Ugh, this was bad. So, so, so, so bad. I can’t believe I never knew how bad this was when I read it fourteen years ago. The first one wasn’t this bad! What’s going on? I mean, this is just BAD WRITING 101. If I was teaching a How to Write Fiction class, I would use this book as the perfect example of what NOT to do.
This is going to be a bit different than my normal reviewing style; I’m going to do one with actual quotes and stuff, because I attacked my copy of the book with a pen and wrote angry profane notes the whole time I was reading, and I don’t want all that effort to go to waste. For those of you who don’t want to read what I’m sure will be an epically long review full of complaining, here’s a general overview of the stuff that I’m going to say about Dark Apprentice, the second book in KJA’s Jedi Academy trilogy:
*some good ideas, all bad execution of everything
*shit character work, INSULTINGLY bad character work
*repetitive, no attention to detail
*laughable dialogue
*uses callbacks to the movies in place of being smart and original, thinks such callbacks are fun and clever, but they are just hacky
*everything is stupid
*sexist (his treatment of Leia, Mara Jade, and his own Admiral Daala, especially)
*he fills the book with pointless storylines when he should be focusing on fleshing out the main ones, like the Jedi Academy, Kyp going bad, etc.
So let’s elaborate.
*some good ideas, all bad execution of everything
Just so this entire review isn’t an exercise in complete negativity, I do want to mention that not everything about this book was bad. In fact, it had the bones of a good Star Wars adventure story in it, which is perhaps why in the end it’s so disappointing. Luke starts Jedi Academy and has to figure out what it means to be a Jedi, and how to be a good teacher? Great potential. Leia has troubles getting the New Republic into shape? Not my favorite use of Leia, but it could have been good. Han mentors a troubled kid? Definite potential. Troubled kid has Jedi powers and things go badly when he’s exposed to the spiritual remains of one of the most powerful dark Jedi in history? Totally full of potential. Female Imperial Admiral tries to revitalize the dying Empire after having been sequestered from the rest of the galaxy for ten years? Yup, could have been great. And literally NONE of the potential in any of these ideas pans out. The only storyline that comes even remotely close to being competently executed is the one with Admiral Ackbar and the crashed ship on the alien wind-chime planet. But even that is undermined by some rather inane plotting that relies too much on contrivances and coincidences.
*shit character work, INSULTINGLY bad character work
Bad character work is perhaps at the heart of why this series (and this book in particular) turned out so horribly. If KJA had a true understanding of these characters (or at least, a true understanding of how to portray them accurately using his writing toolbox), the bad plotting wouldn’t have been so egregious, especially because if you’re doing it right, good character work actually drives your plot. KJA seems to work the other way around, and his characters suffer for it. And then the whole book suffers. Take this scene from the very first chapter, where Luke is bemused by the shipment that arrives at his new Jedi Academy on Yavin IV:
“Judging from the material–the unnecessary material–included in the shipment, Leia herself must have compiled the cargo list. Exotic food synthesizers, comfortable clothes, heaters, humidity-neutralizers, even a few hollow Ithorian wind chimes.” [emphasis mine]
Look, KJA, he just doesn’t get Leia. At all. First of all, why the hell is Leia packing their supply shit in the first place? Get someone else to do it–that lady has better things to do, like gee, I don’t know RUNNING THE NEW REPUBLIC. And shouldn’t there be some kind of supply list anyway? Second, if Leia HAD packed it, she would have packed the shit out of it with all kinds of practical crap shoved up in there. Leia is a boss, and KJA seems determined to explore every last single way he can steal that identity right out from under her. (I have more to say about his treatment of Leia, but it’s mostly below in the ‘sexist’ part of this review.)
