interesting decision on Bantam’s part. (And additionally, might explain why the Callista books feel more fantastical and esoteric than your usual Star Wars story). Children of the Jedi made it to number six on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of April 30, 1995, and was on the NYT list for four weeks.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I actually remembered most of the book. People may decry Hambly’s purple prose, but so many elements of this book—the various aliens brainwashed into thinking they’re stormtroopers on the Eye of Palpatine, Han and Leia and Chewbacca investigating the Lovecraftian beauty of Belsavis—stuck with me. I hadn’t read it in over fifteen years, but everything was familiar for once.
PRINCESS LEIA COSTUME CHANGE COUNT:
I have to hand it to Hambly: she gave me enough outfits for Leia! From her silk tabard and gown that she wears on Ithor, to the practical clothes she sported on Belsavis, we got a number of outfit descriptions in this one. I’m not sure I agree with her description of Leia’s hair as auburn or cinnabar, though; at least in the original trilogy, Leia’s hair seemed more chocolate brown to me, and didn’t appear to have a ton of red tones.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
An old smuggler buddy of Han Solo crashes the Time of Meeting on Ithor with a message: someone is coming to kill them all. Princess Leia, Han, and Chewbacca head to Belsavis to investigate the mysterious “children of the Jedi,” while Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, and two of Luke’s students head to mysterious coordinates in the Moonflower Nebula and become trapped on the Eye of Palpatine, a 30-year-old Dreadnaught reawakened on its deadly mission to Belsavis.
THE CHARACTERS:
I thought Hambly did a nice job portraying Leia and Luke in this book. Ambush at Corellia had a weird throwaway part about how Leia’s family is important to her because she was always aware that she was just a foster daughter to the Organas, which struck me as an odd sentiment—everything we have seen up to this point implied that the Organas loved Leia and treated her like she was their own. So it was interesting to see how Hambly developed Leia’s backstory further. We learn about Bail’s three sisters, her aunts, who Leia had both fond and frustrated feelings about. We get further insight into her role as a Princess of an Ancient House. Leia also plays a pivotal role in their investigation on Belsavis: her tedious digging in the municipal archives uncovers the first hints of Irek’s powers, she immediately picks up on Roganda’s ill intentions, and she sneaks into their secret base. She’s caught, of course, but she accomplishes a lot!
Past books have struggled with how to make Luke an interesting character, since inherently good people can sometimes be...well, boring. Hambly accomplishes this, perhaps (controversially) by stripping Luke of most of his advantages. There’s no opportunity for him to pull Superman feats when he’s concussed and hobbling around with a broken leg. It makes him feel more human, and his trials feel more real and understandable—navigate the ship without being killed by Sand People or the warring Gamorrean tribes, rescue Cray and Nichos and destroy the ship without being thwarted by the Will. And yet he’s still kind, which makes Callista first reach out to him.
Han’s fine. He’s not wildly out of character, but he doesn’t have as complete an emotional arc as Leia or Luke. It was fun, though, to learn that he likes sports (he bets on smashball games with Lando!) and that he had a personal connection with some of the missing smugglers from Belsavis.
I very much appreciated that while the Solo children were present in the beginning, Hambly didn’t have them running through the whole book. Luke senses that it’s not safe for them to be on Belsavis, so Winter takes them back to Coruscant. I have nothing against the Solo kids, but I don’t really enjoy reading about toddlers and babies.
Mara Jade appears to be in a relationship with Lando, which some readers hated. But I didn’t mind, and it makes sense coming off of Champions of the Force that they might have gotten involved. I also like the moment when she realizes that Roganda Ismaren was another Hand; Thrawn raised the possibility of more Hands in Dark Force Rising, but Mara was not willing to even entertain the notion. Here, she’s absolutely, coldly furious at the revelation, and that frigid anger drives her actions at the end of the book. I’m a little confused about how her past visit to Belsavis fits into the timeline of her service to the Emperor—she says that she visited Plawal around the time of the Battle of Hoth, and seems to know many of the past smugglers by name. But she didn’t join Karrde’s service until one year before Heir to the Empire, so I’m not sure how that worked out (other than Hambly assumed that she was working for smugglers much sooner than she actually was).
I loved Callista at first. She’s an Old Republic Jedi, with a different training history than Luke. In a way, she’s the platonic ideal of a Jedi: trained by her Master on Bespin, then sent forth into the galaxy to do good. She’s smart, she has a good sense of humor, and she develops a great rapport with Luke. But I have major issues with her ending…
HAMBLY’S SETTINGS:
This is a contentious opinion, but I think Hambly excels at creating unique settings. Belsavis is like a Lovecraftian version of Iceland: we have the kretch, but we also have beautiful blossoms. The valleys are lush, there are hot springs, but there’s also creepy crypts haunted by maddened smugglers. Outside of the valleys, the snow and ice could kill you of frostbite. Her lush descriptions work in her favor here.
Likewise, the Eye of Palpatine is completely disorienting. Between the friendly and unfriendly aliens and the malicious Will (reminiscent of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey), Luke is stuck in an environment that is actively trying to kill him. But unlike Belsavis, this is a very modern, technological kind of danger—Imperial gray versus Plawal’s brighter colors. It’s hard to remember where Luke is, and where he’s going; but that confusion is shared by Luke, who is actively thwarted in his attempts to maneuver and get his bearings.
ISSUES:
We’re introduced to Luke’s students Cray Mingla and Nichos Marr in media res. It seems natural to me that our main characters would know people who are completely foreign to the reader. But as the reader, it’s a confounding experience. We jump right into the last bit of Cray and Nichos’s story, so everything that came before (Cray was a researcher at the Magrody Institute, Nichos was dying of a degenerative disease, Cray used Ssi-Ruuvi technology to upload his consciousness and memories into a droid body) has to be info-dumped on us. Hambly explores some intriguing ideas with Nichos: he has the same memories as the human Nichos, he has the same face, but as his core he’s just a droid, and he can’t overcome his programming.
But the conclusion she reaches is troubling. Cray realizes that the human Nichos is gone, and the droid Nichos is just his memories and nothing more. Nichos’s soul never made the transfer. And without the human Nichos, Cray decides that she would rather die and give her body over to Callista.
