Lit Rogue Planet - so what was the point anyway?

He The Approaching Storm at least had one of the most fun Hutts in SW history

 

A few choice excerpts from my review of Approaching Storm:


*So, anyway, Luminara Unduli, Barriss Offee and our stalwart Obi-Wan/Anakin pairing have been sent to try to keep the planet Ansion in the Republic because it is an important planet despite appearing not to be.

*If you’d like, I could say that again FIFTY TIMES so you’ll be sure and get it just like Foster does here.

************

*Luminara dispenses some wisdom: “There are certain constants that remain the same throughout the galaxy, my dear. The speed of light, the movement of muons, and the unwillingness of politicians to commit to anything that requires a leap of personal responsibility.”

***********

*Dialogue no one could actually say: “How much confidence in our perceived omnipotence do you think that admission would inspire?”

**********

*Dialogue no one could possibly make up: “Are you familiar with the secessionist movement?” “Only movement Bulgan know is in bowels.”

**********

*So, Kyakhta gets healed by Barriss in the following scene:

* “What this nonsense about Jedi healing?” *Barriss rubs his temples* “I owe you my sanity, Padawan. For had you not interceded, I see surely now that the pain I have been living with would have led all too soon to utter madness, and eventually to death.”

*That is pretty complex sentence structure for someone who, five seconds ago, was not entirely clear on the function of articles. I mean, I don’t even know what ‘interceded’ means.

**********

*And Obi-Wan, for his portion of the talent show, tells a story. A story, “poignant and true.” “Sacrifice and war, betrayal and revelation, greed and revenge, and in the end, as the fate of the two lovers hung suspended like a small weight from a thread, redemption.”

*Wow, so like the polar opposite of this story then. Can I hear Obi-Wan’s story instead of this one?! I mean, since his has all that and this one has . . . grass.

**********

*If I have somehow not yet convinced you of how terrible this book is, allow me to tell you that your resistance is surely at an end. For now, enter stage left, Tooqui, the rascally little plain dweller with the personality of Charlie McCarthy on a sugar high.

* “Hahaheehee! Tooqui fool you, fool you! You trapped good now, you big back-bald bully-goo! Squinty-eyes! Syrup-stink!”

*Syrup-stink?

*How does Barriss respond to this verbal assault? Like this: “Listen to me. There’s no need for us to fight. My friends and I mean you no harm.”

*Girl, seriously, are you stupid or something? If somebody calls you a syrup-stink bully-goo, I think they will perhaps not grasp the concept of the Unity Council.

*Before the first scene is over, Tooqui will go on to call Barris a “small-head outland big-lips” and a “long-leg ugly bean thing.”

**********


*So, anyway, Ogomoor prepares to betray Soergg since he’s been caught and he bursts into the Unity Council Meeting shouting that he knows who hired the people who tried to delay and kill the Jedi. And he uses the word ‘wherefore.’

*I mean, you’re fighting for your life here, man. Every second counts. And you’re going to say that you know ‘wherefore’ something? Come on.

**********

*Incredibly horrible narration about Soergg the Hutt: He might be lacking in minutiae like a conscience, or scruples, or legs, but words he had in abundance.

*So, legs are minutiae, huh? Yeah, that makes sense.

**********


*Man, I did it. That was just horrifyingly bad. I don’t know what’s worse; Foster’s annoyingly stilted dialogue, his insufferably prosy narration or the fact that THE ENTIRE EVENTS OF THIS BOOK COULD HAVE BEEN TOLD IN ONE PARAGRAPH!

*None of the characters really work. I mean, it’s hard for a character to work when she’s saying things like, “I hope to meet you again some day, Soergg, perhaps in surroundings and under circumstances where diplomacy is irrelevant and where the expression of my inner feelings is not subject to external constraints.”

I'm still really proud of that review.

 

I liked Rogue Planet, mainly because it was different from the rest of the Star Wars material being released at the time.

 

The review is spot on and The Approaching Storm is deadly to readers, but Tooqui is just Salacious B. Crumb, they're the same character. The silly little rascal was the only thing that worked for me, probably because the rest of the book was as fun to read as a Terms of Service.

Anakin's singing was terribly stupid when I read it, but I've been able to laugh about it since.