Perhaps the most egregious out of character moment, besides Luke just generally being an incompetent Jedi and teacher, is the sabacc game KJA forces upon Han and Lando. After learning that Leia has just been in a severe crash (inciting an emergency state on a diplomatic mission, no less), Han comes in to the hangar bay raring to go, in a bad mood, immediately treating Lando like shit because he’s worried about his wife. But then unaccountably, he decides to have a pissing contest with Lando and waste time playing a game to secure his masculine ownership of the Millennium Falcon, which was already secure, before they head out to pick up his wife, which is supposablly the reason he’s so upset in the first place. It’s entirely convoluted and made up just because KJA wanted Han to lose the Falcon for some stupid reason. This is bad storytelling (story leading character, rather than character leading story) and it also betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of who Lando and Han are as characters, reducing them to masculine stereotypes rather than the grown-ass men they’ve matured into over the years. It’s imbecilic.
It’s little stuff like this the whole book, for every character, that just keeps adding up. KJA’s versions of these characters are not ones that I recognize. And all of his made up characters are walking paper people, especially the Jedi students, who each have exactly one identifying characteristic, and no more.
*repetitive, no attention to detail
The sabacc game is the scene that just keeps giving:
“I’m getting tired of this, Lando,” Han said. “First I won the Falcon from you in a sabacc game on Bespin, then you won her back from me in the diplomatic lounge on Coruscant, and I won her back from you en route to Mon Calamari. Enough is enough. This is our last hand.”
My notes from this part just say, “Ugh stop repeating yourself” in angry black pen. This is just one example of how KJA repeats himself over and over again, having characters either spout useless dialogue or remember things occurring, a repetition that is designed solely to remind his readers of things that JUST HAPPENED, but which he must think we’re all too dumb to remember. Most of his characters’ inner monologues are, no joke, so and so remembering when something happened, like that’s supposed to be character development or something, but again, either it JUST HAPPENED or he’s already had that same character reminisce about those events in that exact same way at least three or four times before in the same novel (like the many, many times Admiral Daala “remembers” her “lover,” Grand Moff Tarkin, GAG). It is bothersome and insulting to me as a reader.
I didn’t actually take enough notes to support my assertion that he doesn’t have a good attention to detail, and yes, I’m aware of the irony there. But my lack of notes is maybe also an indication that I’m right. If something isn’t there, it’s harder for me to underline it with my pen and then make snarky remarks in the margins. But don’t worry, where crucial scenes and character moments lack detail, we have plenty on such plot treasures as Threepio acting as babysitter to Jaina and Jacen, and plenty on their seemingly pointless escapade into the Coruscant undercity. If he really wanted us to go there, he could have found a more plausible way to do it, or possibly, used those chapters to develop his actual characters and plot instead.
*laughable dialogue
There were almost too many examples of this one, sadly, but here are the first two I came across while flipping back through the book:
“We hope to hear soon that some of your students are ready to help with our struggle against the Empire. These are still desperate times. We can’t let our guard slip for a moment.”
My margin note reads, “Training takes TIME you IDIOTS.” For context, this is Leia’s dialogue, said to Luke, approximately two weeks after the opening of his Jedi Academy. Yup, Leia, two weeks is good training time for a Jedi. Those Jedis, they’re almost done cooking for you! (I can tell you why this dialogue was actually written, and that’s because KJA needed to shoehorn Leia into the action at the academy somehow and couldn’t think of anything substantial for her to say.) And the actual wording? Who even talks like that. You don’t think Luke fucking knows how desperate things are? Oh, but no, they’re really desperate. EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT NOW! Nothing bad could possibly happen with super-speedy non-thorough Jedi training! Except . . . it does, pretty much immediately:
“I don’t know what to do, Luke,” Han said.
Luke nodded grimly. “Neither do I.”
This is said after the young and powerful Kyp Durron, who has been at Jedi training for about three minutes total, decides he is all trained up and has surpassed Luke, so he’s going to be all powerful and take down the Empire all by himself. Again, this is filler dialogue, said because KJA needed Han and Luke to speak to each other, even though they are saying nothing. How in the hell do two of the most well-trained warriors and strategists in the galaxy not know what to do? It’s not like they’re even discussing how to take him down, just what to do now that he’s gone. Go find him, idiots! It’s pretty fucking simple!
