181st Imperial Discussion Group: Ambush at Corellia!

Welcome! This month we will be discussing Ambush at Corellia, the first book in the Corellian Trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen.

Here's a link to the TF.n Staff Reviews.

As usual, some discussion points to jumpstart the proceedings, but feel free to address them, or not, or raise your own as you wish.

- Okay, let's start with the main plotline - the Corellian political situation. My main thought here is that the issues of separatism are interesting in light of the Prequels, especially Leia's thoughts about the dangers of it, which in turn feeds into the Galactic Civil War where Corellia again attempted secession during LOTF. Do you have thoughts on how this plays in the context of the rest of the EU, especially given it was written well beforehand?

- We'll obviously be discussing Sal-Solo more in novels to come as well as his politics, etc., because this is a trilogy, but as a starting point, we yet again have a superweapon holding the galaxy hostage. The twist being the fact it appears to stem from ancient technology rather than Imperial scientists. Is that enough of a twist on a tired trope? Or am I wrong in calling it that, and is it a classic storyline?

- Lando wants to get married! It's a pretty unusual b plot - what did you all make of it? Did it make sense Luke would help? Did Lando's motives in wanting an arranged marriage to a rich woman seem unsympathetic, or entertainingly characteristic? In terms of the tone of the novel, did it fit well?

- Aaaaand, the Solo kids. Writing children is always tricky and Bantam is really the only era, so far, that has had to provide storylines for multiple kids in most of its major novels. This is, of course, met with varying reader reaction. So, on The Crystal Star Test (cus love it or hate it, y'all know exactly what I mean when I say that! ), where did this fall? Were the kids believable? Was their storyline satisfying? Is it a good idea to split them off from their parents and give them a subplot or should they be relegated to the background, or even have been left on Coruscant for their own safety?

Take it away!

Next month we will be discussing Assault at Selonia by Roger MacBride Allen!

 

The neat thing about the Corellian Trilogy is that they were really pretty insignificant in the Bantam area; just another superweapon story, with nothing particularly notable happening, no new characters coming out of it, other than the very minor beat of "Lando gets a woman." Standing on their own, there's nothing that makes them a significant read, the kind of thing you'd recommend that people read when reading through the EU (oddly, most of these books seem to be concentrated in the back end of Bantam; there are about eight perfectly disposable novels in a row [from a continuity standpoint; the BFC is a must-read quality-wise]). But they've very, very slowly grown over time into significance. Luceno latched onto them in the NJO, bringing back Thrackan and Centerpoint and minor characters like Showolter for a brief cameo. Then the NJO kept using Thrackan a little more, and then all of a sudden it became crucial background for LOTF, for everything from Thrackan to Centerpoint to Corellia's independent streak. It's quite remarkable the way the narrative reached back and grabbed onto an overlooked trilogy not for a bit of name-checking, but for its whole setup. Admirable, even if the end result was still crap.

I really like the separatism plot. It's the kind of threat we could stand to see more of. It's small-scale (ignoring the superweapon tacked onto it), yet it's got significant stakes for the heroes trapped there, for the region, for the government. It's not yet another maniac who wants to conquer the galaxy, more Sith, another Imperial or warlord; it's a shady bunch of power-grubbers in a major sector who want their independence, right as the era of independence is ending and the last independent worlds are finally accepting membership into the ascendant New Republic. It's really a shame that so much of the plot around that central concept is so dumb; the NR looking around going, "Oops, where did I put my fleet?", pretty much everything that happens in the whole trilogy of non-happeningness. There's a great story buried in here, and it sometimes emerges in the great twists and ideas on display, but mostly the trilogy just does nothing with what it has. It's just very indifferently written. It seems like it needed to be a single novel; RMA clearly didn't know what to do with all the pages he was given.

On your quick mention of Thrackan: He's pretty much the trilogy in microcosm. He's a great concept, great character, except then RMA went and made him Han Solo's evil twin for no discernible reason. Great ideas buried under a heavy ladling of stupid.

