Welcome to Dead World

Galaxy of Fear #2: City of the Dead

Author: John Whitman

Medium: Junior novel

Publication date: February 1997

Timeline placement: 0 ABY

 

Back Tagline: Welcome to the city of the dead . . .

Interior Tagline: A grave matter . . .

 

Official Book Description:

When Hoole, Tash, and Zak stop on Necropolis to look for a new starship, Zak immediately makes friends with the local kids. And he's willing to pull a crazy stunt—like going into the Necropolitan cemetery at midnight—just to prove he's as tough as they are.

The cemetery is silent as death and full of white, wriggling boneworms. And maybe Zak should have thought twice before accepting this dare. Just because the bodies are buried doesn't mean they're dead. 

Brief Synopsis:

Having barely escaped being Eaten Alive, the Heroes of Yavin ferry the Heroes of D'vouran to the nearby planet Necropolis. Once Luke Skywalker and his friends depart aboard the Millennium Falcon to carry on the business of the Rebellion, Hoole and the Arrandas set about acquiring a new ship. Typically fearless Zak has recently begun having nightmares about the decayed corpses of his dead parents tapping on his bedroom window at night, and is further disturbed by the Necropolitans' traditional welcome ceremony, which involves the locals dressing up like mummies and popping out of coffins. His fears are not assuaged by learning that the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett is also on the planet, hunting the wanted criminal Dr. Cornelius Evazan, better known as "You'll Be Dead" Guy. In the book they just call him Dr. Evazan, though, because no one had decided he needed a first name yet.

 

Zak quickly befriends one of the mummies, a boy his own age named Kairn. The only other Necropolitan of any relevance we meet is Pylum, the planet's Master of Cerements. It's his job to keep the beliefs and traditions of Necropolis alive by constantly shouting that everyone is doomed like Crazy Ralph in Friday the 13th. Pylum explains the Curse of Sycorax, a legend about a witch who hexed the planet after her son was murdered. If the Necropolitans don't show the proper reverence for the dead, they will rise from their graves and take their revenge, or something.

 

That night, Zak snarks out with Kairn and some of the other local boys. They take him to the nearby cemetery and double dog dare him to sneak in, find the Crypt of the Ancients at its center, and stab a knife into the ground to show he was there. It was around this point that I realized Zak is the main character of this novel. It's been close to 30 years since I've read these books, but I always remembered Tash being the de facto lead. Maybe they'll keep rotating protagonists every book.

 

Zak finds the sacred crypt but just as he sticks his knife in the ground, zombies start popping out of it! Zak flees back to the cemetery's entrance, where he finds his friend Kairn dead, having been force-fed poisonous cryptberries by Dr. Evazan. Before the good doctor can do the same to Zak, however, Boba Fett appears and shoots Evazan dead. There's actually a somewhat complicated ruse involved where Fett strips off his armor and somehow turns it into a freestanding decoy to distract Evazan, even though his outfit is like 75% cloth. Even reading this as a twelve-year-old I thought this made no sense.

 

I do generally like Whitman's portrayal of Boba Fett, though. Daniel Keys Moran's Fett stories are some of the best Star Wars fiction ever written, so I'm often critical of how other authors depict him. Whitman has a pretty decent grasp of his character, though. His Fett hews closely to the Man with No Name archetype used in the best Boba Fett stories: a taciturn antihero who is unbothered by killing but prefers to kill only those who deserve it. He rescues Zak from Evazan, but not out of any altruistic sensibility; it's only incidental to taking out his target. 

 

The next day, Hoole takes the Arrandas and their robotic babysitter, DV-9, starship shopping at Meego's Starship Emporium. While Hoole looks at the safe and reliable family minivan ship, Zak sneaks aboard a sweet Arakyd Helix Interceptor with an Incom GBp-629 hyperdrive. Unfortunately this particular craft isn't yet available for sale, because Meego only just took possession of it after its previous owner was killed in a graveyard by Boba Fett the night before. And here he comes now! Dr. Evazan scurries past Zak and out of the ship, seemingly very much not dead. What chicanery is afoot?

 

Later, Tash finally gets something to do when she overhears Uncle Hoole attempting to hire that vicious bounty hunter Boba Fett. She tells Zak, and the two of them attempt to follow Fett to discover what their uncle is up to. They decide to split up so they can do more damage, and Zak soon finds himself on the trail not of Fett, but of his dead friend Kairn, seemingly very much not dead. 

 

Judging by both his appearance and mannerisms, Kairn is clearly a brain-damaged undead freak, but Zak stupidly accompanies him back to the cemetery anyway. Kairn leads him to the Crypt of the Ancients, where Zak hopes they will encounter the Blair Witch, but instead it turns out that Dr. Evazan has set up a lab inside the crypt, where he has been clandestinely conducting his Mengelian experiments. Evazan explains that he has been working for the Empire to develop a serum that can reanimate the dead, providing the Emperor with a limitless army of strength-enhanced troops. Knowing that Boba Fett was after him, Evazan had the foresight to inject himself with the serum before his death, allowing him to spontaneously self-resurrect once he was buried and the native boneworms started eating his bone marrow, activating the dormant serum with their slime. Okay but how did he get out of his grave afterward?

 

The only side effect, the doctor says, face twitching, is irregular uncontrollable muscle spasms. But now he's ready to test how the serum affects a corpse that hasn't been violently murdered. Ordering Kairn to hold down his friend, Evazan injects Zak with diluted cryptberry juice, paralyzing him and reducing his vital functions so that he appears dead. He appears so dead, in fact, that everyone assumes he committed suicide and they put him in a coffin, have a funeral, and bury him. He spends like the next three chapters buried alive with boneworms gnawing through the coffin to eat his marrow.

 

Meanwhile, Tash convinces Uncle Hoole that some chicanery is afoot, and they return to the cemetery to investigate the scene of Zak's death while Deevee makes the final arrangements to procure their new spaceship. When they enter the graveyard, though, Tash and Hoole discover a roving horde of zombies. Pylum appears at the head of an angry mob. Zombies are attacking people all over the city, and the Necropolitans blame the offworlders for desecrating their consecrated ground. They drag our heroes to the Crypt of Ancients. Pylum takes them into the tomb, where he reveals that he has been in league with Dr. Evazan all along. The terrible twosome unleash their zombies on Hoole, observing how they fare against the Shi'ido's shapeshifting abilities. 