WHAT?!
In the end, Cray feels less like a developed character and more like a plot device for Callista’s reincarnation. She can’t live without her lover, so she essentially commits suicide. Callista, a character who seemed to have accepted her fate and DID NOT want Luke to try to get her off the ship in computer form, is apparently perfectly taking over the body of his former student. And Luke and co. have no problem with this either??
While I like the Eye of Palpatine as a setting, I am less impressed by its role as the superweapon of the week. A dreadnaught disguised as an asteroid, that has the power to raze a whole planet. It’s no Death Star, but OK.
Roganda is interesting, because she offers a glimpse into Imperial Court politics. Her son Irek is much less so. He’s basically Darth Vader 2.0, with a brain implant that lets him manipulate droids and other electronics. It’s hard to make a fifteen year old frightening, though, so he mostly comes across as a petulant child.
IN CONCLUSION:
There were aspects of Children of the Jedi that I absolutely loved, and parts that horrified me. Your mileage may vary whether this book works for you. Do you like purple, ornate prose with complicated passages that you might have to reread? Or do you prefer a more straightforward prose style like in the Thrawn trilogy? If it’s the latter, you probably won’t like this book—in fact, you might not even finish it. But if it’s the former, go ahead! Hambly creates such a strong sense of place that even taking into account the nightmare fuel of Cray & Nichos’s plotline and Callista’s ending, I’m still really glad I reread this one.
Next up: the second book in the Corellian trilogy, Assault at Selonia by Roger MacBride Allen.
My YouTube review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4ePY...
--Interview with Barbara Hambly about the Callista books: http://jedicallie.tripod.com/bhinterv...
--A great fanfic by deaka about Callista, afterwards: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7052260/...
June 26, 2024
I've been going back and reading a lot of the 90's Star Wars books. "Children of the Jedi" was one that I'd missed and had always meant to go back to it. OOOOO boy was this one a stinker. The writing was so flowery and overblown that there were literally times that I couldn't make heads or tails of what was actually happening. Unfortunately, I was too bored to find out. Even when I went online to find a summary, it made little sense.
Cool stuff:
- Luke bones a sexy ghost!
- Talking Gamorreans!
Lame stuff:
- Luke is comically weak the entire book (except when bonezoning the ghost. He's ready and raring for that.)
- Han and Leia's search for the eponymous children is unsatisfying and left open.
- The writing.
I know I'm crapping on this book but I do plan on reading the rest of the trilogy because that's just the type of nerd I am.
Cool stuff:
- Luke bones a sexy ghost!
- Talking Gamorreans!
Lame stuff:
- Luke is comically weak the entire book (except when bonezoning the ghost. He's ready and raring for that.)
- Han and Leia's search for the eponymous children is unsatisfying and left open.
- The writing.
I know I'm crapping on this book but I do plan on reading the rest of the trilogy because that's just the type of nerd I am.
June 26, 2024
Worst Legends book I’ve read. On P. 354 a character says “here’s looking at you, kids” to a group of Tusken Raiders for no apparent reason. Luke falls in love with a Jedi who’s been dead for thirty years and has some weird sex dream about her (note that Mara exists and is in fact in this book working with Han and co.). The Jedi essentially comes back to life at the end. Very weird.
Aside from all of that, the writing was so hard to follow for some reason. There were times when I had no idea what was going on or even who was speaking, with no excuse for why there should be that ambiguity. If it wasn’t such a (relatively) long book, it would be easy to just laugh at it and move on, but I’m annoyed at how many hours I put into such a poorly written book.
Aside from all of that, the writing was so hard to follow for some reason. There were times when I had no idea what was going on or even who was speaking, with no excuse for why there should be that ambiguity. If it wasn’t such a (relatively) long book, it would be easy to just laugh at it and move on, but I’m annoyed at how many hours I put into such a poorly written book.
January 2, 2018
Slow to develop but it comes to a nice end regardless.
April 4, 2018
Children Of The Jedi picks up a little after the previous book with Luke encountering The Eye of Palpatine and getting to hang out with Callista a Jedi who has literally attached herself to the gunnery controls of the ship! :D This produces a clever dynamic throughout as Luke (who spends most of the book wounded and keeping an eye out for a Bacta tank! :D ) struggles to find away to save her but at the same time to blow the ship to kingdom come! :D The situation is compounded as the ship has been collecting multiple species and taking control of them through an AI known as the will! :D There are laugh out scenes aplenty as Luke has to keep force convincing them that he is actually a Empire agent and this forms a running gag throughout the book! :D
At the same time Han and Leia are on Belasavis having to deal with some rogue elements and left overs from the Emperors cool club who are still trying to use the Palpatine! :D The book provides great character insights for example Han extolling on Belasavis to Leia of his great dish washing experience! :D At the same time the book is brutal in they critical way that Luke looks at himself as while he is doing the daring do actually having another Jedi around from before his time allows himself to put events and the work he is doing in a new context! :D This gives the novel a feel that contrast brilliantly with the action that take place on the ship and on Belasavis! :D
Children of the Jedi neatly ties up everything with the Eye of Palpatine arriving at Belasavis with neat twists as inevitably the Dark Side turns on itself! :D The end of the book has some neat twisting though promises plots twists everywhere in the later books! :D
Children of the Jedi is inventive, building on the character development in spades and at the same time keeping you guessing all the way through! :D It is clever, insightful, action packed and full of adventure crisp high five! :D
At the same time Han and Leia are on Belasavis having to deal with some rogue elements and left overs from the Emperors cool club who are still trying to use the Palpatine! :D The book provides great character insights for example Han extolling on Belasavis to Leia of his great dish washing experience! :D At the same time the book is brutal in they critical way that Luke looks at himself as while he is doing the daring do actually having another Jedi around from before his time allows himself to put events and the work he is doing in a new context! :D This gives the novel a feel that contrast brilliantly with the action that take place on the ship and on Belasavis! :D
Children of the Jedi neatly ties up everything with the Eye of Palpatine arriving at Belasavis with neat twists as inevitably the Dark Side turns on itself! :D The end of the book has some neat twisting though promises plots twists everywhere in the later books! :D
Children of the Jedi is inventive, building on the character development in spades and at the same time keeping you guessing all the way through! :D It is clever, insightful, action packed and full of adventure crisp high five! :D
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 2, 2017
Children of the Jedi is a novel I'd really like to say is not an essential read for anyone looking to get into Star Wars books. In fact, the novel is severely lacking the excitement that is Star Wars.