So yeah, Rogue Planet is definitely better than The Approaching Storm, but that's not saying much.

 

Shush!

Before you give them any ideas!

 

i actually did enjoy some of the levity in Approaching Storm. Just not the plot.

 

That's pretty good, you should consider reviewing some other Star Wars books some time.

 

No, hey, it'd be good! The opening scene would be Shu Mai singing a song called "Push (The Government) to The Limit." Then when the Jedi are ambushed in the streets they sing while fighting, breaking into a resounding chorus of "Get Your Head In The Fight." Then while riding through the plains on their speedy animals (which is still practically the only part of the book I like), they'll sing "A Whole New World (To Ride Fast Animals On)." There will be many more songs throughout, including Anakin's, and by the end they'll sing "We're All In This (Fight) Together." It'll be quite a movie and I hear they're hiring Dylan and Cole Sprouse to play Kyakhtah and Bulgan!

 

NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 

Luckily for you, riding through the plains is about ninety-five percent of the book.

 

Well, I meant the one point in particular when they first left the city, when the animals kicked it into gear, and Anakin, Barriss, and Luminara had to hold onto their lives, and they looked over and Obi-Wan was casually lounging in his saddle. That part was about the only part that was memorable for the lol'z.

Unfortunately you're right; that's about the only thing they do in this book.

 

The only difference being LOTR had some good action, drama, and emotional scenes between those long stretches of traveling across the plains. This book had...I don't know, swimming, acrobatics, storytelling, and singing? And an annoying monkey-dude?

 

What about Jedi Apprentice?

 

Jedi Quest was a frigging Pulitzer Prize winner compared to Jedi Apprentice. At least it nailed some good emotional moments. And, Obi-Wan was no hero in the series either, which I loved.

 

I forgot about Jedi Apprentice. It was a kid's book, right?

 

yeah

 

Hi everybody,

Actually I searched for this thread to find some answers to questions bugging me since I have red „Rogue Planet“ two months ago. So I would be very happy if you would spent some minutes to read and to answer my questions.

To say it bluntly, I don’t know whether to like the book or not to. On one hand, Greg Bear spends much efforts to describe an illegal race on Coruscant to introduce Anakin and Ke Daiv. Is it really necessary to spend over forty pages in the book about describing the tiniest details of the race equipment and the interaction of Ke Daiv and Ani? I was already a bit bored by the race in Ep. I but there was Aurra Sing as a dot of color. And here – it was Thracia Cho Leem. Is it too much to ask for her species? Yes, she was also a Fosh, but that was not written in the novel itself. Anyway - if you are not a passionate gamer developing in your mind your very own game while reading this introductory part it is very exhausting to plough through.

Ke Daiv: Was he recruited by Tarkin or by Palpatine? Did Ke Daiv have the orders to kill Anakin or merely to harm him? Or did Tarkin transgress his mission by condoning the killing of Anakin in whom he may have seen a later competitor for Palpatine’s grace, during the illegal race?

The two strings of the Ani-Obi-adventure and the Sienar-Tarkin-line were interwoven very well. Until the point when Tarkin’s fleet is assailing Zonoma Sekot. The Jedi’s aim is very clear: to get information about Vergere’s whereabouts under the pretext to buy a Sekotan spaceship.

But why was Tarkin attacking actually? Because he too wanted to get a Zonama Sekot spaceship as a by-product of this real mission imposed by Palpatine to drive a wedge between Ani and Obi? Or rather to sow discord between the inhabitants of Zonama Sekot and the Jedi? To undermine Raith Sienar’s position to blame him infront of Palpatine later for misfortune? To save Ke Daiv? I just didn’t get it and I’m glad for reasonable explanations.

Palpatine: He’s the spin-doctor above it all, isn’t he? Why he is not to be present in the novel as such? I would have liked to learn what exactly he did Tarkin entitled to and to what not. That epilogue was very vague in this direction. I would have liked to see young Anakin in Palpatine’s office complaining about stiff, dull Obi-Wan who couldn’t appreciate the glory of Zonama Sekot and the whole range of sophistication of its spaceships. I would have liked to see that Palpatine, caring about Anakin, since he arrived from Naboo at the capital planet.