As to the superweapon: It would really be fine if it weren't for the fact that this is Bantam, and KJA has already written twenty other superweapon stories, and the whole concept is played out and tiresome. It's too tightly packed, IU and OOU, with a ton of other stories along the same lines. On its own merits, though, it's probably the best thing the EU has ever done with superweapons. Rather than another wacko building himself an ultra-gun, it's an ancient artifact (I love the whole aspect here of exploring the galaxy's hidden history, also exploited [much better] in the BFC; again, it's also ruined by stupid crap like saying this is the first time, in thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years, that Corellia has done archaeology ever) discovered to have mysterious and terrifying powers. It's also not just a weapon; it's got the cool, and very well-used, features of super-jamming and super-interdiction. I won't get into it too much, because the plot revelations are coming up, but the particular manner in which it's used and coopted is also spectacular and interesting and original.

The Lando plot was dumb. It could have been a classic, marrying Lando's charm and his roguishness by giving his search for love mercenary overtones; instead RMA just doesn't seem to know how to write Lando, and we get an un-charming, greedy jackass straight-up looking to marry for money. It's a case of the author just not getting Lando, and so giving us a dull mercenary rather than a c

 

What? So this is a kind of a good read? I'd always gone on the assumption that the trilogy was pretty boring.

 

Well, it's boring and extremely slow-paced (though each book is very short; both symptoms of the fact that RMA didn't have nearly enough story for a trilogy) and rather dumb and silly. It's also fairly entertaining, with many good ideas and well-executed bits scattered in. Like Hambly's books, it's a collection of good ideas that needed a better author, but it's much more readable than Hambly's books. It's not by any means recommended, but you could do worse. If you're extremely interested in Centerpoint, or some of the background that LOTF and FOTJ are using, or mysterious-artifact plotlines, or Thrackan, or where-did-Tendra-come-from, or Corellia, it may be worth a read, but that's really about it.

 

Before we get into the political situation, we need to look at how it came about in the first place. I see three leading factors. First, Corellia is the location of the home office of Corellian Engineering Corporation, one of the main shipyards in the galaxy. The company brings in a lot of wealth and economy, which could translate to prestige and political clout. In light of the Prequels and the Clone Wars, it makes me wonder if the economic and monetary power translating into political power gives Corellian Engineering Corporation and similar companies, like Kuat Drive Yards, Sluis Van Shipyards, Fondor Yards, etc., as well as the planets associated with them ? Corellia, Kuat, Sluis Van, Fondor, etc. ? the same political clout that the Trade Federation, Commerce Guild, Corporate Alliance, and so forth had during the prequels. Now granted, the former corporations seem to have more ethical integrity than the latter corporations, but we don?t really have enough info to draw that conclusion.

Next, we have the ?independent? streak that seems to be present in the Corellian people. They seem to want to do things their own way, and while they?re willing to work with other galactic powers, they don?t want to be completely dependent on them. We got a taste of that in the short story Elusion Illusion, where Aayla Secura and Ylenic It?kla needed to observe Corellia?s stance of neutrality in the Clone Wars while trying to extract a former Separatist worker into Republic custody.

The final factor is tied in to the second one. When Han and Leia asked how things have gotten so bad, and the answer was that the Empire collapsed. While the Empire was around, Corellia was peaceful, but it was peace ?under a gun?. No matter how bad the Empire was with its anti-alien stance, it disliked disorder even more. Anyone planning on stirring up trouble was quickly silenced. Now the Empire was gone. Much of the business that the Empire brought in vanished, resulting in economic turmoil. In addition, the populace was free to think what they wanted to think. The ?independent? streak was rising again, and we had people asking whether or not they really needed to be part of some galaxy-spanning government. I think we can see similar situations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and various other nations. These nations are experiencing a period of turbulent transition, where the heavy hand that governed their lives is gone and the populace are trying to find a new way of living.

I admit I haven?t caught up with LOTF, but I get the impression that these factors came into play again. And I don?t see any viable solution to the problems caused by these factors. As for the issue of separatism, I do have my own view on the matter. If we have political leaders pushing for separatism out of their own interests and not caring about the general public, then I?m against it. If the populace wishes to leave the New Republic, and it?s clear that they?re not being forced into that view by their own leaders or others, then the New Republic can?t really prevent them from leaving. To do so would be a public image disaster, as it would seem they?re becoming like the Empire. Here are some other examples. In the Dark Times comics, the reader learned that New Plympto?s economy largely depended on the export of rikknit eggs. When the Nosaurians were denied representation in the Senate and the export business dried up, they left the Republic and went to the Separatist, who revitalized their export business and gave them representation. Did New Plympto have good reason

 

I thought the Lando subplot was pretty entertaining, and he gets to learn that money is no substitute for love (or his life, as in the case of the vampire lady). I also thought that Belindi Kalenda was a fairly interesting minor character, and her crash landing was my favorite part of the book.

