The Callista Trilogy

So I've just finished reading Planet of Twilight and, after looking through past reviews of the trilogy, feel I have some uncommon opinions of the novels. As a whole I thought the Hambly novels were excellent while Darksaber was the weakest of the triligy and all the EU books I have read so far. From what I have read, Darksaber is the best-reviewed book of the series. Anyway, since all the other threads about the CT have been locked I thought I'd make a new one to write my reviews of the trilogy and let everyone else write theirs.

Children of the Jedi was definitely one of the better SW books I've read. Though it certainly suffered a bit from over-dramatizing Luke's pain and the long descriptions of environments, I found it to be a great semi-mystery that leaves you guessing about the explanation of plot points. In addition, I loved Hambly's characters! It was a stoke of genius, IMO, to introduce another Emperor's Hand and show the effects the revelation has on Mara Jade. The idea of the heroes "breaking bread" with a stormtrooper and later "becoming" stormtroopers for a small time was an awsome plot point. The Eye of Palpatine was appropriately creepy, and the fact that every faction/species was working against one another added to the creepiness. Overall, not great as an action/thriller but excellent as an intrigue-themed novel.

Now on to Darksaber... where to begin. The Jedi Academy Trilogy was pretty good. A little amateurish, but it provided some fast-paced action and the backbone for basically every other subsequent work in the EU. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about Darksaber. It was anything but fast-paced, and besides the re-unification of the Empire (which I will admit was an amazing scene), provided nearly nothing for the future of the EU. The plot was terrible, from little rabbits building a superweapon to the designer who has the ability to be endlessly reincarnated. The two major villains, Durga and Daala, are both completely imcompetent. In fact, the only thing that kept me reading was the hope of an amazing climax which, unsurprisingly, never happened. The malfunction of the Darksaber was a terrible excuse for an ending to the story and the sad part is, I should have seen it coming. KJA even managed to tear to shreads Luke and Callista's relationship, ending it with Callista basically deciding "I don't need a master!" and running away.

Luckily, Barbara Hambly was there to give their relationship a proper ending. PoT, while not as gripping as CotJ, was nevertheless an excellent read, especially in terms of chracter development. The thing I most enjoyed about the novel was the major focus on Leia. Not only was her determination and bravery once again showcased, but so too were her fears and vulnerabilities. For the first time we see why she is reluctant to use the Force and how she copes with the fear of creating or becoming another Darth Vader. In addition to this, Luke and Callista bid their final farewells after a series of revelations that blew KJA's attempt to break them up out of the water. (Not to mention the fact that I regained the respect for Callista I had lost after reading Darksaber.) Their mutual respect for one another's choices really tied the book up in a bow and ended the Callista Trilogy on a bittersweet high note.

Anyway, sorry for the wall o' text. So what is everyone else's opinion?

 

As strange as it is, although I remember the rest of Darksaber fairly well, I can't remember Callista being in it at all.

 

My opinions? The whole trilogy pretty much consisted of good ideas that weren't realized very well, the reasoning behind Luke and Callista's breakup was pants, the parts of Planet of Twilight that focused on Luke & Leia were stellar, and Darksaber was - while not the best book in the trilogy - the fastest and easiest one for me to get through.

 

I agree with most of the OP's points. I've always adored Children of the Jedi. Darksaber was a book that drove me off the EU until the NJO series started.

 

I'm also one of those who share this opinion of the trilogy.

Children of The Jedi had great storylines - both in the adventure/thriller style which really helped me get a feel of exploring new places together with the characters. Luke's romance with Callista onboard the Eye was excellent. I think that this novel was not without drawbacks, like constant mentioning of Luke's injuries, overuse of Gamorreans, and somewhat hard to read prose. But still for me this novel is in line with the best Bantham books.

Planet of Twilight was definitely not up to that level overall, but still had some highlights. Once again we are able to explore a new setting, get a good feel for Leia, Luke, different factions of settlers. The drochs were way too creepy towards the end though

I won't get into details on Darksaber because it has already been discussed a lot, and I agree with OP's thoughts on it. Despite the fact that I don't like KJA's style and writing, I still enjoyed most of his works to some extent. But Darksaber was definitely the worst of them and left a strongly negative impression.

Meanwhile I saw multiple opposite opinions of the series so I guess it's just the way each of us understands and likes the novels.

 

Someone needs to bring this thread back to sanity and mention that the Callista novels are shrieking, hellish, published awfulness that should be burned.

I'm jus' sayin'.

 

Haters gonna hate.

 

Paraphrasing here, because I don't own the novels:

"I just want to be worthy of the Jedi Master that I love."

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRFFF.


