Review of
Splinter of the Mind's Eye
Published:
February 1978
Reviewer Rating:
Avg User Rating:
(2.90)
For having very litter SW content to pull from, this was a real darn good book! It really laid the foundation for our EU super well. We got kaiburr crystals, force healing , untrained Luke dipping into wells of natural power, duly arrogant imperials, Vader losing a limb, and an unforgettable cavernous planet for this adventure to take place in. Beyond, lie my further expressed and expanded upon thoughts of this book.
Often times in Star Wars novels, I've felt that everything for the characters happens fast, with travel being a burdenless breeze in most plot-related regards. I was very happy to find Foster including that the crew's travels on Mimban were never simple day trips. On foot, Leia and Luke's first excursion from their crash sight to town took multiple days, relying constantly on rations for survival. To get from the town to the Temple, Halla estimated a 7-10 day journey, even in their crawler vehicle. Much later, after the huge battle between the Coways and Imps, they had another couple of days rest as they traveled the final leg to the temple. I'm only a little ashamed to say that it had never hit me that no matter how fictitious a planet is, it'll probably be very large and take a long time to traverse. Noting that, I was a little disappointed that the planet Mimban is seemingly one whole jungle. In other early Star Wars works, like the Ewok Adventures, we get to see that not even Endor is all forest.
Related to travel, I appreciated Foster's inclusion of travel supplies. Halla informs the group that their crawler is stocked with enough rations to last for about two weeks (if my memories serves) and that the crawler itself has fuel for a similar length journey. Throughout battles, Luke is also conscientious of his blaster's charge. We're never hit with the convenient plot shield of unlimited energy cells; whenever Luke is able to, he swaps out semi depleted blasters for fresh ones, and on numerous occasions even uses some cells to recharge his saber. All that said, R2 and 3PO went the whole novel without ever needing a charge... no book is perfect.
The original goal of the characters was to reach Cicarpous IV for a meeting with an underground rebellion movement. From the get-go, Leia was understandably worried about being late to it. However, her worry and anxiousness with getting to the meeting on time never dies out. It's brought up numerous times on the planet: after a few days there, about a week and a half in, and probably around the two week point (don't quote me though). I really have to wonder why she would still be worried about arriving on time after they are most definitely late and no longer looking presentable.
The fighting in this book was super enjoyable, and man oh man, there was a lot of it. From the earliest fight with the other miners, to escaping the Imperial prison, to all of the Coway fights, and finally the fight against Vader; it all flowed incredibly and kept me wanting to turn the page. I especially loved the battle techniques of the primitive Coway people. Their stealth and ability to suddenly disappear in the caverns made me think of Tolkien's goblins coming out of every single crack in the cave walls. Luke's fight with Vader was also very convincing. Generally when I'm reading through fights with main/reoccurring characters, I'm not at all enthused, as their fate is usually secure. This book turned that around because.. well, Luke died! If it weren't for his raw force abilities, he wouldn't have stood any more chance than Leia against Vader, who pulled quite a few tricks out of his sleeve. That Chi ball he formed, which Wookieepedia tells me is called a kinetite, was pretty cool sounding. I'm honestly pretty surprised it hasn't been used much in other novels.
About halfway through, R2 was referred to as a D2 unit which is I don't believe is "correct". But let's be real, what is correct when talking about the first Star Wars book ever that wasn't a novel version of a movie. Another techy note was that every use of the word droid was written as if a truncation of android: 'droid. Moving away from those rather unimportant details, for the first half of the book, Leia wouldn't shut up with her sass and unending questions, which honestly somehow never got annoying. That's not to say that I wasn't relieved when it finally ended. From time to time, she was shown dealing with trauma from Tarkin and Vader's interrogation on the Death Star (SWIV). I found this to be a really cool aspect to include, as its seemed to have gone unnoted elsewhere that in all fictitious reality, she underwent brutal torture at Vader's hand. Her trauma from the experience was even enough to request that Luke kill her before letting Vader recapture her.
I will acknowledge that there were still some issues in this book when it comes to my personal views of the Star Wars universe. Those would mainly be applied to individual character's actions or thoughts in response to specific events. But in the end, this book was written in 1978, with only one movie, a novelization, and a handful of mediocre comics (that probably were coming out as this book was being written) to base it's main characters off of. So to restate my intro, this book really was a thrilling and compelling fast-paced intro to the Star Wars Universe... BUT WHY COULDN'T LUKE HAVE USED THE KAIBURR TO BRING BACK THE YUZZEM. Oh well.