 

Back at Meego's Starship Emporium, Meego tells Deevee that he has already sold the ship Hoole made a down payment on to someone else, and they will just have to buy a more expensive model if they want anything at all. Deevee tells the slimy used ship salesman about the Tal Nami, a species Hoole befriended in his travels that base their society around a fair and equitable barter system, and travel lightyears to draw and quarter dishonest merchants. Meego tells them that he'd be all too happy to let them have Dr. Evazan's ship, the Shroud. 

 

Remembering that Zak claimed to have seen the dead doctor aboard ship earlier, Deevee scans the Shroud's memory banks and discovers the nature of Evazan's experiments. Realizing what must have happened to Zak, Deevee teams up with Boba Fett, who is investigating the doctor's apparent return from the grave, and together they hurry back to the cemetery. Fett digs Zak out of his grave, and Zak, now recovered from the paralytic cryptberries, leads the bounty hunter to the Crypt of Ancients, where we get to see Boba Fett fight zombies.

 

While Fett keeps Evazan and Pylum distracted, Deevee deevises an antidote to the reanimation serum, but with Hoole and Tash captured, it's up to Zak to save the day. He appeals to the lingering humanity in Kairn and manages to break through his friend's mental conditioning. Kairn administers the antidote to all the zombies, including himself, and they all die a second death. Pylum escapes, but Boba Fett throws the last of the antidote into Dr. Evazan's scarred face, sending him back to hell where he belongs. 

 

As they leave the crypt, the gang finds Pylum lying dead on the floor, having slipped on a banana peel and broken his neck. Perhaps the Curse of Sycorax is real after all... 

 

But the twist is...

As Zak works on the Shroud's engine, a massive twitch runs through his body. I guess he really did die and Evazan's serum brought him back. Ohhh he's a zombie now. Wait when did he die?

 

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:

Tash Arranda and her brother Zak, who disappears into a coffin halfway through the book. 

 

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:

Ch. 3/4:

Zak awakens from a horrible nightmare of his dead, rotting parents trying to get in his bedroom window and blaming him for forgetting about them. Thank goodness it was only a dream, he thinks... until he hears something tapping on his window again. Is it a zombie? No, it's just his friend throwing rocks. 

 

Title Drop Alert:

"We need to purchase a new ship. This is the closest inhabited planet."

"What's it called?" Tash asked.

"Necropolis."

"Necropolis?" Zak said. "What a strange name. What does it mean?"

"It means," Hoole said as they felt the Millennium Falcon descend into gravity, "City of the Dead."

 

"That's the true Necropolis," Kairn said. "The city of the dead." 

 

Zak wrapped the heavy cloak around his shoulders and took a step into the graveyard, holding the glowrod in front of him. Its light barely penetrated the rolling mist. Row after row of tombstones vanished into the darkness before him. He took a few more steps. The headstones looked like a miniature city. A city of the dead.

 

"May the spirit of Sycorax receive this departed being in peace. May Kairn, who is gone from the living, remain now forever in the city of the dead!" 

 

All around them the ground was churning. Massive headstones collapsed or sank into the ground as the creatures below struggled to reach the surface. Hundreds of graves were on the verge of breaking open, spilling forth their buried inhabitants.

The city of the dead was coming back to life. 

 

Cameo Alert:

Dr. Evazan, Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2

 

Conclusions:   

The most notable trivia about this book is that it features the canonical death of a movie character. "You'll Be Dead" Guy has been a beloved fixture of the franchise since the original Star Wars debuted in 1977, and City of the Dead shocked fans around the world by killing him off in a spooky children's book. Unfortunately, the shock quickly wore off when the StarWars.com Databank entry on Evazan nonsensically placed his death in Galaxy of Fear before his continuing adventures with his friend Buttface in the short story "Doctor Death: The Tale of Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba," explaining his survival with the throwaway line that Evazan "somehow escaped yet again." The Essential Reader's Companion corrected this grievous error by moving the short story back on the timeline, so City of the Dead remains the good doctor's final demise.

 

There's a decent character arc for Zak where he starts to recover from the trauma of his parents' death by realizing that there is no witch's curse that can bring back the dead but they're never really gone as long as the living remember the good times they shared, but it's pretty boilerplate. I liked the use of Boba Fett and Dr. Evazan getting to be a major character in something, but with so much of the book focused on Zak, I found myself missing Tash and wishing she had more to do in the story. 

 

3/5 Death Stars. Decently entertaining but not up to par with Eaten Alive.

Unchartered Space

Droids: Special Mission

Author: Unknown 

Illustrator: Unknown 

Medium: Picture book

Publication date: 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY 

 

I'm putting this book here because it doesn't fit anywhere else. It also doesn't fit here. Like Neutralizing Trigon I, this ambiguously-canon-but-most-likely-unlicensed Spanish tale seems to be a loose adaptation of an episode of the Droids cartoon, albeit one adapted in such a way that it's now incompatible with the actual series.

 

Misión especial, or Special Mission, follows roughly the same plot as "Tail of the Roon Comets," or Escape from the Monster Ship. Mungo Baobab and the droids depart the Baobab Company offices in the Caravel, embarking on a special mission to stop Governor Koong from pillaging Baobab Company trading vessels. Koong's ship, which doesn't appear to be the Monster Ship, or Umboo Lightstation, captures our heroes' vessel using a giant mechanical claw. They're brought on board and locked in the brig, but when the guard opens the door again, Artoo blasts him. Mungo leads a prison break, and the escapees capture Governor Koong and Gaff. Suddenly they're on another ship, apparently one of a fleet that has surrounded Koong's vessel, and they blast it into pieces. Whether or not Koong was still aboard at the time isn't mentioned. Threepio is relieved that they can now relax at the Baobab Company offices.

 

This story can't take place as a separate adventure during the events of the Droids cartoon's Mungo Baobab arc, because the characters remain on Roon throughout those episodes and never have an opportunity to return to Baobab corporate HQ on Manda. It can't take place afterward because Koong captures the Caravel in the first episode of the arc and Mungo doesn't get it back until the final episode, in which Koong dies (spoilers oh my godddd).