And then later, when Luke catches up to Kyp, we get this gem:
“Skywalker, it’s embarrassing for me to listen to you talk. You are afraid to risk anything yourself, yet you want to call yourself a Jedi Master. It doesn’t work that way. You’ve stunted the training of your other Jedi candidates because of your own narrow-mindedness. Perhaps I should just defeat you here and now, and then I can take over their training.”
My notes just say, “you are stupid and dumb.” And it’s even more stupid and dumb if you have the full context. Kyp is eighteen years old. He knows nothing about the universe, or about Luke’s history, or about how to be a Jedi. He’s been at Jedi training for seriously no time at all, like less than a week, and he’s decided to read more into the dubious words of a dark mysterious spirit who isn’t suspicious AT ALL than those of his teacher. Granted, Luke sucks at teaching and very much did not provide Kyp with the knowledge he really needed to avoid the Dark Side, but still. KJA clearly thinks his Luke is an awesome teacher, so you can’t exactly use that excuse. Plus, WHO SERIOUSLY TALKS LIKE THAT. NO HUMAN THAT’S WHO.
*uses callbacks to the movies in place of being smart and original, thinks such callbacks are fun and clever, but they are just hacky
Another fun useless side plot is how KJA makes Wedge Antilles fall in love with an alien scientist and their love turns both of them into morons. Anyway, they visit Ithor, you know, where the Ithorians live. These guys:
And the first Ithorian they meet decides to say this:
“I was also in the cantina in Mos Eisley when Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan-Kenobi first met Captain Solo. I did not know my brush with history at that time, but I remember it clearly, though I was preoccupied with . . . other concerns at the time.”
“I’m amazed you could recall a meeting like that after so many years,” Wedge said.
After a long pause Nadon finally said, “Ithorians have long memories.”
WTF THAT IS SO BAD I CAN’T EVEN. I mean, is that supposed to be a fun call back? Because it’s not. It’s awful. And that’s not even taking into account the utterly bizarre way that Nadon keeps implying something else is going on: “preoccupied with . . . other concerns at the time,” and that “long pause.” You can tell because of the ELLIPSES. And then literally nothing comes of this. It is pointless and dumb and I hate it.
In the first book, KJA also misquotes the most famous line in the franchise, “No, I am your father.” So he can’t even get that right.
*everything is stupid
Almost everything could fit into this category. It was super hard not to just stick it all in here. (that’s what she said)
From the first chapter:
“Gossip?” Wedge asked, laughing. “That doesn’t sound like something that would interest a Jedi master.”
(My note: “No. No it doesn’t, Wedge!”) Wedge has arrived on Yavin with a cargo shipment, the one from my example above in the “shit character work” section. And because this is the first chapter of a second book and KJA thinks we’re all idiots, the entire chapter is Luke asking Wedge for gossip from Coruscant so we can know what’s going on, because KJA clearly couldn’t think of any other way as an author to give us that information. Nope, let’s have Luke do something out of character, and have this other character we like talk in a way that humans don’t talk, just so we can get this exposition out of the way. Yup, it’s GENIUS. Not to mention, Luke would already know this information. There’s no way he wouldn’t. And this is how the exposition dump ends:
“That’s just scratching the surface of everything going on back on Coruscant.”
Sigh.
The Luke/Kyp/Jedi Academy plot is really the locus of stupid in this book. Here’s Luke ruminating on Kyp’s power, before the kid shows up at the Academy:
“In his entire Jedi search Luke had never encountered such power.” [emphasis mine]
Really, his ENTIRE search? Because it was such an extensive search, doncha know. All THREE places he visited. All FIVE students he recruited. All those DAYS of time and WEEKS of experience searching for Jedi . . . he’s acting like Luke has any kind of basis for the judgments he’s making. Luke is flying blind when it comes to different kinds of Jedi, and he’s acting like he’s not. This entire plot would have been so much better had Luke acknowledged how in over his head he was, or had he actually behaved like a Jedi master. This in between thing is not credible.