I once received this book years back as a gift and after reading it through I was blown away of how bizarre, out of place and drab this story was.
It's practically a trippy fever dream through half of it, as our main cast of characters, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker are separated for their individual quests and encounter strange things.
I'm not joking about the fever dream aspect either, because Luke for the most part gets into circumstances that cause him to mostly pass out and reawake as he's aboard this mysterious ship that for some reason has a manner of creatures aboard it and oh, encounters the spirit of a long dead Jedi woman trapped within the computer systems.
Lolwut
Also Leia goes into her own Force-induced acid trips at least twice in this story and we get glimpses of her own big fears.
I can't begin to count the times 'wtf' would echo in my mind while trying to make sense of this story
This novel in short is one you can skip over if you're collecting old Expanded Universe books.
The semi follow-up book: Darksaber by Kevin J Anderson, is decent enough and to be completely honest you can go into that without running into complications or worrying about continuity with Children of the Jedi because in itself didn't follow continuity that much.
Or get this book for giggles if you'd like! Try finding a cheap used copy somewhere so you don't waste too much money.
I once received this book years back as a gift and after reading it through I was blown away of how bizarre, out of place and drab this story was.
It's practically a trippy fever dream through half of it, as our main cast of characters, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker are separated for their individual quests and encounter strange things.
I'm not joking about the fever dream aspect either, because Luke for the most part gets into circumstances that cause him to mostly pass out and reawake as he's aboard this mysterious ship that for some reason has a manner of creatures aboard it and oh, encounters the spirit of a long dead Jedi woman trapped within the computer systems.
Lolwut
Also Leia goes into her own Force-induced acid trips at least twice in this story and we get glimpses of her own big fears.
I can't begin to count the times 'wtf' would echo in my mind while trying to make sense of this story
This novel in short is one you can skip over if you're collecting old Expanded Universe books.
The semi follow-up book: Darksaber by Kevin J Anderson, is decent enough and to be completely honest you can go into that without running into complications or worrying about continuity with Children of the Jedi because in itself didn't follow continuity that much.
Or get this book for giggles if you'd like! Try finding a cheap used copy somewhere so you don't waste too much money.
March 23, 2023
Well, this will probably be a short review. I really don’t have a lot to say about this one.
As for positives, the setup for this book was pretty good. I found the first 50-100 pages quite interesting and the plot things that are hinted at are things I was excited to learn about. I also think Callista was an interesting way to approach a character, though I have next to no feelings about her as a character herself.
The big issue for me here is that I was SO confused by this book. There were a number of scenes side-by-side with Luke, for example, that seemed to be taking place at either different times or in visions or something like that. I couldn’t keep track of what was actually going on due to this. Maybe I missed something, but I really couldn’t keep up with what was happening and as a result I could hardly follow the plot.
Overall I did enjoy some scenes here and there along with some of the ideas, but the way the book was written and structured really did not work for me. There’s nothing truly great or terrible about this one, but it’s probably one I’ll have forgotten about within one or two weeks’ time.
Rating: 5/10
As for positives, the setup for this book was pretty good. I found the first 50-100 pages quite interesting and the plot things that are hinted at are things I was excited to learn about. I also think Callista was an interesting way to approach a character, though I have next to no feelings about her as a character herself.
The big issue for me here is that I was SO confused by this book. There were a number of scenes side-by-side with Luke, for example, that seemed to be taking place at either different times or in visions or something like that. I couldn’t keep track of what was actually going on due to this. Maybe I missed something, but I really couldn’t keep up with what was happening and as a result I could hardly follow the plot.
Overall I did enjoy some scenes here and there along with some of the ideas, but the way the book was written and structured really did not work for me. There’s nothing truly great or terrible about this one, but it’s probably one I’ll have forgotten about within one or two weeks’ time.
Rating: 5/10
October 25, 2007
this book confused the hell outta me, i have good reading comprehension skills, but i had no clue what was going on in this book
January 12, 2017
C-390 was good. Learned interesting stuff about stormtrooper indoctrination. General plot and also the romance was passe at best.
March 26, 2013
What a weird, weird book... After almost a decade, I thought it would be fun to check out some of the Star Wars novels that I had not checked out before. I had indeed heard plenty of the negative fan reactions surrounding this and some of the other novels that had been released as part of the early bloom of EU volumes in the 1990s (especially Vonda McIntyre's Crystal Star, which will have to wait for another day), but I figured it might still be worth a read. Maybe I was just drawn in by the colorful cover art and was just in the mood for some good old sci-fi schlock. SPOILER WARNING...
To that latter schlocky end, the book certainly delivered. All other things aside, Barbara Hambly has a real talent for creating and cultivating atmospheres, almost to the point where the settings are more interesting and engrossing than the plot elements that lay within. I really enjoyed the vivid descriptions of the Ithorian planet and the glacial/volcanic-rift planet Belsavis. As well, the sections that took place in the Imperial dreadnaught 'Eye of Palpatine' always seemed to project a bleak, grey, and ominously darkening mood that seemed fitting for an abandoned pseudo-Death-Star that had been left out in space for 30 years and reactivated out of nowhere. However, at times, the level of description made it a little hard to follow Hambly's narrative, especially for the scenes in the Eye of Palpatine. More than once, I completely forgot what characters were on what decks and what elevator shaft Luke and C-3PO were attempting to traverse for whatever reason, but this is a minor complaint.
Despite all these great locations, the book suffers massively from the author's awkward efforts to constantly remind or reassure her readers that 'look, see! This is a STAR WARS story...look at this STAR WARS thing I put here!!' As such, the reader is assaulted with a barrage of awkward back-references and out-of-place metaphors that somehow suggest that the whole universe of Star Wars is basically a macrocosm of the contents of the three original movies. In addition to the heaps of stilted dialogue and shoehorned descriptions that this behavior introduces, the author steps it up even worse by having the 'Eye of Palpatine' mistakenly impress a whole bunch of recognizable Star Wars creatures (Jawas, sand people, Gamorreans) into a dysfunctional ragtag starship crew. While I understood that this was an unintended consequence, it felt really forced and amateur, like something you would expect in a lousy fan-fiction story.