 

Our best best for forcing this into the EU timeline would be treating it as a prequel to the Roon arc that depicts a previously unmentioned adventure where Mungo and the droids met Koong and Gaff before their first encounter in the cartoon. Only that doesn't work either, because it's clear from the cartoon that they haven't met before; in fact the plot depends on Koong and Gaff not knowing who they are. There really isn't a good option for taking this as anything other than a very loose abridged adaptation of "Tail of the Roon Comets," which means there was no point in even reading it in the first place. That's 45 seconds I'll never see again! :[

 

The Roon Games 

Writers: Gordon Kent and Peter Sauder (teleplay), Ben Burtt (story)

Medium: Television

Air Date: November 16, 1985

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

 

Mungo and the droids finally arrive on Roon just in time for the Roon Games, an annual competition between the various planetary provinces. For our purposes, though, it's a relay race between the competitors of Governor Koong's native Tawntoom province and the unconquered rebel province of Umboo, the last region of Roon to resist Koong's rule. For some reason, beating them in the Roon Games will assure the governor's undisputed control of the planet and finally allow him to supply Admiral Screed with the Roonstones he promised to deliver to the Empire.

 

But first, our heroes are shot down by Koong's droid starfighters and crash-land in the Roon wilderness, where they are immediately beset by wild Mudmen, who look like this:

 

 

They are rescued by Auren Yomm, a 15-year-old native girl, and her father, Neil Young. The gang then narrowly avoids being eaten by a shamunaar, aka Brontosaurus. Residents of Umboo province, Auren and Neil Young recruit Mungo and the droids to help them defeat Koong in the big race after his insectoid henchman, Gaff, and his droid, Bun-Dingo (bizarre name for a droid), sabotage the Umboo team's droid and poison one of their racers. 

 

Threepio rides a horse-like rockhopper and passes the relay baton off to Auren, who narrowly avoids being knocked into a pit by Bun-Dingo. Prior to the race, however, Artoo had accidentally spiked the Tawntoom droid's turbo coolant, causing him to lose his balance during the race and topple into the pit himself. Because Gaff had already turned off the pit's anti-gravity in the hope of Auren Yomm falling to her death, Bun-Dingo is destroyed when he smashes into the bottom of the pit, leaving a droid-shaped crater behind. Don't forget, you're watching a cartoon.

 

Apparently out of ideas at this point, Gaff tries reflecting a light into Auren's eyes to blind her, but Artoo dumps his captured pet Mudman onto Gaff's head. The creature splits into several smaller Mudmen who carry Gaff away, allowing Auren to win the race, much to Governor Koong's disbelief and Admiral Screed's displeasure. Auren seems distraught at the thought that Mungo and the droids will use their share of the prize money to repair their ship and leave the planet, but Mungo declares that they're staying until they've found a Roonstone of their very own. Auren promises to help them search. New party member unlocked!

 

This episode got bizarrely complicated for a while. Governor Koong tries to make an alliance with Admiral Screed, who represents the Galactic Empire, by offering him precious Roonstones, but Koong can't obtain the Roonstones until he controls the entirety of the planet Roon, because his governorship is limited to Tawntoom province only, but he effectively controls the whole planet except for Umboo province, so he needs to defeat the Umboo racing team in the Roon Colonial Games, specifically an event called drainsweeper, and sends his henchman Gaff to send his droid Bin-Dungo to pour industrial coolant into the Umboo team's Mupple juice. What is this, the Star Wars prequels? Kind of!

 

Despite the complex political maneuvering, this episode felt mostly like setup for the second half of the Roon arc. Much of it was spent establishing Auren and Neil Young as new supporting characters, so presumably they have a significant role to play in the remaining two episodes. Well, we'll see.

Lando Calrissian and the Unambiguous Cameo

Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire

Author: William C. Dietz

Illustrator: Dean Williams 

Medium: Novella

Publication date: February 1997

Timeline placement: 0 BBY

 

A blessedly, wonderfully brief novella interspersed with beautiful full-page illustrations, Soldier for the Empire isn't a novelization of the Doom-like Star Wars shooter Dark Forces, but rather a prequel to it, revealing the backstory of player character Kyle Katarn and how he came to join the Rebellion. A stormtrooper officer cadet in training at the Imperial Academy on Carida, Kyle has no great love for the Empire but even less for the Alliance, until he has a run-in with Rebel hottie Jan Ors. He jeopardizes his command by sparing her life during a raid on a Rebel base, only to learn after graduation that his father, Morgan, has been murdered by Rebels. On his way back to his family home on Sulon, a moon of Sullust, Kyle encounters Jan once again aboard the luxury liner Star of Empire. She reveals the truth: Kyle's father was a member of the Rebel Alliance and he was killed by the Dark Jedi Jerec, an Imperial Inquisitor, who then had Morgan's head mounted on a pike over the gates of the city to feed the space crows. Kyle joins the Rebellion on the spot and is tasked by Mon Mothma with infiltrating the Imperial research facility on Danuta and stealing the plans for the Death Star. If you've played the opening mission of Star Wars: Dark Forces, you know he succeeds!

 

The first book in a trilogy (the other two of which actually are video game novelizations), Soldier for the Empire is not a particularly brilliant piece of writing in and of itself, but is more remarkable for the fact that it exists at all. I'm not sure why the Dark Forces games (at the time consisting of the original game and its sequel, Jedi Knight) were singled out for this treatment: a prose prequel, illustrated novelization, and audio dramatization. The Force Unleashed I and II received novelizations, the Shadows of the Empire novel and video game tell different parts of the same story, and X-Wing, Republic Commando, Galaxies, and The Old Republic all got tie-in novels in name only, telling original stories about mostly original characters. Where's my KotOR prequel novella about the Battle of Malachor V?

 

Anyway, it's just cool that this book exists at all. The prose is easy to read without being gratingly simplistic, and William Dietz does a good job writing believable military jargon. Primarily a sci-fi and video game tie-in author, Dietz may be best known to modern readers for writing Mass Effect: Deception, a novel reputedly so hated by Mass Effect fans that BioWare issued a public apology and promised to publish a revised edition correcting the book's many canon errors and discrepancies. 

 

This was, of course, a blatant PR lie and the new edition never materialized, but Dietz, who passed away in March of 2026, was no stranger to being thrown under the bus by his publisher, deserved or not. He had previously returned to Star Wars to write Escape from Dagu, a Clone Wars novel about Shaak Ti intended for publication in 2004. Despite being completely finished, including cover art and direct continuity references in other published work, the book was never released and was replaced on the publishing schedule with the newly commissioned Yoda: Dark Rendezvous. Naturally, this stoked much fan speculation over what had become of Escape from Dagu, a small fire on which Pablo Hidalgo dumped gasoline by saying, "Out of curiosity, if Crystal Star had been cancelled in 1994, would you be so eager to read it?" The Crystal Star, of course, is infamous in the Star Wars EU community as "the worst book ever!!!!" so the rumor quickly spread that Dagu had gotten the ax because it was just too unreadably terrible to publish. Two years later, on a different forum, Pablo eventually clarified that he had never actually read Escape from Dagu and hadn't intended to draw a comparison between the two things he compared, but nobody saw that.

