"The Crystal Star," by Vonda N. McIntyre [Bantam, 1994]

5/10

It's not a very good book.
We all have seen it many times ...
And Waru was ... weird ...
Not that bad also ...

 

10/10 because i like weirdness. and i'm weird.

 

I just picked this book up at a used bookstore yesterday, and right now I'm thankful that I didn't throw away more money then I did.

This book is terrible. I have come to that conclusion after forcing myself to read through the first third of the book. The writing style and quality is very poor, and Luke, Leia, Han, and C-3PO are all painfully out of character. Reading through this book has been almost like a chore, and I doubt I'll try to finish it. "Abysmal" is the word that comes to mind when describing the book.

 

The worst star wars novel ever. I thought that the plot was overdone, the Solo Childred being captured, a rogue Imperial wanting to get the empire back with a bunch of dark jedi. Where did all those force sensetive people come from in the first place? This book was just plain bad.

 

3
Everybody acted out of character and this did not feel like a Star Wars book, more like Star Trek.

 

Hey, I bought the book at a garage sale for a quarter. I feel that I got ripped. Though the minor character development was ok, such as Jacen and Jaina.

 

I got lucky--my parents bought it for me at a used bookstore. So I paid nothing, and they paid less than the cover price.

Which, in retrospect, is far more than it's worth.

 

5

I enjoyed it and read it very quickly. The ending was a bit lacking though. I think Vonda writes better Star Trek than Star Wars (keep the Trek coming!).

 

Man, the reviews for this book are terrible. I just started reading it and I don't think it's that bad. There is no way I feel this is the worst Star Wars book I have ever read, that honor would have to go to Children of the Jedi. That was a labor to read, as was Planet of Twilight. Guess I just don't like Hambly's writing style.

 

It was pretty bad. The only reason I finished reading it was so that I could say that I have read all the books in my collection.

 

1/10, too bad there isn't an option for negative numbers. The story doesn't erally advance any part of a storyline, and has no real impact on the overall NR, basically, it could've been skipped, and would've made no difference.

All the characters seemed totally wrong, and that orange people eater things Waru(sorry if my description is totally wrong, I don't have the book anywhere near me and I'm happy to be able to say that.) was probably the worst/weirdest villain ever.

 

Vonda N. McIntyre should be banned from ever again even thinking about Star Wars. This is the worst book I have ever read!

 

I could not even finish it. nuff said...

 

A Trekkie's Attempt to Ruin Star Wars.

I'd give it a ZERO if I could, but that wasn't an option. This book read like the worst of Star Trek novels. Luke acted like a latter-day fusion of Kirk & Spock, and the whole "Waru" concept reeked of Star Trek influence. By the end of this novel, I felt like I had read a novelization of Star Trek V with the Trek characters' names crossed out and replaced with Star Wars characters instead.

Vonda N. McIntyre should never write another Star Wars book. Ever. She's better suited to low-concept Buffy fanfic.

 

y'know, it's been a few years since i read this book but i remember that i actually kinda liked it/ granted it wasn't the greatest thing ever but i don't remember thinking anything that really bothered me about the book... i give it a 7 of 10

 

I couldn't decide what to rate this book for one reason. When I first read this I was about 11 years old and I thought the book was pretty good. A few things annoyed me, but overall I enjoyed it, I'd probably have given it an 8 then. Recently I picked it up and had the same experience some of you described, I couldn't get through the first 5 pages. Now I'd give it a 1. So maybe I should just give it a 4.5 ?

 

I read this book when it first came out, and it instantly became my least favorite piece of Star Wars literature (although I couldn't get past Chapter 1 of Children of the Jedi).

All I remember from it was the out of character behavior of characters like Luke and Han, the "Home Alone" like escape of Jacen and Jaina from Hethrir's ... umm ... day care center?, and Luke's obsession with this "Waru", which is a cross between a Star Trek 1960's villain and a super mario brothers level boss.

Luke: WARU WARU! I MUST FIND WARU!
Han: Easy kid, you seem to be kind of sick.
Luke: **** UP HAN! WARU WILL BE MY BEST FRIEND!

That's a bit of paraphrasing of one of the worst scenes in the book.