On to the plot... Unlike most reviews I've read, I didn't really mind the fact that Luke pretty much spent the whole novel getting beat up and hobbled by the wacky group of brainwashed space aliens who ended up on-board the ship with him. I prefer Luke being as vulnerable as any other human rather than a video-game superhero like the Jedi from the Phantom Menace. Instead of just cutting his way through everyone with crazy lightsaber skills and doing backflips, Luke has to devise unusual MacGyver tricks and ruses to maneuver his way from point A to point B, all the while using a crutch, expending most of his Force powers to prevent himself from getting gangrene, and depending on C-3PO's help. I liked how Hambly used this to put him back in touch with his humble origins as a rustic moisture-farmer and mechanic. What I didn't like about Hambly's characterization was his bizarre and self-centered way of dealing with his Jedi students Cray and half-man/half-android Nichos and the ghost-in-the-machine Jedi love interest, Callista. In the beginning of the book, we get the idea that Luke went to the Ithorian gathering specifically so that Cray could work with Ithorian doctors to help Nichos with his degenerative condition. However, Nichos causes Luke to have a vague premonition and everybody drops everything to whisk away towards some mystery nebula that was discovered via a 'random number generation' of coordinates produced after Luke and Nichos use some force meditation technique. But wait, what about poor Nichos? Later, when they're all aboard the ship, Luke almost gets killed saving Cray from an execution device but later on, doesn't seem all that concerned that Cray let herself die to save his life. Instead, he's selfish and shows more excitement that Callista is now using Cray's body as a vessel. Apparently, we readers are supposed to agree that it's all good that Cray basically gave up her life because she couldn't have POSSIBLY been happy after Nichos became a total android and got fried in the reactor shaft. As regards Callista, the whole love relationship between her and Luke seemed to move way too fast. I suppose one could say the same thing about Han and Leia's relationship in 'Empire', but Luke and Callista weren't even acquaintances before this story. As for Callista herself, Hambly did a really good job on her back story. I liked the hints we get about her upbringing on a Waterworld-esque planet where sea cows need to be protected by monstrous creatures. It drew a nice parallel to Luke's Tatooine upbringing. Again, where things fall to pieces is with Hambly's dumb, forced love story. I liked that Timothy Zahn largely left romance alone when he introduced Mara Jade in his original trilogy (I haven't yet read his later books but I know they do eventually fall in love and yada-yada...) and I wish Hambly did something similar with this story. I would have rather seen Callista and Luke simply become good friends through their shared struggles on-board the ship of terror. Furthermore, I think it would have offered a better overall pathos if Cray's sacrifice and Callista's surprise corporeal appearance at the end weren't underwritten by a previously-established undying love between Luke and Callista. I'd have no problem with them falling in love in a more gradual way over the novels that follow this one. As it stands, it just seems like a dopey and rushed hero-gets-the-girl-and-they-live-happily-ever-after Disney ending in which two decent side characters have been completely reduced to cannon-fodder...or in Cray's case, bodily possession fodder.
Hambly did a much better job with Leia, Han, and Chewbacca's trip to Belsavis, an investigation of a rumor that ends up being somewhat akin to Indiana Jones' trip to Pankot Palace in the Temple of Doom. I liked the sheer level of mischief and intrigue that was going on below the surface of this planet, even if I came away from reading the novel scratching my head a little. The intricate network of caves and tunnels that laid below Plett's Well housed a wonderful menagerie of bad things, including flesh-eating insects, man-eating floor monsters, creepy tentacles, and a band of drug-addled smugglers gone crazy in the dark. On top of all this, Hambly puts together a wonderful intrigue involving a former Emperor's Hand, her cruel and vicious dark Jedi son who can use the Force to manipulate electronic devices, a scientist who was involved with the construction of the Death Star, and a bunch of galactic 'old nobility' patricians and Ayn-Randian corporate magnates who are willing to rally behind these three simply as a means of resisting the left-liberal motivations of the Rebellion/New Republic. I liked the back-story of the two main villains and their insane scheme, especially the part that's told through a series of diary pages left by a scientist they captured to give the son his robot-controlling ability. Hambly does a good job of underscoring an idea that Palpatine's various plans and intrigues were often little more than the crazy, over-the-top acts of a power-drunk psychopath who loved doing evil things. Why NOT have TWO Emperor's Hands instead of one? Why NOT build a moon-sized superweapon to bombard a specific planet? I'm not sure if this was intentional, but it's well in line with the characterization he's given in 'Return of the Jedi' and the prequels.
I liked the sections in which our hero characters slowly stuck their noses into this evil mishmosh, especially the part that followed Leia up onto the tundra and into the maze-like tunnel network. One minor complaint that should be raised is the fact that Hambly completely writes out Han and Leia's three children. She basically sends them off with a caretaker in the beginning of the book and we barely hear about them ever again. Furthermore, while I did thoroughly enjoy Leia's pursuit of the villains into the tunnels, the whole thing felt like a remarkably reckless thing for a mother-of-three to dive into. Hambly explains this by describing how Leia still carried all sorts of baggage and vengeful feelings about the destruction of Alderaan and the people who built the Emperor's superweapons, etc..., but the near-absence of the children in her thoughts and motivations was a little distracting. Even so, the parts of the story that followed Leia were probably the best parts of the book. I liked the few times when she clumsily wrangled minor Force powers in the way a mostly untrained Force-user might.
Han and Chewbacca also have some interesting adventures. I especially enjoyed the section where they find their way into the tunnels and all hell breaks lose with the aforementioned menagerie. There's also a lot of good banter between them that does a decent job of capturing the rollicking, trash-talking spirit of their friendship that we see in the movies.