 

Was it really that boring/slow? My fifteen-year-old memories are quite fond of it, actually (but maybe that's because I didn't know what's good back then, except for a nice change in German cover design). I'll probably try to get this re-read around the middle of the month...

BTW, did the 181st already do BFC? I'm actually not that fond of those books, but am curious to have a go at them again as they've got pretty good reception around here. If 181st is still going to do them, I'd wait until then before I revisit them.

 

Yes, we've discussed the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy already.

 

That is quotable, sir!

--Adm. Nick

 

It's not a slow, dull read like Hambly's books or TCS, but it's slow plot-wise. It's a quick read, but it's a bunch of pages of nothing happening. It's the kind of book where Kalenda's ship takes a full chapter just to crash. The fact that there's absolutely nothing in the way of plot advancement is disguised by the lengthiness of any and all action scenes, and by the fact that essentially random action scenes get thrown into the middle of stuff to keep the illusion of something happening.

 

As always I find Hav's thoughts really on point. I want to rail against the idiocy of Han Solo's cousin looking so much like him for no reason, or the tired cliche of yet another superweapon, but as he says, there are really interesting concepts in here. I wish Sal-Solo was Sal-Smith, but I don't dislike the concept of his character as a villain. Likewise, Centrepoint Station goes on to become one of the more interesting aspects of the Star Wars universe in terms of its IU history (again I like the idea of lost, ancient artifacts), and that interest isn't unrelated to its presentation here. In general I guess I'd say that the superweapon as an idea is better handled than the separatism, within the scope of the novel itself, but interestingly the wider concept of the EU balances that out and it ultimately ends up playing in reverse, because the superweapon feels like the millionth one in as many books, while the separatism is at least a fairly new idea for that point in the EU - and I am fascinated with the way it's prescient of many of the conflicts in the later EU (from a publication standpoint, not an IU chronological one).

To follow up on the issues of not having enough material, I sadly agree. I think part of the issue is the prose. If you're going to be that thin on plot, you can compensate with fantastic language, and RMA doesn't do that, his prose isn't distractingly awful, but it's just...there, and it makes the slow pace overly obvious.

Which leads me to an interesting thing I noticed. My opinion of the Corellian Trilogy has always been, largely, that okay, it wasn't super ace, but it wasn't as boring as everyone else thought? And I'm now starting to work out why. I read the Corellian Trilogy, in paperback, originally when I was about thirteen, during that heady post-OT rerelease period when I was reading all the EU I could get my hands on and pretty much loved it unreservedly cus it was more Star Wars and had moved on to the next shiny novel by the time my critical thinking set in - it's sobering to realise that's over half my life away by this point! In the time since then, I've managed to collect most of the Bantam era audio books, and I have listened to the trilogy on tape in the intervening years, being the audio book geek that I am (though honestly, the Bantam era stuff is not that great production-wise).

Anyway, the point is, this is the first time I've actually read the longform novel in a very, very long time, and you would not BELIEVE how much this stuff benefits from being chopped down to a three hour audio book (again, these days they're either unabridged or four/five hours, but back in the 90s...) I kept feeling shocked at stuff I'd forgotten from the novel taking so long, or being in it at all.

Which I think is a pretty damning statement about the novel's pace.

Ally - as always I find your breadth of EU knowledge interesting - thanks for the breakdown of how you see the Corellian ethos having developed. I don't have much to add to it - which I often feel bad about because you clearly put so much thought into your posts, but I always find them very informative and even when I don't agree (though in this case I think I do), you put forward a very cohesive argument. Just wanted to take a moment to tip my hat to you on that point.

And now, on to the points you raised for discussion!