 

although not the worst SW book i have read, Bakura is it for me and i havent read past this one yet, it is a close second. It is also the book that stopped me from reading other SW books, i could only see it getting worse from here. I hated the whole luke romance ideas, and i knew that from then on all SW books would have to use this crap as backstory. So without finishing this stinker i gave up on the EU...

 

If I ever was to burn a book, The Crystal Star would be it. It is so horrible, I can't even describe it.

 

3.

This would have made an excellent Star Trek novel. But as a Star Wars book...no.

The only segments I enjoyed were the Jacen and Jaina bits. And I liked the characters Lusa, Rillao, and Xaverri.

But as for the rest...BLECH!!!!

Leia sucked, Han sucked, Luke absolutely sucked (never before had his character been so thoroughly mutilated as he was in this tripe). The worst scene: Luke accusing Han of cheating on his wife. WTF was up with that? Yeah, yeah, I know, the crystal star thing was influencing him, but whatever, it was stupid. Waru and Hethrir were two of the worst villains in the history of SW. Tigris was absolutely pointless. And a purple Threepio...nuff said.

Awful. Just awful. Definitely in my Bottom Five.

 

I hated this book. that's all.

 

Waru? ugh, and Luke sitting here going "O Han, im sick, i need Waru to heal me" and trying to go up to get healed, i mean cummon! and what the hell was Waru anyway? how he just dissapeared with Hethrir was so cheesy

 

Rebel scum the waru was a super natural being like the jedi who become one with the force.Vonda McIntyre is a great scifi writer just not starwars. her concept was great yet she could have been more apealing in the wayshe wrote the book. the prison was petty with the kids and tigris. tigris and his mom had the best parts and made the best plot. Hethir was...............an uncapable of doing his emporer reborn movement because he was a person who was a 3rd generation jedi. a hopeless person to lead.

 

Wierd!!!!!!!!

 

Sithspawn, the reviews in this thread are hilarious!

I'm not going to rate it without rereading it, and considering I haven't done so more than twice since published says something for it.

It's kid's book, aimed at kids, kid characters and all. How does that appeal to the older age audience? The stars of the show are not much more than toddlers. Mind you, toddlers that have an amazing grasp of science and thinking, but hey, it's a different galaxy out there, more advanced, not like this primative Earth where sliding doors are still relatively new.

It was a weird book, and back then, before moving planets and starfighters generating miniture black holes, it just wasn't on. Who had ever heard of a star having an affect on the Force? And bloody how? Just because they're eating each other? Nowadays, we have many places where the Force is prevalent: Dathomir, Nam Chorios, Ossus, and a few others.

But was it that bad? A break from the next Imperial-New Rep battle. Something small scale, quiet.

It was never mentioned how Hethrir found all those Force potentials to later test them. A Force-battery saber was creative. But how the hell does look like? I wouldn't have minded knowing its shape and length; to give readers an idea, you know. At that time in publishing, we had never really seen Leia fly a ship, so it made you wonder "She can pilot!"

Luke was horrible, of course. So he can't think properly, big deal. Doesn't mean you turn into a vegetable. Solo was all right, and it introduced a past love interest, the first time in SW we'd seen that. Tigris supplied emotional drive, and the little Solo kidlings would have delighted all those readers of preadolescant age, which I probably didn't spell right.

This book was a first, actually---the characters were creditless! All the time, you see them with limitless funds, resources, dollar dazzlers, but not here. They were borderline poor. How does Luke live, who pays him? It's a silly question, but is it? He gets a government pension?

The precursor to the Vong worldship, the worldcraft. What a massive amount of resources that would have been.

There were some interesting aliens, and for Sith's sake, original! Not endless Corellians, Rodians, Twi'leks. There was the multitentacled Indexter info broker; the ethereal Ghostling, which I think also featured in the hard to locate Anakin Skywalker Episode 1 pocket RPG adventure game book; that Enhanced Human with the odd name.

Waru actually wasn't a bad concept. It's a big galaxy out there, remember. Why not? What ruined him was that transdimensional stunt at the end. But he was a perfectly feasible character.

Was Ferrero mentioned by Isolder in COPL, when stargazing with Djo? But as a Jedi healer it's a pity Rillao hasn't been mentioned, although did Luceno have her in that huge Jedi list at the end of TUF?

Bottom line: 5 /10