Other minor characters get saddled with borderline-useless roles. Mara Jade makes a few holo-calls to the heroes and can never seem to get through a conversation before Hambly reminds us that she's having a fling with Lando Calrissian. I haven't read the Jedi Academy books, so for me there's obviously some background missing from between the end of Zahn's Last Command and the events of this novel. Jade's and Admiral Ackbar's only purposes seem to be providing the main characters with information about larger galactic intrigues, and to that flimsy end the characters do their jobs. Still, it would have been nice if Mara Jade had actually told them she was coming instead of throwing a selfish hissy fit about the other Emperor's Hand and hanging up the holo-phone on poor Han Solo.
Overall, this book is definitely somewhat of a goofy, stinking mess, but it wasn't the out-and-out train wreck that I expected going in. Luke and Callista's story is definitely the worst thing Hambly brings to the table, but it's somewhat balanced by the exciting and madcap adventuring with the other characters on Belsavis. At this point, I guess I should go back and read Kevin Anderson's Jedi Academy books, as I've heard that the sequel he wrote to this novel draws a bit off of that trilogy. Hambly already spoiled the ending to that trilogy about five times, but I'm sure it's still worth a look. After that, I'll venture forward into the other two volumes that make up Hambly's and Anderson's trilogy.
To that latter schlocky end, the book certainly delivered. All other things aside, Barbara Hambly has a real talent for creating and cultivating atmospheres, almost to the point where the settings are more interesting and engrossing than the plot elements that lay within. I really enjoyed the vivid descriptions of the Ithorian planet and the glacial/volcanic-rift planet Belsavis. As well, the sections that took place in the Imperial dreadnaught 'Eye of Palpatine' always seemed to project a bleak, grey, and ominously darkening mood that seemed fitting for an abandoned pseudo-Death-Star that had been left out in space for 30 years and reactivated out of nowhere. However, at times, the level of description made it a little hard to follow Hambly's narrative, especially for the scenes in the Eye of Palpatine. More than once, I completely forgot what characters were on what decks and what elevator shaft Luke and C-3PO were attempting to traverse for whatever reason, but this is a minor complaint.
Despite all these great locations, the book suffers massively from the author's awkward efforts to constantly remind or reassure her readers that 'look, see! This is a STAR WARS story...look at this STAR WARS thing I put here!!' As such, the reader is assaulted with a barrage of awkward back-references and out-of-place metaphors that somehow suggest that the whole universe of Star Wars is basically a macrocosm of the contents of the three original movies. In addition to the heaps of stilted dialogue and shoehorned descriptions that this behavior introduces, the author steps it up even worse by having the 'Eye of Palpatine' mistakenly impress a whole bunch of recognizable Star Wars creatures (Jawas, sand people, Gamorreans) into a dysfunctional ragtag starship crew. While I understood that this was an unintended consequence, it felt really forced and amateur, like something you would expect in a lousy fan-fiction story.
On to the plot... Unlike most reviews I've read, I didn't really mind the fact that Luke pretty much spent the whole novel getting beat up and hobbled by the wacky group of brainwashed space aliens who ended up on-board the ship with him. I prefer Luke being as vulnerable as any other human rather than a video-game superhero like the Jedi from the Phantom Menace. Instead of just cutting his way through everyone with crazy lightsaber skills and doing backflips, Luke has to devise unusual MacGyver tricks and ruses to maneuver his way from point A to point B, all the while using a crutch, expending most of his Force powers to prevent himself from getting gangrene, and depending on C-3PO's help. I liked how Hambly used this to put him back in touch with his humble origins as a rustic moisture-farmer and mechanic. What I didn't like about Hambly's characterization was his bizarre and self-centered way of dealing with his Jedi students Cray and half-man/half-android Nichos and the ghost-in-the-machine Jedi love interest, Callista. In the beginning of the book, we get the idea that Luke went to the Ithorian gathering specifically so that Cray could work with Ithorian doctors to help Nichos with his degenerative condition. However, Nichos causes Luke to have a vague premonition and everybody drops everything to whisk away towards some mystery nebula that was discovered via a 'random number generation' of coordinates produced after Luke and Nichos use some force meditation technique. But wait, what about poor Nichos? Later, when they're all aboard the ship, Luke almost gets killed saving Cray from an execution device but later on, doesn't seem all that concerned that Cray let herself die to save his life. Instead, he's selfish and shows more excitement that Callista is now using Cray's body as a vessel. Apparently, we readers are supposed to agree that it's all good that Cray basically gave up her life because she couldn't have POSSIBLY been happy after Nichos became a total android and got fried in the reactor shaft. As regards Callista, the whole love relationship between her and Luke seemed to move way too fast. I suppose one could say the same thing about Han and Leia's relationship in 'Empire', but Luke and Callista weren't even acquaintances before this story. As for Callista herself, Hambly did a really good job on her back story. I liked the hints we get about her upbringing on a Waterworld-esque planet where sea cows need to be protected by monstrous creatures. It drew a nice parallel to Luke's Tatooine upbringing. Again, where things fall to pieces is with Hambly's dumb, forced love story. I liked that Timothy Zahn largely left romance alone when he introduced Mara Jade in his original trilogy (I haven't yet read his later books but I know they do eventually fall in love and yada-yada...) and I wish Hambly did something similar with this story. I would have rather seen Callista and Luke simply become good friends through their shared struggles on-board the ship of terror. Furthermore, I think it would have offered a better overall pathos if Cray's sacrifice and Callista's surprise corporeal appearance at the end weren't underwritten by a previously-established undying love between Luke and Callista. I'd have no problem with them falling in love in a more gradual way over the novels that follow this one. As it stands, it just seems like a dopey and rushed hero-gets-the-girl-and-they-live-happily-ever-after Disney ending in which two decent side characters have been completely reduced to cannon-fodder...or in Cray's case, bodily possession fodder.