 

Whatever the truth of Dagu, Dietz's work on Soldier for the Empire is nothing to write home about, but that cuts both ways. It's solid, workmanlike tie-in writing that gets the job done, and the final chapter, which is just an extended description of Kyle mercilessly gunning down Imperials like he's the player character in an FPS, is memorably hilarious. The biggest issue with Dietz's writing is his tendency to head-hop between multiple characters' points of view within a single scene without transition, which can make for a jarring, disorienting reading experience.

 

The real highlight of the book is the illustrations by Dean Williams, which look great. They don't always necessarily depict what I would have chosen as the most interesting part of the accompanying text, but they're awesome and it's a real shame that Marvel didn't release an Epic Collection of the Dark Forces trilogy. This exclusion has never made sense to me, as their Aliens Epics included Alien: Tribes, an illustrated novella published by Dark Horse the same as Soldier for the Empire and its sister volumes.

 

But whatever.

 

For the continuity nerd, Soldier for the Empire is a rare treat, featuring a rare pre-Jedi Knight appearance by Jerec, whose personal Star Destroyer is commanded by a certain Captain Thrawn, and General Rom Mohc, the main villain of Dark Forces, is a speaker at Kyle's graduation. They don't have a huge amount of page-time, but Jerec's murder of Morgan Katarn is the catalyst behind Kyle's entire journey, and even though these characters rarely appear outside the original works that created them, it's always cool to get these little reminders that they are still active in this universe even during events they don't play a major role in. 

 

Jerec in particular is a fun and sadly underutilized villain. Canonically the third most powerful darksider in the Empire, after Palpatine and Vader, this is his earliest appearance in the Expanded Universe, although he was mentioned by name in the Clone Wars comic Republic #69. Jerec was a member of the Jedi Order, beginning his career as the Padawan of that old witch Jocasta Nu. He achieved the rank of Jedi Master upon training his own Padawan, Ameesa Darys, to Knighthood. Like her Master, Darys would also survive the Jedi Purge to serve the Empire as a member of the Inquisitorius, eventually dying at the hands of Arden Lyn when she and her fellow Inquisitors awakened the Follower of Palawa from her 25,000-year Force-induced morichro stasis. We are really down the rabbit hole now, boy. 

 

As a Jedi archaeologist, Jerec was frequently away from Coruscant in search of ancient artifacts. Due to such an absence, he missed the entirety of the Clone Wars and the Jedi Purge, returning to Coruscant only to be captured by High Inquisitor Tremayne, another fallen Jedi in the Empire's service. Given the choice between death and the dark side, Jerec unhesitatingly chose the latter, quickly becoming one of the most feared of all the Emperor's servants. Unfortunately for us, though, besides his original appearance as the final boss in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, he's relegated to a brief appearance in this Dark Forces prequel and a guest spot in Galaxy of Fear. Oh well, I'll take what I can get.

 

Speaking of which, there's also a quick cameo appearance by Lando Calrissian, who's prowling the Star of Empire looking for unwary marks to deprive of their money in a friendly card game. But we'll get back to him later.

 

Soldier for the Empire (1997) also puts in the vital work of deliberately clarifying, for the first time, the difference between the Death Star plans stolen from Toprawa in the Star Wars radio drama (1981), Jedi Dawn (1993), and, later, Rebel Dawn (1998) and the Death Star plans stolen from Danuta in Dark Forces (1995). Dark Forces had previously paid lip service to the earlier plans theft by name-dropping Operation Skyhook, but Soldier for the Empire codifies the "separate plans" retcon in EU canon: "While the Toprawa plans include the battle station's hull design, and life support infrastructure, the Danuta plans include additional engineering schematics, and ... a complete map to the offensive and defensive weapons emplacements. We need both sets to ensure success."

 

Perfect. They could have just left it there, but no, everyone and their mother needed to put their own little spin on how the Death Star plans were stolen. (Of course, there's still the issue of Mon Mothma claiming that the reason the Danuta research facility has the Death Star plans in the first place is because that's where the station was designed. I thought bugs made it.)

 

But I digress. If you can find it, Soldier for the Empire is moderately worth reading, mostly for its unique status in the Expanded Universe, but especially for fans of the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games.

 

Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire, the Official Audio Drama

Author: John Whitman

Medium: Audio drama

Publication date: 1997

Timeline placement: 0 BBY

 

The audio dramatization by Galaxy of Fear author John Whitman. Like Whitman's adaptation of the early Tales of the Jedi arcs, this is my preferred version of the story. Unlike with TotJ, however, the voice cast here does a consistently good job delivering the material. Particularly notable is Allen Hamilton as Jerec, whose slow, overwrought line delivery oozes exaggerated villainy, a perfect match for Christopher Neame's portrayal of the character in Jedi Knight's live-action cutscenes. The depiction of Kyle's awakening to the Force during his encounter with Jerec at his graduation ceremony is also notably well done, showing the sudden expansion of Kyle's senses and consciousness as he takes his first step into a larger world.

 

Mostly faithful to the novella, with a few welcome narrative additions for context and characterization. Lando's cameo is slightly reduced, but improved by the fact that the audio drama has him accompanied on the Star of Empire by Vuffi Raa! But wait, you say, The Lando Calrissian Adventures take place years before this story, and they end with Vuffi Raa leaving Lando to return to his people. That's right, you hyper-observant continuity nut, but also remember that Vuffi Raa promised he would return to visit his friend. That must be what's happening here!

 

This adaptation also introduces an unnecessary inconsistency regarding the character of Major Horst, an Imperial officer at the Danuta research facility. Created by William Dietz for the novella, he plays a brief role during Kyle's invasion of the base, ending with his death when Jan Ors, piloting Katarn's ship the Moldy Crow, blows up Horst's command car. Major Horst also appears in John Whitman's adaptation of the story, but here he is shot to death by Kyle so the latter can obtain his keycard. Wookieepedia resolves this discrepancy by assuming that there must have been two different characters named Major Horst working the same assignment on the same night.