Honestly, I didn't mind Callista that much until Darksaber. I thought she was interesting in CotJ and she had a lot of potential as a character. My problem was this: the body-switching was way too weird even for Star Wars, and being that these books were written before the prequels, her character was such a wasted opportunity for Luke to learn about the old Jedi Order.

As for the other plots, I actually thought it was interesting that CotJ included Mara and remembered that she was the Emperor's Hand (wow, continuity!), although it perpetuated the Mara/Lando weirdness. Mara's reaction to the revelation that she wasn't the only Hand was great. The Darksaber plotline made me scream. ANOTHER superweapon? Come on, KJA. Although Bevel Lemelisk and his never-ending deaths were interesting. I don't remember much of Planet of Twilight. I do remember thinking that Hambly wrote Luke as really weak.

So yeah. Novels I'd rather forget. Obviously I'm a Luke/Mara fan (points to avatar), but I don't HATE Callista. I actually think her character was wasted and would have really liked to see her come back in the NJO having regained her Force powers. They could have connected her to the Vong (them being separated from the Force) in a really interesting way. Instead, they killed her offscreen and used her to torture Luke some more. Sigh.

 

Just in case:

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/Biyu42/Foros/Lit/callistarules.jpg">

 

I thought Callista Would be back in Fate of the Jedi, or something post Mara. Did not think it would be as Chthullu chow.

 

She was. Luke and Callista went on this trip to get her Force powers back, which turned into Luke reciting an epic poem written by Luke about Luke.

Despite the ultimate Crowning Moment Of Awesome, Daala was stupider than usual. How do you lose nearly the entire Imperial fleet to just a few Jedi?

 

Yeah. This was where we saw the fearsome return of the one-armed wampa!

You probably just blocked the memory out because of how scary it was.

 

The thing for me though, is that I got into Star Wars EU around the second and third grade (unless you count GODV in first grade, which I don't). The first novels I read were the Jedi Academy ones, with the Thrawn trilogy close behind. I read Darksaber soon thereafter, and as a kid, it was a great read. I still have fond memories. Children of the Jedi, on the other hand, wasn't quite in the same category. I remember starting it when I was a kid, and getting bored with it fairly quickly. I was able to read through it later, but I still never really could get into it. I did like Planet of Twilight though.

But Darksaber will always be the best to me for nostalgia reasons, so long as I don't reread it

 

I agree with the review that started this thread. I have tried to refrain from commenting on this for a long time, but WOW. KJA is the worst SW author ever, IMO. I think he was fine as a YJK author, but reading his adult EU novels was like reading a sixth grade creative writing paper. There is actually a scene in Darksaber when Luke and Callista go to Dagobah, and he writes something along the lines of "the trees scraping the hull were as witches fingernails" or some such thing. Seriously? It's like he clings to the elementary school lessons of similes and metaphors and is incapable of writing anything deeper or more descriptive. I cringed through every one of his books. And I loved Children of the Jedi and Planet of Twilight, probably because they were very Luke and Leia focused. I thought the glimpses into their respective childhoods was a nice touch. But, I have to agree that the whole body switching thing was a little hokey.

 

I haven't read the others but Darksaber really isn't that bad. It isn't. It's certainly a markable improvement in the prose of JKA.

 

Ok, I will concede that point.

 

Dear god, if that was an improvement, what was it like originally?

Real lines from Darksaber:

"Below, the dense greenery looked like clouds of foliage."

"His face became the color of soggy white cheese"

"This battle station will be the size of a small moon a hundred kilometers in diameter."

"The structure rose like a giant ivory edifice"

"The air was still, as if stunned."

"...her mane of auburn hair thrashed about like waves of exotic spice."

I've probably read worse EU books overall, but Darksaber is the worst prose I've seen in SW (to be fair, I have not read JAT or YJK, so I reserve the opinion that they may top it). Besides the awful, awful use of simile, the text has little in the way of flow or spatial awareness; events just sort of plop their way onto the page, strung together seemingly at random as characters stand, sit, and move about rooms with no indication that they are doing so. And sometimes sentences just stop sounding like they're written in English, they have such bizarre structure or word choice.

When it's not busy being terrible, the prose is flat and leaden; when descriptions aren't overwrought they're completely missing (see above comment about lack of spatial awareness); and when it's not going insane with the figurative language or mutilated English, the overall effect is just to make everything seem boring. I'll limit myself to the prose, because I could go and have gone at some length about how terrible I think this book is, but that's old hat and there's other books with equally terrible plotting, dialogue, and/or characterization. Darksaber's prose, though, is a monster of its own.

Somehow, though, Bevel Lemelisk managed to make his way in from a better book, so I can't say it's entirely without merit.

I haven't read the other two, but I'd like to check out Children of the Jedi, since there seem to be some interesting concepts in there (even if, as I hear, the execution may be lacking).