Hambly did a much better job with Leia, Han, and Chewbacca's trip to Belsavis, an investigation of a rumor that ends up being somewhat akin to Indiana Jones' trip to Pankot Palace in the Temple of Doom. I liked the sheer level of mischief and intrigue that was going on below the surface of this planet, even if I came away from reading the novel scratching my head a little. The intricate network of caves and tunnels that laid below Plett's Well housed a wonderful menagerie of bad things, including flesh-eating insects, man-eating floor monsters, creepy tentacles, and a band of drug-addled smugglers gone crazy in the dark. On top of all this, Hambly puts together a wonderful intrigue involving a former Emperor's Hand, her cruel and vicious dark Jedi son who can use the Force to manipulate electronic devices, a scientist who was involved with the construction of the Death Star, and a bunch of galactic 'old nobility' patricians and Ayn-Randian corporate magnates who are willing to rally behind these three simply as a means of resisting the left-liberal motivations of the Rebellion/New Republic. I liked the back-story of the two main villains and their insane scheme, especially the part that's told through a series of diary pages left by a scientist they captured to give the son his robot-controlling ability. Hambly does a good job of underscoring an idea that Palpatine's various plans and intrigues were often little more than the crazy, over-the-top acts of a power-drunk psychopath who loved doing evil things. Why NOT have TWO Emperor's Hands instead of one? Why NOT build a moon-sized superweapon to bombard a specific planet? I'm not sure if this was intentional, but it's well in line with the characterization he's given in 'Return of the Jedi' and the prequels.
I liked the sections in which our hero characters slowly stuck their noses into this evil mishmosh, especially the part that followed Leia up onto the tundra and into the maze-like tunnel network. One minor complaint that should be raised is the fact that Hambly completely writes out Han and Leia's three children. She basically sends them off with a caretaker in the beginning of the book and we barely hear about them ever again. Furthermore, while I did thoroughly enjoy Leia's pursuit of the villains into the tunnels, the whole thing felt like a remarkably reckless thing for a mother-of-three to dive into. Hambly explains this by describing how Leia still carried all sorts of baggage and vengeful feelings about the destruction of Alderaan and the people who built the Emperor's superweapons, etc..., but the near-absence of the children in her thoughts and motivations was a little distracting. Even so, the parts of the story that followed Leia were probably the best parts of the book. I liked the few times when she clumsily wrangled minor Force powers in the way a mostly untrained Force-user might.
Han and Chewbacca also have some interesting adventures. I especially enjoyed the section where they find their way into the tunnels and all hell breaks lose with the aforementioned menagerie. There's also a lot of good banter between them that does a decent job of capturing the rollicking, trash-talking spirit of their friendship that we see in the movies.
Other minor characters get saddled with borderline-useless roles. Mara Jade makes a few holo-calls to the heroes and can never seem to get through a conversation before Hambly reminds us that she's having a fling with Lando Calrissian. I haven't read the Jedi Academy books, so for me there's obviously some background missing from between the end of Zahn's Last Command and the events of this novel. Jade's and Admiral Ackbar's only purposes seem to be providing the main characters with information about larger galactic intrigues, and to that flimsy end the characters do their jobs. Still, it would have been nice if Mara Jade had actually told them she was coming instead of throwing a selfish hissy fit about the other Emperor's Hand and hanging up the holo-phone on poor Han Solo.
Overall, this book is definitely somewhat of a goofy, stinking mess, but it wasn't the out-and-out train wreck that I expected going in. Luke and Callista's story is definitely the worst thing Hambly brings to the table, but it's somewhat balanced by the exciting and madcap adventuring with the other characters on Belsavis. At this point, I guess I should go back and read Kevin Anderson's Jedi Academy books, as I've heard that the sequel he wrote to this novel draws a bit off of that trilogy. Hambly already spoiled the ending to that trilogy about five times, but I'm sure it's still worth a look. After that, I'll venture forward into the other two volumes that make up Hambly's and Anderson's trilogy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 29, 2024
Man this was a struggle to get through. It wasn't even bad or anything, it was just so boring.
January 28, 2024
If Vonda McIntyre's The Crystal Star is the worst Star Wars novel ever, Barbara Hambly's Children of the Jedi desperately wants to try for the title. It takes a lot to make a book as bad, but virtually every decision Hambly makes for Luke and company is the wrong one.
The book’s flaws are multitude, but it bears repeating the worst parts:
1) Luke spends the entire novel passing out, with almost every one of his chapters ending with a fade to black, as if that helps build narrative tension;
2) Luke has a wet dream about a Force ghost and then decides he is in love with her in spite of only knowing her Force ghost self for, like, three days or something;
3) Luke's Force ghost girlfriend inhabits the corpse of one of Luke's hot students;
4) Luke's hot student only gives up her body because she can't stand to live without her boyfriend;
5) Mara Jade gets mad that she wasn't the only one of Palpatine's side pieces;
6) The main antagonist of the novel doesn't show up for almost 60% of the book;
7) The main crisis of the book is yet another stupid megaweapon lost by the Emperor somewhere;
8) The main antagonist of the novel is believed to be one of Palpatine's heirs;
9) The book retroactively decides that the Galactic Civil War, which ended prior to Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy, isn't over anymore;
10) All the Gamorreans speak Galactic Basic now for no reason whatsoever;
11) Tusken Raiders show up on the giant spaceship superweapon, along with Jawas and plant people, for absolutely no fucking reason other than to add length to an already overwrought plot.
It's also worth noting that while Hambly is objectively the best prose writer of any of the Star Wars books from 1976-1995, the book's plot doesn't start to come together until well over half the book's length, at which point the development of the plot barely resembles its original premise. In spite of her prose, the book is a slog of boring exposition, ridiculous subplot elements that do nothing to serve the characters or the setting of Star Wars and its lore, and simply retcons whole developments of the expanded universe timeline for no appreciable reason. Some of that blame surely lies at the feet of the editorial team behind the expanded universe's design, but it seems objectionable that Hambly simply ignores much of the expanded lore in order to shoehorn whatever bad idea she has for the universe--whether it be on the nature of Gamorrean speech or on the truly abominable sexual politics of this novel.
But, hey, at least the cover's bitchin', right?