 

  

While I do like the audio play and prefer it to the novella overall, it's close enough to the book that there isn't a whole lot more to talk about, so I'll point out that Morgan Katarn definitively states that Sulon is the only moon of the planet Sullust. For some reason, though, Wizards of the Coast's Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds sourcebook for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game added a second moon, Umnub. Way to make Kyle Katarn's dead father look like an idiot!

 

"If you will not use your head, Katarn... THEN I WILL!" – Lord Jerec as he decapitates Morgan Katarn

The Force Leashed

Interlude at Darkknell

Authors: Timothy Zahn and Michael A. Stackpole

Medium: Novella

Publication date: December 1999 in Tales from the New Republic

Timeline placement: c. 2 BBY

 

In this four-part story, Corellian Senator Garm Bel Iblis teams up with Corellian Security Force officer Hal Horn (son of Jedi Knight Nejaa Halcyon of Jedi Trial fame) to, what else, steal the Death Star plans, or something. The fallout from this escapade provides Armand Isard's daughter Ysanne with the means to betray him and have him killed so she can take his place as Director of Imperial Intelligence.

 

It's a pretty good story, 4/5 Death Stars, stamp of recommendation. But instead let's talk about the continuity cluster-kriff of which this story is the center, as that's the main reason people remember it nowadays. 

 

Interlude at Darkknell is fraught with bizarre continuity references, especially for a story that came out this late (we're talking post-Phantom Menace here). The Rebel Alliance formally exists at this point, having been formed by the union of forces led by Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and Garm Bel Iblis. But Bel Iblis's internal monologue refers to the Empire as being "newly established," and characters talk about the Republic as if it was only recently overthrown. So you think maybe Zahn and Stackpole wrote this story with the intention of it being set way earlier than its official timeline placement of 0 BBY (we'll get to that, too). This was before The Force Unleashed gave a hard date to the Corellian Treaty and the founding of the Rebellion, so maybe they were working off the assumption that the Rebels had been around for a long time before A New Hope, like the Droids cartoon did.

 

Except there are also references that put Interlude shortly before ANH, like the Rebels learning about the existence of the Death Star. More definitively, Hal Horn explicitly says that his son, Corran, is 18. So it must take place close to ANH regardless of its weird comments about the Empire's age.

 

But wait, there's more! The Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook (1996) was the original source of Bel Iblis's backstory. It states: "Shortly after declaring himself Emperor, Palpatine had Bel Iblis, his wife, and his two children rounded up and arrested. Bel Iblis was forced to watch Imperial soldiers execute his family, but he managed to escape (although he still refuses to discuss how he accomplished this)." That may be the source of Interlude's confusion over how far into the reign of the Empire it takes place, but for some reason Zahn kept those timeline references but completely changed the circumstances of Bel Iblis's family's death. It still takes place on Anchoron, as stated in Dark Force Rising Sourcebook ("It is commonly believed that Bel Iblis died on Anchoron, but the Empire failed. It did take everything else from the Senator—his family, his profession, and his contacts with mainstream Corellian society. It forced Bel Iblis to become a rebel."), but rather than being arrested and executed in front of him, Bel Iblis's family now dies in a bombing intended to assassinate the Senator before he could make a public speech endorsing the Rebellion. Why?

 

But wait, there's more! The MacGuffin of this story is a datapack (consisting of eight datacards) pertaining to "Tarkin's project." Its exact contents are never revealed, but one could infer that these are the "stolen data tapes" containing the technical readouts of the Death Star. That would contradict about a billion other stories revealing how the Rebels obtained the plans, though, so thankfully The Essential Chronology (2000) clarified that the datapack in Interlude at Darkknell actually contained the location of the Death Star's construction site: the planet Despayre in the Horuz system. This tracks with the story itself, which mentions that that was where the information was stolen from.

 

But wait, there's more! Not satisfied with this tidy resolution, the novel Death Star (2007) blundered its way onto the scene. I generally like its two authors, Michael Reaves and Steve Perry; they're good writers and usually do quality work. But for whatever reason, it seems like they got it into their heads that a novel about the Death Star should clean up all the infamous continuity issues surrounding the theft of the Death Star plans. Unfortunately, they knew about the discrepancies, but apparently were completely ignorant of the work that had already gone into resolving them. In this case, Death Star tries to combine the Darkknell datapack with the technical plans stolen by Kyle Katarn on Danuta in Dark Forces and Soldier for the Empire, claiming that they traveled from Danuta through Darkknell on their way to Rebel hands. 

 

But wait, there's more! Happily for us, Death Star's unforced error was soon completely undermined by The Force Unleashed (2008), which added the final layer of continuity negligence to this bafflingly contentious story. That video game finally showed the formal founding of the Rebellion in 2 BBY, maintaining accurate continuity by including the presence of resistance forces from Corellia, Alderaan, and Chandrila. But it also went completely off the rails by making the central figure behind the Corellian Treaty a heretofore unmentioned OC called Starkiller, and the entire alliance a stupidly counter-productive scheme by the Emperor. More relevant to Darkknell, the Rebel leaders are captured by the Empire and taken to the Death Star itself. The Essential Reader's Companion (2012) officially placed Interlude at Darkknell at 0 BBY, despite referencing the blatant contradiction of Garm Bel Iblis already knowing about the Death Star two years earlier!

 

The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide (2008) had already offered some resolution to this issue, however. In its recounting of Bel Iblis's backstory, it puts the death of his family on Anchoron before the events of The Force Unleashed, moving Interlude at Darkknell at least two years back on the timeline (but no more than three years, because Armand Isard is still alive in Agent of the Empire). The obvious solution, really. Of course, this means that Hal Horn forgot his son's age, but what father hasn't?

 

So despite The Essential Reader's Companion's dating for Interlude at Darkknell, resolving the continuity discrepancy with The Force Unleashed is really no great trick at all. Much more problematic is what TFU does to Bail Organa, who is caught red-handed fomenting Rebellion, arrested by the Empire, taken to the top-secret Death Star project, and threatened with execution by the Emperor himself, only to somehow go back to being a full-time Senator and public figure for a further two years until he gets blowed up on Alderaan. Who's writing this schlock, Christopher Nolan's dad?