 

The various similes on the level of "The thing was as green as a green thing" are really the highlight of the whole book. I mean, "This battle station will be the size of a small moon a hundred kilometers in diameter." There's got to be some kind of award for that. "The thing was the length of a foot-long thing." It's just sublime.

I'm just amazed every time that not only did KJA say this stuff out loud, and still went with it, but someone actually listened to it, and had the gall to type it up as-is. Rather than, you know, set the tapes on fire. Did they make an audiobook of this? I would love to hear someone actually read this out loud. Between spells of maniacal laughter.

 

Maybe he has a really sexy voice...

 

Read JAT, and wonder no more.

 

Dang, I said it's been years. I don't own a copy so I can't peruse the book for examples but I give the books props for actually having a story (however nonsensical) and using the actual original NJO members.

There are worse books. A worse book overall? TFUII and those last two by Karen Miller. At least there was an actual story in Darksaber. I'm not sure the same can be said for those TCW Gambit books. Seriously, TFUII is the most painful SW book in ever. In EVER.

 

My thoughts on the Callista trilogy:

CotJ ? I though it interesting enough and refreshingly different. The Eye of the Palpatine plotline was exciting and almost macabre, slightly off the usual SW note but not too far out. BH?s writing is evocative and rather powerful when it works ? and I though it worked here. As many have pointed out, Luke?s pain was somewhat overdone, but it worked well with the plot. Callista was a plausible heroine, if a bit too hyped IMHO. A bit more ?show it? instead of ?say it? would have been becoming.

In contrast, Leia?s plotline remained too strange and effect seeking to me and I remember Leia herself as uncharacteristically emotional and nervous. The idea of Jedi having children was good, seen from the perspective we all had in 1995, but the background with the purges that were set up against, was playing a bit too much to the gallery.

The droid contra living being theme that run though the story, starting with Cray and Nichos and culminating with Callista heriting Cray?s body, could have been very interesting if it had got more focus and had been contrasted with some humanity - but as it fell out, I though it troublesome. For example, Luke?s complete disinterest in Cray and her tragedy gave me a foul taste to my mouth. While she was captured and in agony he was busy cuddling with Callista and when she let up her life he didn?t even stop to think. She was his student for heavens sake! That?s not the Luke I know.

But despite all that, I enjoyed the book, it was a great read and I try not to waist too many deep thoughts over a SW book.


DS ? Ok, KJA and me, we just don?t work together. I must agree to all the critical comments above, with the addition that to me, it?s KJA?s shallow (to put it mildly) characterization that?s the worst. And with the question: why is DS better than JAT? JAT at least introduces something new, it builds up the EU where there was nothing before and while I don?t like what it comes up with, I still honor the effort. DS is just same old superweapon, same old Daala, same old Hutts, same old wampas? Ok, there?s nothing wrong with recycling but then at least do something with it!

What could have been a nice romance for Luke ? finally (I thought the EU wanted him to be a eunuch before he met Mara ) - was complete waisted by Callista being annoying. And the way she just left/ran off? I mean seriously ? wasn?t she meant to be some sort of heroine? The only spark in the book was the short Mara & Callie scene.

PoT - Here BH?s writing became too effect seeking for me. The idea of a galactic virus was very good but it sorta faded away in the twilight for the creepiness of the drochs. Leia and Luke meandered though the book as ghost of their old selves, Leia ill, Luke love-sick. Except for Artoo and Threepio (their part the only one I genuinely liked), Callista was the only character who had something to offer. She, on her part, again suffered of the same hyping as in CotJ. She was easy to like if you accept all that was stated about her but if you looked to what she did, she never filled out the shoes. I thought it was a pity, though ? she could have been a great character.

When all that is said, I think some people must love BH?s writing ? it?s very fluent and suggestive, and I think that if you jump on the wagon, it must be an enthralling ride. Me, it appeals to only partly, but I like that GFFA is big enough for so many of us. Because of that, I see CotJ and PoT as basically good contributions. While DS in quite another story?

 

And we learn wampas are sapient. What is it with indigs kidnapping people in Star Wars? Happens no less than three times.

roguejedi: KJA isn't as bad as the Black Fleet books.

LordH3O+: I've seen worse. I mean, "hair...like waves of exotic spice" has some imagery to it. Almost sensual imagery, really. Just the way to describe a woman from a male perspective. Although since "auburn" makes it sound like Daala, no, just no. "The air was still, as if stunned." has its uses, too. But "The structure rose like a giant ivory edifice." and "Below, the dense greenery looked like clouds of foliage." sound like KJA's writing.

"The size of a small moon, a hundred kilometers in diameter."

"Size of a small moon." is canon, but Charon is twelve times that. I know, I know, Nix and Hydra are smaller.