The book’s flaws are multitude, but it bears repeating the worst parts:
1) Luke spends the entire novel passing out, with almost every one of his chapters ending with a fade to black, as if that helps build narrative tension;
2) Luke has a wet dream about a Force ghost and then decides he is in love with her in spite of only knowing her Force ghost self for, like, three days or something;
3) Luke's Force ghost girlfriend inhabits the corpse of one of Luke's hot students;
4) Luke's hot student only gives up her body because she can't stand to live without her boyfriend;
5) Mara Jade gets mad that she wasn't the only one of Palpatine's side pieces;
6) The main antagonist of the novel doesn't show up for almost 60% of the book;
7) The main crisis of the book is yet another stupid megaweapon lost by the Emperor somewhere;
8) The main antagonist of the novel is believed to be one of Palpatine's heirs;
9) The book retroactively decides that the Galactic Civil War, which ended prior to Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy, isn't over anymore;
10) All the Gamorreans speak Galactic Basic now for no reason whatsoever;
11) Tusken Raiders show up on the giant spaceship superweapon, along with Jawas and plant people, for absolutely no fucking reason other than to add length to an already overwrought plot.
It's also worth noting that while Hambly is objectively the best prose writer of any of the Star Wars books from 1976-1995, the book's plot doesn't start to come together until well over half the book's length, at which point the development of the plot barely resembles its original premise. In spite of her prose, the book is a slog of boring exposition, ridiculous subplot elements that do nothing to serve the characters or the setting of Star Wars and its lore, and simply retcons whole developments of the expanded universe timeline for no appreciable reason. Some of that blame surely lies at the feet of the editorial team behind the expanded universe's design, but it seems objectionable that Hambly simply ignores much of the expanded lore in order to shoehorn whatever bad idea she has for the universe--whether it be on the nature of Gamorrean speech or on the truly abominable sexual politics of this novel.
But, hey, at least the cover's bitchin', right?
October 29, 2014
Not terrible, but very underwhelming. The whole Luke/Callista subplot was a little weird. There were a few moments that I felt clashed a bit with the Star Wars continuity, but nothing that really bothered me. The biggest problem was that the book felt extremely long with very little plot advancement going on. A more concise story would have been more enjoyable. The author also had an annoying tendency to add paragraphs of irrelevant description in the middle of dialogue, causing the reader to lose track of the conversation. Add in a few largely forgettable villains, and you end up with a book that doesn't really add anything substantial to the Star Wars Expanded Universe (RIP).
June 1, 2012
The majority of the reviews for Children of the Jedi are either saying it's among the worst of the Star Wars novels...or among the best. My feelings on it were more moderate; it wasn't amazing, but it also wasn't terrible. The story was decent, although nowhere near as enthralling as any of the movies. The writing was also passable. In fact, pretty much everything about Children of the Jedi was mediocre; so much so, that I can only recommend it to die-hard Star Wars enthusiasts, or those who have read almost every other Expanded Universe novel in existence.
Shelved as 'abandoned'
October 5, 2014So awful I cannot continue. Yesterday I lost another day that could have been spent reading anything by trying to get through this mess.
I made it to page 136 which is 39% of the book.
I am not alone in my opinion. The first ten goodreads reviews slam this. I want to finish it so I can have another one-star book, but I can't make myself read any more.
shelf: abandoned
I made it to page 136 which is 39% of the book.
I am not alone in my opinion. The first ten goodreads reviews slam this. I want to finish it so I can have another one-star book, but I can't make myself read any more.
shelf: abandoned
January 30, 2009
Ok i'm gonna be honest and say there is a few books in the star wars expanded universe that you should avoid and this is one of them.
Maybe its just me but i found this book boring and a challenge to finish it.
Maybe its just me but i found this book boring and a challenge to finish it.
June 3, 2015
Easily one of the most offensively stupid books I've read with Star Wars written on the cover. It's a dull, stilted, poorly conceived "adventure". It makes Attack of the Clones look like Citizen Kane.
January 3, 2021
This book started off great. Hamby did a wonderful job recreating the SW Universe and placing it into a ghost story, or two ghost stories. The first half of the book really kept going on with mystery and suspense. Then, the book goes down the rabbit hole. When Hamby introduced the villains, I laughed. When the climax action was in full bloom, I was casually reading and though, "meh." I was actually perturbed with the falling action and closure.
Han, Luke, and Leis are visiting a fabulous planet when they receive a mysterious message from one of Han's former associates. The message is something about the children of the Jedi on the ice planet of Belsavis. In the mean time, Luke is interacting with two of his pupils, a couple, one of whom is in the body of a droid....The droid has a nightmare or premonition. Luke asks if his robotic self can generate random numbers. Yes, of course. During the dream, he writes down the numbers. They are possibly coordinates in a nebula.....and Luke goes there with C3PO. A weakness in the story. But it sets two parallel stories.
Belsavis is an ice plant with volcanic activity. Warm springs have been domed and created a verdant jungle for fruit trees. It also creates an intense fog over everything. Combined with the old stone buildings, the scene sounds a lot like 19th C London - a great place for a mystery. Droids that go crazy, stories of Jedi crypts, subterranean monsters of different varieties, and the growing list of missing people and there is the making for a great suspense story. When Han and Chewie are chased by monsters (or the missing people as zombies) the story really becomes fantastic.
Meanwhile Luke stumbles onto another abandoned Imperial superweapon. Yup, the Empire made another superweapon, and apparently forgot about this one. The battle moon, or whatever it is, is an automated ship. No living people on board. It was apparently built to obliterate Belsavis....but something happened. A jedi got on board and somehow sabotaged something. And the ship was forgotten? Well, Luke gets aboard. And the ship travels to several planets to bring up imperial garrisons. Yeah, that sounds strange. The garrisons (one lone stormtrooper survivor) knew about the weapon and the mission; but, uh, were kept on strange and hostile worlds where most of the garrisons perished. The automated ship picks up a variety of strange aliens - Gamorreans, Tolz (furry white giants), a strange tripod create, talking giant mushrooms, Jawas, sentient trees, and Sand people. This sets the stage for the insanity on the superweapon.
It could be humorous. Instead, Hamby focuses on Luke, terribly injured and walking around the ship. It only has 20-ish levels and can be explored by foot within 5-6 days. The Gamorreans start fighting. The Sandpeople carve out their own territory. The Jawas scavenge. The superweapon becomes dark and spooky. Luke feels that he is not alone. Then he sees a ghost in a mirror. All the while he is trying to disable the ship and rescue everyone.