5/5
Often times in Star Wars novels, I've felt that everything for the characters happens fast, with travel being a burdenless breeze in most plot-related regards. I was very happy to find Foster including that the crew's travels on Mimban were never simple day trips. On foot, Leia and Luke's first excursion from their crash sight to town took multiple days, relying constantly on rations for survival. To get from the town to the Temple, Halla estimated a 7-10 day journey, even in their crawler vehicle. Much later, after the huge battle between the Coways and Imps, they had another couple of days rest as they traveled the final leg to the temple. I'm only a little ashamed to say that it had never hit me that no matter how fictitious a planet is, it'll probably be very large and take a long time to traverse. Noting that, I was a little disappointed that the planet Mimban is seemingly one whole jungle. In other early Star Wars works, like the Ewok Adventures, we get to see that not even Endor is all forest.
Related to travel, I appreciated Foster's inclusion of travel supplies. Halla informs the group that their crawler is stocked with enough rations to last for about two weeks (if my memories serves) and that the crawler itself has fuel for a similar length journey. Throughout battles, Luke is also conscientious of his blaster's charge. We're never hit with the convenient plot shield of unlimited energy cells; whenever Luke is able to, he swaps out semi depleted blasters for fresh ones, and on numerous occasions even uses some cells to recharge his saber. All that said, R2 and 3PO went the whole novel without ever needing a charge... no book is perfect.
The original goal of the characters was to reach Cicarpous IV for a meeting with an underground rebellion movement. From the get-go, Leia was understandably worried about being late to it. However, her worry and anxiousness with getting to the meeting on time never dies out. It's brought up numerous times on the planet: after a few days there, about a week and a half in, and probably around the two week point (don't quote me though). I really have to wonder why she would still be worried about arriving on time after they are most definitely late and no longer looking presentable.
The fighting in this book was super enjoyable, and man oh man, there was a lot of it. From the earliest fight with the other miners, to escaping the Imperial prison, to all of the Coway fights, and finally the fight against Vader; it all flowed incredibly and kept me wanting to turn the page. I especially loved the battle techniques of the primitive Coway people. Their stealth and ability to suddenly disappear in the caverns made me think of Tolkien's goblins coming out of every single crack in the cave walls. Luke's fight with Vader was also very convincing. Generally when I'm reading through fights with main/reoccurring characters, I'm not at all enthused, as their fate is usually secure. This book turned that around because.. well, Luke died! If it weren't for his raw force abilities, he wouldn't have stood any more chance than Leia against Vader, who pulled quite a few tricks out of his sleeve. That Chi ball he formed, which Wookieepedia tells me is called a kinetite, was pretty cool sounding. I'm honestly pretty surprised it hasn't been used much in other novels.
About halfway through, R2 was referred to as a D2 unit which is I don't believe is "correct". But let's be real, what is correct when talking about the first Star Wars book ever that wasn't a novel version of a movie. Another techy note was that every use of the word droid was written as if a truncation of android: 'droid. Moving away from those rather unimportant details, for the first half of the book, Leia wouldn't shut up with her sass and unending questions, which honestly somehow never got annoying. That's not to say that I wasn't relieved when it finally ended. From time to time, she was shown dealing with trauma from Tarkin and Vader's interrogation on the Death Star (SWIV). I found this to be a really cool aspect to include, as its seemed to have gone unnoted elsewhere that in all fictitious reality, she underwent brutal torture at Vader's hand. Her trauma from the experience was even enough to request that Luke kill her before letting Vader recapture her.
I will acknowledge that there were still some issues in this book when it comes to my personal views of the Star Wars universe. Those would mainly be applied to individual character's actions or thoughts in response to specific events. But in the end, this book was written in 1978, with only one movie, a novelization, and a handful of mediocre comics (that probably were coming out as this book was being written) to base it's main characters off of. So to restate my intro, this book really was a thrilling and compelling fast-paced intro to the Star Wars Universe... BUT WHY COULDN'T LUKE HAVE USED THE KAIBURR TO BRING BACK THE YUZZEM. Oh well.
5/5