- Mara Jade: I enjoyed seeing her return more than I thought I would - while I love that she became such a prominent EU character, I do like her being a wild card and not entirely trustworthy. Or at least someone we're pretty sure is trustworthy but who likes to play it close to her chest. I didn't have a problem with Han's reaction mainly because it seemed very in-character for him. Not really very fair and arguably hypocritical, but Han Solo doesn't trust easily. In some ways, I suppose, one could see that characteristic as a precursor to his eventual opinions of the Jedi (and by extension, a little heartbreakingly, also of Luke) after the de

 

The thing I really like about the Mon Mothma bit is the pre-prequel sense of what being a Jedi is. That Jedi are very diverse; that they have day jobs. The Jedi are organized, but they're also not exclusive; you can use your Jedi abilities in whatever way seems useful. You can be a Jedi soldier, a Jedi politician, a Jedi doctor, a Jedi explorer, a Jedi scholar, a Jedi teacher, a Jedi diplomat, a Jedi policeman. You can live and work among the people; there will be a Jedi on every planet, in every village. It's a very exciting, very beautiful conception of Jedi engagement and involvement in the galaxy, rather than the idea of being this exclusive, set-apart, regimented Order of people whose full-time life consists of standing around the Temple and going on Jedi Missions in StealthXes. It just makes for such better stories, too, when we see it in things like Luke, the Jedi pilot-soldier of the Rebellion, Leia the Jedi Chief of State, Jaina and Corran the Jedi Rogues, Cilghal the Jedi senator, Kyle the Jedi commando, Tahiri the Jedi living on her own helping the Vong, Kyp the Jedi who spends his time off operating on his own with his own mixed gang of smuggler-hunters. Vastly more interesting than the Denning/prequel ho-hum genericness of the post-NJO.

 

Couldn't agree more, Havac. Couldn't agree more.

 

Oh absolutely.

I mean, we all thought General Kenobi was a General and a Jedi, right? At least, I know I did.

 

Eh...not really, although Havac's model certainly appeals to me nowadays on both an IU and OOU level.

Anyway. I read this years ago, along with the rest of the trilogy. (Del Rey isn't the only company that needs/needed to focus more on standalones; this trilogy was more like 3 parts of one book.) I liked it at the time (I think for the reasons Beccatoria stated; I thought JAT was good, after all ) and now...I remember interesting story ideas, just mainly executed in a dull fashion. Not much happened in these.

 

One of the things that saddens me is that we're losing the original-class, original-council NJO vibe of having Jedi characters who are people first and Jedi second. That's why characters like Kam, Kyp, Kyle, and Corran have their resonance, their depth, their uniqueness. All the cookie-cutter Jedi extras of LOTF and FOTJ suffer from the fact that there's nothing to them; they're all just Jedi. Same as any other Jedi. Whereas we had people who were Jedi, sure, but they weren't defined by that. Corran was defined by the fact that he was a police detective and a Rogue pilot and a good man and good soldier. Kyle was defined not by the lightsaber in his hand, but by his fringey background as a mercenary and special forces commando extraordinaire. Kam was defined by his background as a former Dark Jedi redeemed by Luke. Streen had his background as a hermit that shaped his character. Kyp had his background as a prisoner. Jaina spent the NJO defined not simply as a Jedi, but also as a combat pilot and military officer. It let you do things with the characters; it let them be people. It's a tremendous loss to the current EU.

 

Yes. It would be awesome if Luke came back from his journey, said, "Kriff this poodoo, we're going back to how I started this shindig," shut down the Temple and said, "Go be Jedi, idiots. The Council was supposed to help provide some general direction to the order, not turn it into a giant walking mess reminiscent of what got the old order destroyed in the first place."

The new Jedi Order (meaning the people and order, not series, although the series actually still did pretty well with this) as originally conceived was awesome. The prequelitis has done it great harm. And I don't understand why the authors chose to push in the direction of the prequels, as the standing assumption was always that Luke's order was and more importantly should be different from the old.

In some ways, I'd like to reread the CT just for how much scenery it contributed to the universe. Amusingly, though, I just passed up an opportunity to get them for free, for the simple reason that, well, I remembered them being a bit boring, and accordingly suspected that I'd never actually read them if I did take them. Which is probably true.