This next one kills me:
“Ever since Han had rescued Kyp from his slavery in the spice mines of Kessel, the young man had clung to him. After years of wrongful Imperial imprisonment, Kyp had missed the best years of his life. Han vowed to make up for that.” [emphasis mine]
First of all, calm down, it’s been a month. “Ever since” is not the appropriate phrasing for that kind of time frame. And why the hell is Han on a fucking ski vacation with a toddler, when Leia is off stressing the fuck out because she can’t spend time with her kids? Why isn’t Han all the time stressing about how much time he spends with his kids? He’s away just as much, if not more, than Leia (see “sexist” section below for answer). Also, his first impulse activity with a damaged kid is to take him skiing? WTF? And what’s with making vows? They’re not that close.
I mentioned it briefly up above, but the romance between Qwi Xux and Wedge is truly nausea inducing. It actually reminds me very strongly, in the worst way, of the courtship scenes from Attack of the Clones. Granted it’s not quite as bad as, “I’m haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. My heart is beating… hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me… what can I do?” but it’s pretty close to Anakin pawing Padme while telling her, “I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.” Here’s a sample:
“The breeze grew paradoxically warmer with nightfall, and she felt her feathery hair drifting about. She straightened it with her slender fingers, knowing that Wedge liked to see her pearly strands glistening in the light. She had changed into a soft wrap swirled with pastel colors that accentuated the ethereal beauty of her wispy body.”
SHUT IT DOWN.
I really can’t emphasize enough that Luke is the worst teacher and his Academy is a joke. His idea of training is to let the students faff around and “find themselves”, find themselves in the jungle, on the roof, in the mess hall, just finding themselves everywhere basically. When he does bother to formalize their education into lectures, of which we only have ONE scene, he is supposedly giving them a history lesson, but it literally takes two paragraphs and then it’s done, and afterwards he provides ZERO context for his students, there is no discussion, and they are left entirely to themselves to interpret the useless information they just heard. There is no instruction about what it means to be a Jedi. No guiding principles, no philosophy. No explanation of what it means to be tempted by the Dark Side, and how to avoid it. Just, the Dark Side is bad, y’all! Frankly I’m surprised only two of Luke’s students ended up on the Dark Side. All of them were at risk with that kind of lax education.
This is the kind of thing that convinces Kyp to go Dark:
Exar Kun loomed over Kyp, hovering closer even though he didn’t appear to have taken a step. “You have already learned more than Skywalker will ever know, my student.”
It’s been a week! How thick can you get.
This one is so bad it goes beyond stupid to some other realm. By the text’s own admission, Mara Jade thinks a couple of days of Jedi training is all she needs:
“Luke, I’ve had enough of this!” . . . She had stayed on the jungle moon a few days, long enough to learn how to use her own Jedi skills . . .
NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
“I can’t deny what I’ve learned here, Luke.”
You have literally learned nothing.
And lastly, remember that Ithorian guy that Qwi and Wedge meet on their trip? He goes out of his way to tell them that “Hammerheads” is considered an offensive term for his species, and then near the end of the book, the text, the author, REFERS TO THAT CHARACTER as “the Hammerhead Momaw Nadon” in the narrative. After he expressly told them it was offensive! What the fuck.
*sexist (his treatment of Leia, Mara Jade, and his own Admiral Daala, especially)
“Now, though, she felt torn between her duties as Minister of State and her duties as Han Solo’s wife and as mother to three children.”
Fuck you. Enough of this working mother trying to have it all bullshit. Is this really the story you choose to explore, the most interesting Leia story possible??? I hated this whole trilogy-long arc he’s got going on for Leia even when I read this book as a sixteen year old, but I couldn’t ever pinpoint the exact reason. And what do you know, with the eyes of an adult, we have answers! It’s just yet another bullshit example of an author who can’t find any interesting stories to tell about a working mother other than OH NO HOW DO I HAVE IT ALL. Han doesn’t sit there moaning about having a work life and a family life. He just gets his shit done. And he’s HAN. Leia is the one who wears the pants. Leia is the practical one, the one with her shit together. That this tired story is the one he chose to tell of her is just lazy. Han gets to grapple with helping a young man recover from trauma. Luke gets to grapple with good and evil, and maturing into his Jedi powers. And Leia gets crap all. Think of new stories for your mothers, authors. We are done with this narrative.