Cry Havet and Let Slip the Arfs of War

Jedi Dawn

Author: Paul Cockburn

Medium: Gamebook

Publication date: September 1993

Timeline placement: 0 BBY

Series: Lost Jedi Adventure Game Books #1

 

You are Havet Storm, 16-year-old aspiring Jedi and protagonist of this Choose Your Own Adventure-style gamebook. Unlike that classic children's adventure series, however, this UK-exclusive publication needlessly over-complicates the concept by adding TTRPG character speccing, inventory management, and dice rolls. What fun!

 

You, Havet, have been on the run ever since your mother's death a year ago from dehydration and old age, your father having been assassinated by the Empire when you were a child. Going through your mother's belongings, you discovered a K-9 series Mechanical Hound containing an orange-bladed lightsaber lightsabre and a message recorded by your grandfather, Morvet Storm... Jedi Knight! Keep in mind that you were born only three years after Order 66, so Granddad must have been out sowing his wild oats long before the Clone Wars even began. He briefly explains the Force to you, his future grandson, but his warning about the dark side is cut off prematurely: "Vader! Has it come to this?" You grab your lightsabre and your robot dog and set out on your adventure.

 

I could conquer the world if I could conquer myself.

 

Now you find yourself on the planet Toprawa in the days before the Battle of Yavin. Depending on the choices you make and the numbers you roll, you can have several different exciting encounters, from fighting that vicious bounty hunter Boba Fett, who is written horribly out of character (although this book came out so early in the EU I suppose it's technically the Boba Fett of Andy Mangels, John Wagner, Daniel Keys Moran, Paul Danner, and John Ostrander who was out of character with Paul Cockburn's depiction), to roofying a blonde.

 

Vermilion hands you a small glass bottle. "Get Facet to drink this if you can; it'll put her to sleep for hours."

 

It takes real willpower to mix Facet's drink first; three parts citrus juice, one part local bitters, ice and just a small vial of sleeping draught to taste. You hand her a long glass, and she drinks deeply.

 

As for you, well, you've finally got your hands on a tube of Star Racer. Nothing is going to stop – 

 

There is a thump behind you, and you jump out of your skin. The tube falls to the floor, and breaks on the tiles under the bar. NO!!! You look round, ready to scream at Facet, but she has fallen from the couch and lies in a heap on the floor. You rush over to check her pulse. She's alive, but her running lights have been switched off – she doesn't stir when you call and only groans slightly as you lift her onto the couch. That sleeping potion must have been strong stuff!

 

No comment.

 

The blonde in question is one Facet Anamor, 17-year-old daughter of the head researcher at Toprawa's Imperial Research Station. Cockburn lovingly describes her as "very pretty (lovely deep blue eyes!), a year or two older than you, and she has a great sense of humor. It turns out she has been waiting to have lunch with a guy she works with. This guy doesn't sound too much like competition – it comes up in conversation that he's a small fat guy in the Records Department – and he can't be too bright to miss a date with a girl like this." Methinks the author was taking his name a bit literally while writing this character.

The Rebel Alliance recruits you to infiltrate the Research Station and steal the plans for the Death Star superlaser. The schematics for the rest of the structure were already stolen by Rebel operatives while the Imperial convoy carrying them was stopped at Toprawa, but they still needed to give you, Havet Storm, something to do.

 

You confront Facet's father, the evil Imperial scientist Druth Anamor, and with a little help from your dog you obtain the superlaser plans and get them into Rebel hands. The final battle ensues, and it falls to you transmit the combined schematics to Princess Leia's ship. In a bit of early EU continuity, Havet Storm is revealed to be the "Rebel voice" Leia speaks to when she receives the Death Star plans early in the 1981 NPR Star Wars radio drama, delivering the iconic line "Come in, Skyhook! Come in, Skyhook!"

 

Your blonde love interest Facet Anamor is revealed to secretly be the brunette Imperial assassin Diamond Cobra, so you get a new girlfriend in the final pages of your adventure, a Rebel soldier named Surna. Maybe you'll be luckier in love come your sequel, The Lost Jedi Adventure Game Books #2: The Bounty Hunter, but that doesn't take place for another two years. In the meantime, you'll have to drink a lot of soda.

 

Despite the RPG mechanics the author wants you to play with, Jedi Dawn reads like a standard Choose Your Own Adventure book in practice. You can just pick your own combat results instead of rolling dice, who cares. There are a lot of different options and viable narrative paths you can choose from, and I'm tempted to read through it again and check out some of the alternative ways the story can unfold, like sucker punching Facet into unconsciousness instead of drugging her. You're the hero now, Havet!

From the Thoroughly Unexciting Adventures of Dannen Lifehold

The Adventures of Dannen Lifehold: Breaking Free

Author: Dave Marron

Medium: Short story

Publication date: February 1994 in Star Wars Adventure Journal #1

Timeline placement: 0 BBY

 

Meet Dannen Lifehold, the least talented and least interesting smuggler in the Star Wars galaxy. Dannen has one more payment to make on his ship, the Lifeline, but crime boss Linkaas, a sentient plant creature, tries to have him killed so he can rook some other sucker into buying the ship on a perpetual installment plan. His thugs are armed with futuristic sci-fi weapons called “rope guns,” which do exactly what they sound like they would. I’ve got to get me one of those for the local college girls. However, Dannen easily escapes with the help of a gang of Silika, three-armed rock aliens who get drunk on mineral water. He then meets a furry named Purr and they go to Alderaan to find their next adventure. Wow, this is pointless!

The Ultimate Double Cross

Ringers

Author: Laurie Burns

Medium: Short story

Publication date: May 1995 in Star Wars Adventure Journal #6

Timeline placement: 0 BBY

 

A surprisingly refreshing and enjoyable offering from the Adventure Journal, “Ringers” is a police procedural following Imperial Special Investigator Zeck Tambell and his partner, Rizz, who ironically has none. They’re on a potential fraud case involving gambling on the local sport of ringers, where competitors try to throw disks through moving rings. It seems like someone is fixing the competition, but the investigators can’t figure out how. It’s almost like someone in the audience can move objects with their mind…

The two investigators themselves aren’t especially interesting characters, but I wish the EU had produced more stories featuring either them or Imperials occupying a similar niche: normal people conducting the day-to-day business of the Empire without being cartoonishly evil psychopaths or defecting to the Rebellion by the end.  

A story with a cool premise, written well enough. 3.5/5 Death Stars.

 

Is My Heart Too Broken?