 

I managed to finish the book in june but had to let it sink for a little while, so if anyone's still up for discussion... i suppose i'll get the third one done in time for the beginning of its resprective month.

First things first - man, that was really slow. I remembered very little from these books, mainly just the basic plot outlines, and as these are quite small, it's no wonder that I remembered so little about the whole thing. It tells me much about myself at the age of 15 - quite happy with just reading something about SW and not really thinking about how good or bad it might be. I've become much more selective with my reading, and I suppose that at some point, new SW stuff just stopped being important because there was so much of it already. Back then - no internet, no news, a new book every two or three months and maybe a videogame from time to time.

Which leads me to my main thought about this book - it's not really a SW story, but a story for people who want to read more about the SW characters. One of the HTTE annotations by Zahn reaffirmed that he began all his novels with a star destroyer scene as this is the way the movies start (as the prequels show, any starship scene would do). This book begins with one of the trademark starships being grounded for repairs. The same is true for the characters -they are grounded in a life beyond the amazement of the movies.

First, Lando and Luke, as this is easy. Originally (I think nobody brought that up above) RMA wanted to have Luke engaging in a political marriage, which got shot down by LFL pretty quickly. It shows in the book as Luke has nothing to do but stand around in the salvage story about Lando. Lando, however - if I really bring the ESB scenes with that charming, smiling scoundrel administrator to my mind, the marriage-for-money approach just about works. As a fun romp beyond the more serious parts of life - a tongue-in-cheek comedy trying to get more mileage out of the iconic characters of a story that's already finished. What doesn't work is how Lando actually falls into - well, apparently not love but like. "Fall in like", huh, I hope that will find it's way into facebook-age dictionaries with me getting credited for it. RMA uses a pretty elementary school view of romantic dinner between man and woman. It makes me want to read an actual SW romance novel that's done by an actual good romance writer. Might still not be my cup of tea, but at least someone would get that part right, finally.

What is still there about the Luke plot is Luke being talked to sternly by a politician. Mon Mothma is telling him to do his best for politics, and that would be the right pep talk for a political marriage, wouldn't it? I also got the uncanny connections to Mon Mothma circa Episode 3, and how she would want to help the Jedi not make the same mistakes as their predecesors. Really great retcon material that keeps everyone in character throughout. Now if we only got some acknowledgement of her having known Anakin in this book, it would be really uncanny...

What's more, it's funny how the New Republic novels established basic political themes just before ep1 would do all the senate stuff that got slammed "because politics isn't SW". The whole seperation plot shows a huge departure from the careless backdrop of the movies - evil guys, good guys. But that's what peace brings - having to build instead of just run around. I think that's one of the things that made Bantam EU so special - the stories weren't so memorable because they couldn't possibly top the movies, but the world building was immense because everyone involved knew that in that time period, the face of the galaxy would have changed. It was an actual extrapolation from, not just a continuiation of the movies.

Mon Mothma's speech about what peace time means is even more poignant when you realize that these characters cannot do what they do best anymore. Once Luke isn't in the spotlight leading the Jedi, he's pretty unimportant. If Han's not flying the Falcon, he's got nothing t

 

As others have pointed out, the Corellian Trilogy is the clutch example of Bantam's tendency to do trilogies simply for the sake of doing trilogies. The New Rebellion may have been wacky, but it was 500 pages of wackiness instead of three 250-page books of wackiness with even more wacky filler. The Corellian Crisis, by Roger MacBride Allen, would have been a really fun book. It certainly wouldn't have had a twenty-five page chapter that contained nothing more than Belindi Kalenda's ship crashing (which, as I recall, happened again at the beginning of Book 3 with Han and Dracmus).

Mom Mothma's speech to Luke may be especially poignant today, but contained within the trilogy, no consequences played out from it at all. Following up on it could have given the trilogy some more meat in the form of another subplot, but it really just seemed like a weak reason for a Mon Mothma cameo.

Mara's inclusion was interesting. The trilogy was published after Darksaber, so it's possible that the powers-that-be told R-Mac to include her due to her forthcoming marriage to Luke. But why the heck was she running a trading company? That's as weird as KJA making Wedge an architect.

I remember finding myself quite liking Belindi Kalenda, though. I cheered when I saw her name in the Dramatis Personae of Hero's Trial.