Then it annoyed me, how Anakin was portrayed as a ticking time-bomb to be transformed into a Sith later. When Anakin stood at the hole, where the ship was to be moulded in the fire, he had a vision that later he is goint to be transformed in the fire too. Really??? Is it really necessary to overload the young boy Anakin with such prophetic doomy forecasts to show that he is really the Chosen One? This and other scenes in this regard did burden the character of young Anakin way too much IMHO. That a young boy with extraordinary powers is freaking out sometimes to save persons he cares for - ooookaaay! But that Anakin sees that darkness will consume him some day - that is enforcing RotS upon this novel in a quite far-fetched and exaggerated way.

The end: Much too dramatic and far too short. What Greg Bear did stretch at the beginning of his novel, was rushed in a way that I asked myself if I did overlook or missed something while reading. You too? And where was Jabitha’s mother. Was she ever around? Who cared for Jabitha, who was still a child, when her father was dead already and her mom nowhere to be seen? Maybe men don’t pose such questions that often. I also would have liked to know if Jabitha’s father or mother was the child of Leor Hal or grandchild. For when Leor Hal came to Zonama Sekot, it was about 98 BYC.

BTW: Was Leor Hal in the English edition also written wrong “Leor Hai”?

Thank you very much for reading and replying!

regards
Sudooku

 

1. Like the book! That's my advice, anyway.

2. The garbage pit race does a couple things. It allows a book that's generally slow to start out with a strong action sequence to get some momentum going. But it's also important to establishing Anakin's character in a book that really revolves around Anakin's character. Anakin means well but he struggles to follow the rules. He's out seeking thrills because he finds the discipline of Jedi life stuffy and he needs fun. He's not cut out to be an ascetic monk. But he also feels bad about it, because he knows that the Jedi are good and mean well for him, and he doesn't want to be a bad kid, but he just can't help himself, and as a result he feels guilty and ashamed. This is, frankly, a much more effective and interesting take than the one we got from AOTC about how the good-hearted kid of TPM could become a heroic Jedi who's still seduced to the dark side. By meaning well, but being uncomfortable within a set of rules he doesn't quite understand, and feeling perpetually guilty about his inability to follow the rules. That's why I think this is one of the best portrayals of young Anakin. It's not overly portentous of his fall -- a vision that he too would be transformed someday haunts him with an idea of destiny, but it doesn't just tell him, "Hey, you're doomed to fall."

3. Thracia Cho Leem's a human, actually. But I think here, as elsewhere, you're getting distracted by meaningless details. Does the quality of the book revolve around having every minor character's species labeled? I love rich, detailed world-building as much as anyone, but does it really matter to the story what species Thracia Cho Leem is, or how many generations are between Jabitha and Leor Hal? Is it important if Tarkin or Palpatine or someone else originally recruited Ke Daiv to work for their conspiracy, or is it just important that he's an assassin Tarkin has access to? It can be a point to bring up out of curiosity but it doesn't really impact whether or not it was a good book.

4. It's been a while since I read the book, but Bear deliberately kept Tarkin and his role in Palpatine's conspiracy a bit mysterious. You have to remember that this book was written immediately after The Phantom Menace came out, when it wasn't clear which direction AOTC was going to go. That's why Palpatine doesn't appear; Bear couldn't know exactly what Lucas was going to do with the relationship between Anakin and Palpatine, so he couldn't really depict it. Similarly, he keeps everything behind Tarkin very vague. It's deliberate that Sienar is a cutout Tarkin uses. Tarkin recruits Sienar to go on an expedition to take over Zonama Sekot, but basically sets him up for failure so that Tarkin can sweep in to the rescue with brute force at the end. If Sienar manages to get the planet, so much the better. If it takes Tarkin's force to capture the planet, great, Tarkin's the hero responsible for taking it. If it fails, it's not Tarkin's fault, Sienar bungled his assignment. As for Anakin, Tarkin's task was to monitor and contain the Jedi, and that included assassinating stray Jedi. Tarkin doesn't seem to have been told about Anakin in particular, meaning he had no reason to lay off him.

5. It was Leor Hal.

 

I just read over the review excerpt of TAS that Rogue1-and-a-half posted and now I want to read the whole review. Seriously–more entertaining than that book by a thousand degrees.

 

What didn't you like about the AotC Anakin approach?