Books Heir to the Jedi by Kevin Hearne

Oh wow for some reason I thought this didn't come out for a while yet, Amazon just let me know I will have it in the mail on Tuesday. I've been looking forward to this one and the Sith book the most out of any of the new EU books.

 

I heard something about Heir to the Jedi having an earlier lift on the review embargo, but I thought I'd be conservative and wait until the official release before I posted my feelings about my review copy. Overall thoughts... it's good, ish? On its own it's pretty decent: Hearne is clearly very into Star Wars, and he's very familiar with the universe. It may be a new canon/NEU novel, but he is comfortable employing EU material. His writing also has a sense of humor and quirkiness to it -- the first person was a bit hard to get used to at first and sometimes the tone feels wrong for Luke, but the general feeling is decent enough. The tone is definitely more intimate, with Luke thinking a few times how smelly certain aliens are or how unnecessarily fancy a room is. So while the first person is strange for SW, HttJ employs it pretty well. However, he book is both my least favorite of the trilogy it's a part of (the EU Razor's Edge and Honor Among Thieves were more immediately riveting tales, while HttJ takes a while to get started) and my least favorite of the first three NEU adult novels. I don't know if that's a knock against the book per se, compared to how much I liked the others.

I've read other reviews, and there's a lot of discontent about how the book ends. I won't get into that in my review, but suffice it to say that I was also fairly unimpressed by the ending. It's a shame though, because the book would've been pretty decent without that. But it's just a fundamental misstep I think that there are problems.

At any rate, I think that if you like Luke it's worth reading. If you're into the Force, it's probably also worth reading. It's a smaller scale romp than the other books, and I like that about it.It doesn't get as strong a rec as AND or Tarkin* and there are reservations about how the ending panned out but I am generally in favor of supporting the newer books because I think that sales should be good so we can get some more NEU books that are also generally EU friendly. And the book does have some genuinely good moments. I wish I could give it a stronger rec given Hearne's general good performance, but the slow beginning and the mishandled ending make that tough.

* For all its flaws, the story in HttJ is definitely better than Tarkin. But Tarkin was just so chock-full of EU-saving continuity that it gets a pass. I mean, the entire book could've just been the two words "Ars Dangor" and I'd have excused the less than compelling plot.

Continuity notes below, behind the spoiler tag (but I won't get into the ending):

Spoiler

-- It's a good book for EU fans, generally. Hearne knows what he's doing. My favorite bits are these signs written in Galactic Standard (heavily implied to mean Aurebesh), and later on there's mention of our alphabet using High Galactic letters. I'm a big fan of High Galactic, as folks know, given that it's basically space Latin so it's nice to see it in canon. And I imagine jSarek will be pleased to learn that his contribution of HG as the Latin alphabet is preserved in canon.

-- There's also extensive discussion of Interdictor cruisers, specifically called Immobilizers again. But instead of being new tech, they're actually dated and considered inferior products. They're still rare, but mostly because the Empire stopped making them and tried to refit gravjectors to work on Star Destroyer platforms (so Interdictor Star Destroyers are also still a thing). They still take time to charge up and still block specific hyperspace vectors, as seen in Zahn's original stuff.

-- Lots of math. And stuff on Givin. And Givin love math. The chapter headings all have math... stuff all over them. I know just enough math to recognize everything but not enough to actually care. But some people will get a huge kick out of it. Regardless, it's creative and something you'd imagine would be important in a sci-fi book. I imagine Piggy (RIP Allston ) would love the Givin.

-- There are, however, some changes. One in particular was unexpected: there are pirates who use B-wings. Given how this is pre-ESB and the B-wings were supposedly the Rebels new high-tech fighter in the old EU, it's certainly a change to see them around early and in the hand of pirates. Things are changin' I guess.

-- There was a random jogan fruit namedrop.

-- The Force... it's interesting because it's first person, but there's a sense of agency to the Force. Of both light and dark being almost conscious. But to forestall the inevitable arguments, Luke also has the thought that it might just be his way of interpreting what he's feeling. Either way, it's interesting. Hearne had the brainstorm that we never actually see Luke learning how to do telekinesis, so his ability to work with that is a constant theme throughout the book. It generally works well, and it's something that is only scarcely touched on in the old EU anyway, so it felt pretty fresh. There's a little wrinkle near the end that I dislike (Luke coming close to a "size matters not" realization) but other than that, it's good.

Character comments behind the tag:

Spoiler

-- Nakari is an interesting character. I read other reviews to see what people think of her -- some people see her as an interesting, exciting character and a welcome POC addition, while others think she was a little much. I tend towards the former in that I found her interesting, although I am always wary of the "Luke meets an awesome woman" pattern since that happened so much in the EU. But she's cool, and I'd be interested to know what people think of her. I'll leave it at that though, since this isn't really a continuity comment.

-- Luke is generally pretty on target. He's humble and awkward, can sometimes be a little intense. Sometimes the tone feels a bit off though, especially when he gets a bit philosophical or too scientific-sounding. That doesn't feel like Luke to me, at least not at this stage in the game. I can see post-ROTJ Luke being very philosophical though. It's pretty decent though, as I said above. We get to see his piloting skills, which is nice. And we can see the farmboy in him when he has to deal with aliens or travel to worlds unlike Tatooine.

 

I also liked Tarkin quite a bit. Getting ready to start this book here soon!

 

One example:

The sum from i=1 to n of (Chapter 3 sub i) all over n - 1.


Missa ab iPhona mea est.