“Just like vornskyrs hissing at each other in a territorial dispute,” Mara said, shaking her head. Her exotic, spice-colored hair hung to one side. She did nothing to make herself look attractive, yet somehow it worked to her advantage.
My notes say, “Oh good I’m so glad you approve.” But so much more than the narrator/Lando approving of Mara being attractive is wrong with this excerpt. Firstly, there’s the implication that her looks are the important thing here, not the fact that she just made an astute observation, or that she’s a fucking badass, or that she has emotions like a human person. Nope, her looks. Comment on those and move on! Second, this is basically a giant fuck you to any woman who has to WORK HARD to make herself look good. Those poor schlubs, so obsessed with good looks! Even though if they don’t have good looks, they will be judged. Even though if they didn’t try, they would be judged. And don’t even get me started if they try and they’re still ugly! But Mara is the perfect woman, because she’s beautiful without even trying, and that is the dream. She is unsullied by womankind’s obsession with making themselves look better to appease men’s desires for them to be beautiful! How dare we try. How dare we succumb to the pressures put on us by society as women. How dare we.
Also lando is so gross with her in their chapters together. He’s moved beyond lovable sleeze to just plain sleeze, and it’s clear to me that KJA was trying to take Mara away from Luke and put her with Lando, and just, GAG ME.
And then of course there’s Admiral Daala, KJA’s own creation, who only seems to think of two things when we are in her head: her dead lover Grand Moff Tarkin (and she seriously mentions that he used to be her lover every time she thinks of him), and how hard it is to be a woman in the Empire. All the while she makes completely boneheaded decisions on behalf of said Empire. Heaven forbid KJA have her rise above the Empire’s expectations of her. As is, she’s just fulfilling their ideas that women suck at being in the military. She sucks at being in the military. She says she was a prodigy and that old Tarkin skullface recruited her for her brains, but we get no evidence of that, and plenty of her mooning over him and talking about how she was his lover every five seconds. What a disservice to your own character, KJA. Booooo.
*he fills the book with pointless storylines when he should be focusing on fleshing out the main ones, like the Jedi Academy, Kyp going bad, etc.
Kyp stood up and wrapped the black cloak around his chest. He could make amends. He alone could show how well those powers could be used.
Exar Kun was long dead, and Darth Vader lay in ashes on Endor. “Now I am am the Lord of the Sith,” Kyp said.
NOW I AM THE LORD OF THE SITH.
“Kyp had no interest in reacquainting himself with the other weak Jedi trainees or even with the misguided and cowardly Master Skywalker.”
There is no textual evidence for why he would feel this way about Luke. Nothing Luke has done could be read as cowardly. In fact, there is no textual evidence for a lot of things in this book. Kyp’s journey could have been way fleshed out. His feelings could have been more complicated, more set up. They all could have spent more than two weeks at Jedi training. KJA could have written it so that Kyp had legitimate complaints about Luke that Exar Kun took advantage of. So many things could have been fleshed out or changed to make this work, and none of it was. We could have gotten more actual Jedi training. We could have gotten believable relationships between characters. Instead, everything is short changed, and nothing works.
– – –
During the first half of this book, I was going to two-star it, but I just can’t. It’s too bad for that. So I will give it an extra half star for nostalgia’s sake, and because there were a handful of interesting or exciting moments. But really, one star is fully deserved.
And you’re welcome for the 4,000 word review of a book that wasn’t even that popular twenty years ago when it was first published. I always aim to be relevant in the things I choose to waste spend my time on.
[1.5 stars]