Tinian on Trial

Author: Kathy Tyers

Medium: Short story

Publication date: November 1994 in Star Wars Adventure Journal #4

Timeline placement: 1 BBY

 

“Tinian on Trial” introduces Kathy Tyers’s OC Tinian I’att, a character Tyers must have loved because she kept bringing her back, even ruining her Bossk story in Tales of the Bounty Hunters in order to do so. Nowhere near as obtrusive here, 17-year-old Tinian (another redhead) lives with her grandparents on the planet Druckenwell and is the heiress to their weapons manufacturing company, I’att Armament. Her boyfriend, Daye Azur-Jamin, has recently helped her grandfather invent a new type of personal energy field that renders stormtrooper armor impervious to blasterfire, as opposed to vulnerable to blunt objects.

 

 

As our story begins, the I’att clan, including Tinian’s Wookiee protector, Wrrlevgebev, is trying to sell this new technology to the Empire, in the person of Moff Eisen Kerioth. Lacking a volunteer to wear the force field-enhanced armor and expose themself to blasterfire, Kerioth demands that Tinian be the subject of the demonstration, because like all adult men he gets off on bullying teenage girls. Despite the  protestations of her grandparents, boyfriend, and Wookiee, Tinian goes along with the moff for the good of her family’s company. Upon seeing that the technology does indeed make stormtrooper armor not completely worthless, Kerioth has his troops murder Tinian’s grandparents and seizes control of the factory. 

Daye and Wrrlevgebev both sacrifice themselves for Tinian, Wrrl giving his life so she can get away and Daye becoming horribly maimed and disfigured when he blows up the factory so it doesn’t fall into the Empire’s hands. Tinian escapes still wearing the stormtrooper armor with the only working prototype of the new energy shield. There’s a gratuitous scene where she hides in a cantina and disguises herself as a singer in the band by getting glammed up and wearing a slinky red cocktail dress made with advanced space technology that automatically enhances her bust and curves. When stormtroopers barge in, the babe onstage is so much hotter than the plain Jane they’re looking for that they don’t give her a second glance, causing Tinian to self-pityingly launch into a performance of Kasey Chambers’s “Not Pretty Enough.” Not the time, girl. 

Later, some guy comes in and announces that no one survived the explosion of I’att Armament. Everyone she loves having been violently killed in a single day, Tinian leaves Druckenwell with the disassembled energy field generator, vowing to dedicate her life to getting revenge on the Empire. But actually that guy was sent by Daye to greatly exaggerate the reports of his death! Daye is going to join the Rebellion and dedicate his life to getting revenge on the Empire, and he decides that it’s kinder for him to allow Tinian to believe that everyone she loves has been violently killed in a single day than to let her know he’s alive.

What.

 

My only previous exposure to this character is the aforementioned Tales of the Bounty Hunters, which made me dislike her for upstaging Bossk in his own story. She’s much more likable and sympathetic here, though, so I’m tentatively looking forward to her appearances in Kathy Tyers’s further Adventure Journal stories. Like many modern YA romance heroines, she’s self-deprecating and insecure about her looks, yet has every male character ready to get themselves killed to protect her, and when she cleans up she’s a knockout. I have a feeling some people might read something uncharitable into that, but it’s fine.

 

All Your Bass Are Belong to Us

Rebel Bass

Author: Kathy Tyers

Medium: Short story

Publication date: September 2001 in Star Wars Gamer #6

Timeline placement: 2 BBY

 

"Rebel Bass" tells the story of 16-year-old Ryley Ancum and his garage band Far Cry, which uses their music to send coded messages to undercover Rebel Alliance operatives, or something. Like most stories written in publications for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, it's a "slice of life" narrative about random nobodies in the Star Wars galaxy who have no relevance to the core saga and will never appear in another story. And to be clear, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact it makes perfect sense for the RPG, where you yourself take on the role of a random nobody in the Star Wars galaxy who has no relevance to the core saga. The sourcebooks and other publications released for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, especially when West End Games held the license, were responsible for most of the nitty-gritty worldbuilding that transformed the loose fantasy rules of George Lucas's movies into a grounded, verisimilar sci-fi universe.

 

But as much as I appreciate the detail and thoroughness of that level of setting construction, by and large the "man on the street" viewpoint isn't the appeal of Star Wars for me. Star Wars is big, bombastic, epic in its literal definition. There are intimate personal stories that can be told, but those moments of emotional poignancy are usually expressed between flashes of a lightsaber blade or the scream of a starfighter's laser cannons. I'd rather read this story than most of the ones published in the Adventure Journal, because 1) it's much shorter, and 2) it's written by an actual published novelist rather than an amateur cutting their teeth and therefore isn't completely painful to read, but it's still so fucking boring. I understand why it was written but reading it as a standalone story divorced from the broader context and culture of the Star Wars RPG, it has nothing of value or interest to offer me. 2 out of 5 Death Stars.

Drake Does It All for the Wookiee

When the Domino Falls

Author: Patricia A. Jackson

Medium: Short story

Publication date: August 1994 in Star Wars Adventure Journal #3

Timeline placement: 2 BBY

 

Drake Paulsen returns, this time in a story that feels like two stories crammed into one. Drake helps a female Wookiee named Nikaede evade Imperial slavers in an okay adventure that primarily exists to flesh out Patricia Jackson's supporting cast of OCs. Meanwhile, in a completely unrelated twist, Drake's father dies off-screen and Drake has to come to terms with that in a tacked-on ending. Nikaede then swears a life debt to Drake because if you invent a Wookiee character they have to owe someone a life debt, I guess. The Essential Reader's Companion places this story the year after its predecessor, but a full year can't have passed because Drake is still 15. 

 

Better than the previous Paulsen parable, but I still don't find any of these characters particularly compelling. Drake Paulsen is a nice kid, I guess, but why do I want to read about him? 2.5 out of 5 Death Stars.

Into the Grave

Out of the Cradle

Author: Patricia A. Jackson

Medium: Short story

Publication date: May 1994 in Star Wars Adventure Journal #2

Timeline placement: 3 BBY

 

First appearance of Drake Paulsen, another of Patricia Jackson’s recurring OCs. Also features not one but two Corellian YT-1300 light freighters, as well as a repeat of the old smuggler’s trick of hiding illegal weapons in a shielded compartment meant for irradiated space tools that Jackson already used in “The Final Exit.” And like Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross before him, Drake spends a lot of time nervously thumbing open his holster’s safety strap, with no mention of it being fastened again between unsnaps.