Hamby does a great job at creating her environments. There may be too much detail. At times she is so focused on the setting that the weaknesses of the entire story and its subplots shine through the pages. After Luke sees the ghost of Callista, the book really takes a turn. Luke and Callista fall madly in love and have some form of sex....I am thankful that Hamby did not focus too much on that description. Leia meets the villains. The suspense suddenly falls apart. The mystery in both subplots disappears. All that is left is the bizarre. It gets progressively more absurd. Leaving this reader to wonder if Hamby understood the limitations of the Force. Yes, authors have creative license; but I think she pushes it too far.
Overall, the beginning hooked me and kept me going. Then all of a sudden, I stopped caring. Hamby had a great idea. She created great scenes. But the story itself was weak and only got weaker as it progressed. Her focus on environment and character development were great. I recognized the main figures. I sympathized with the supporting characters. I loved the environments. I loved the basic outline. But the execution was disappointing. The weaknesses just compounded to the point that the strengths could not contain them.
Han, Luke, and Leis are visiting a fabulous planet when they receive a mysterious message from one of Han's former associates. The message is something about the children of the Jedi on the ice planet of Belsavis. In the mean time, Luke is interacting with two of his pupils, a couple, one of whom is in the body of a droid....The droid has a nightmare or premonition. Luke asks if his robotic self can generate random numbers. Yes, of course. During the dream, he writes down the numbers. They are possibly coordinates in a nebula.....and Luke goes there with C3PO. A weakness in the story. But it sets two parallel stories.
Belsavis is an ice plant with volcanic activity. Warm springs have been domed and created a verdant jungle for fruit trees. It also creates an intense fog over everything. Combined with the old stone buildings, the scene sounds a lot like 19th C London - a great place for a mystery. Droids that go crazy, stories of Jedi crypts, subterranean monsters of different varieties, and the growing list of missing people and there is the making for a great suspense story. When Han and Chewie are chased by monsters (or the missing people as zombies) the story really becomes fantastic.
Meanwhile Luke stumbles onto another abandoned Imperial superweapon. Yup, the Empire made another superweapon, and apparently forgot about this one. The battle moon, or whatever it is, is an automated ship. No living people on board. It was apparently built to obliterate Belsavis....but something happened. A jedi got on board and somehow sabotaged something. And the ship was forgotten? Well, Luke gets aboard. And the ship travels to several planets to bring up imperial garrisons. Yeah, that sounds strange. The garrisons (one lone stormtrooper survivor) knew about the weapon and the mission; but, uh, were kept on strange and hostile worlds where most of the garrisons perished. The automated ship picks up a variety of strange aliens - Gamorreans, Tolz (furry white giants), a strange tripod create, talking giant mushrooms, Jawas, sentient trees, and Sand people. This sets the stage for the insanity on the superweapon.
It could be humorous. Instead, Hamby focuses on Luke, terribly injured and walking around the ship. It only has 20-ish levels and can be explored by foot within 5-6 days. The Gamorreans start fighting. The Sandpeople carve out their own territory. The Jawas scavenge. The superweapon becomes dark and spooky. Luke feels that he is not alone. Then he sees a ghost in a mirror. All the while he is trying to disable the ship and rescue everyone.
Hamby does a great job at creating her environments. There may be too much detail. At times she is so focused on the setting that the weaknesses of the entire story and its subplots shine through the pages. After Luke sees the ghost of Callista, the book really takes a turn. Luke and Callista fall madly in love and have some form of sex....I am thankful that Hamby did not focus too much on that description. Leia meets the villains. The suspense suddenly falls apart. The mystery in both subplots disappears. All that is left is the bizarre. It gets progressively more absurd. Leaving this reader to wonder if Hamby understood the limitations of the Force. Yes, authors have creative license; but I think she pushes it too far.
Overall, the beginning hooked me and kept me going. Then all of a sudden, I stopped caring. Hamby had a great idea. She created great scenes. But the story itself was weak and only got weaker as it progressed. Her focus on environment and character development were great. I recognized the main figures. I sympathized with the supporting characters. I loved the environments. I loved the basic outline. But the execution was disappointing. The weaknesses just compounded to the point that the strengths could not contain them.
March 8, 2022
While this book was SUPER so-so, I don’t see why it gets the rabid hate that it does. It’s got a lot of flaws, sure. The most glaring issue is the quality of the writing itself. Barbara Hambly does a very poor job of orienting the reader in the space the characters are occupying. I always found it very hard to visualize where they were, what they were doing, where they were going, and how things were connected. She would frequently introduce important, conceptually-difficult characters with zero buildup, to the point where I had to check if I there was any important reference material that I should have read beforehand. A lot of original characters had extremely silly, exaggerated Star Wars names that, while funny in the moment, became hard to keep track of. The choice to cripple Luke early on was an obvious writing trick that, after a while, became more annoying than something that served the story.
That all said, I think conceptually this is a very cool idea for a story. The different tribes of aliens trying to live normal life aboard a space station and the theme of living on after death through technology were great ideas, and I did have fun with them. I think Callista, while not perfect, is one of the better love interests we’ve had for Luke (although even then they fell victim to the “we’ve known each other for two days and we’re madly in love” trope). If not for the at-times frustratingly bad writing, this probably would have been a three star.
I am interested to see where things go next, and I do want to see where the sequel setups go, but this is another Star Wars book I probably won’t be revisiting.
That all said, I think conceptually this is a very cool idea for a story. The different tribes of aliens trying to live normal life aboard a space station and the theme of living on after death through technology were great ideas, and I did have fun with them. I think Callista, while not perfect, is one of the better love interests we’ve had for Luke (although even then they fell victim to the “we’ve known each other for two days and we’re madly in love” trope). If not for the at-times frustratingly bad writing, this probably would have been a three star.
I am interested to see where things go next, and I do want to see where the sequel setups go, but this is another Star Wars book I probably won’t be revisiting.
September 6, 2023
This was a difficult read. The first third of the book was terrible to get through. The pacing and writing were awful. Thankfully the book got better after, it was almost good at that point, except that it kept cutting away to what was clearly just a subplot, and that part of the story was, again, terrible. It was confusing, poorly written, and horrible paced. Even the important characters and events seemed irrelevant either because we know so little about them, or because the writing around them is so hard to follow. All that said, the main plot (in the second half at least) was enjoyable (other than some bad writing and odd decisions)
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