The main purpose of this story seems to be RPG worldbuilding for the Coynite species of the planet Coyn. Did you know that, in the Coynite tongue, la’chu means “little fox” (wait why are there foxes), but chu’la means “cunning little fox” or “the fox who cannot be caught”?

 

 

 

Next: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker: The Lost City of Tatooine

Han Solo and the Ambiguous Cameo

Passages 

Author: Charlene Newcomb

Medium: Short story

Publication date: August 1995 in Star Wars Adventure Journal #7

Timeline placement: 3 BBY

Chapter two of Charlene Newcomb’s Alex Winger saga. 

In “Turning Point,” we were introduced to Alex, a Force-sensitive little girl adopted by the governor of Garos IV after her family was killed by the Empire. She doesn’t appear in “Passages,” but we do find out that that backstory wasn’t entirely accurate. Alex’s father, Matt Turhaya, is a former Imperial pilot who went AWOL after the unexpected death of his wife. Alex was staying with relatives at the time of the Imperial attack and Matt believes that she died in the bombardment. He’s spent the years since then drinking and gambling his life away like a true alpha male. 

Finding himself 150,000 credits in debt to the DC Comics supervillain Metallo, a mechanical murderer with a kryptonite heart, Matt becomes his indentured servant, accompanying him on his travels to keep his spaceship operational. During a stop on the planet Kabaira, a random Imperial officer recognizes Matt as a deserter and has him arrested, along with some of the planet’s Rebel cell. The “Rebel Alliance” is mentioned but, as with its appearances in the Droids cartoon ten years earlier, it shouldn’t formally exist yet. Early EU lore had the unfortunate habit of deciding that much of the status quo presented in the original trilogy only recently came into being. The Rebel Alliance had only existed for two years. Bib Fortuna had only been Jabba the Hutt’s majordomo for four years. The A-wing wasn’t invented until after the Battle of Yavin. The Mon Calamari species had only been discovered during the reign of the Empire. Then someone who doesn’t know all the lore minutiae comes along and writes a story set further back in time and you run into problems. 

Anyway, Metallo teams up with the local Rebels/rebels to spring their crew mates, and Matt and Metallo end up joining the growing resistance movement against the Empire. Will this new path reunite Matt Turducken with his long-lost daughter? 

And what of Hans Solo, Prince of the Southern Isles? Early in the story, there’s a brief scene where the characters are at the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine, playing cards with a Corellian smuggler with a “cockeyed grin” and a Wookiee copilot. Thankfully, Han and Chewie are never mentioned by name so we don’t have to worry about how this cameo fits into their timeline. There’s probably no reason it couldn’t be them, but maybe it was some other sarcastic Corellian smuggler-cum-card sharp traveling with a Wookiee and Han is actually just a giant cultural stereotype.

 

Next: Into the Grave

I Am Ashamed That You Care to Remember Me

The Final Exit

Author: Patricia A. Jackson

Medium: Short story

Publication date: November 1994 in Star Wars Adventure Journal #4

Timeline placement: 5 BBY

 

Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, Corellian smuggler and captain of the YT-1300 freighter Kierra (inhabited by an overly feminine droid intelligence also named Kierra), gets more than he bargained for when he agrees to Uber thespian-turned-murderer Adalric Brandl back to his home planet for an awkward family reunion.

 

Patricia Jackson's dark, almost gothic saga of Adalric Cessius Brandl and his tortured relationship with his son, Jaalib, is one of the highlights of the Adventure Journal's original fiction. It's weird and sad and confusing and completely unique as far as Star Wars literature goes. I'm still not sure if it's even actually good, but I've been thinking about it, on and off, for 25 years.

 

Jackson writes dialogue in a heightened, theatrical style, evoking Brandl's history as a dramatic actor. Brandl himself gets a slew of juicy, overwrought lines to deliver as he broods over his damned soul, but there's a disconnected, almost dream-like quality to the way every character speaks; the things they say don't quite follow naturally from what they're responding to.

 

This feeling of disconnection extends beyond the characters to the story itself and its place in Star Wars canon. "Adalric Brandl is a Jedi Knight," Ross deduces of his mysterious passenger. Quite a leap, you think, given that this story is set only a few years before A New Hope, when the Jedi are extinct and the Force is disregarded as "hokey religion." Plus Brandl is clearly a psychotic murderer who uses the Force to kill.

 

Prior to the prequel trilogy and the subsequent proliferation of Sith in the Expanded Universe, dark-side Force-users were typically termed "Dark Jedi." Here, though, Brandl is repeatedly referred to in both dialogue and narration as a Jedi Knight. Ross could have said "Adalric Brandl is a Force-user" or, more specifically, "Adalric Brandl is an Imperial Inquisitor." But instead, he's a Jedi—or what passes for a Jedi in this dark-mirror vision of Star Wars. I'm not sure what to make of that. Maybe for the author it was just a term of convenience, but there's something subtly unsettling about it: more sense of broken or missing connections, of performance rather than life.

 

Brandl's lightsaber blade is white, a color that represents purity, but also a color that contains all other colors. What did the author mean by this? Maybe absolutely nothing, but the fact that I'm even asking the question says a lot. 4.5/5 Death Stars.

 

"I live my life in a whirlwind!" 

  

NB: Adalric Brandl's wife is a redhead so take a shot.

Wood Eye, Wood Eye!

Turning Point

Author: Charlene Newcomb

Medium: Short story

Publication date: February 1995 in Star Wars Adventure Journal #5

Timeline placement: 6 BBY

The unfortunately named Dair Haslip has been accepted to the Imperial Academy on Raithal, a lifelong dream of both himself and his best friend, Joss Whedon. Dair’s friend will not be accompanying him to the academy, however, due to Joss Whedon’s father recently having been revealed to be a member of the underground resistance movement on Garos IV. Nevertheless, Dair Haslip and Joss Whedon remain huge Empire stans, until for no reason they decide to sneak around the woods and spy on a couple of Imperial scout troopers, who shoot Joss Whedon in the back. Dair murders them in return, then confesses his crime to his grandmother, who reveals that she is also part of the resistance movement. Dair decides not to reject his academy acceptance and to use his position to fight the Empire from within.

This story is all a big nothing, with one exception that I’ll mention in a moment. We all know that the Empire is evil, but all these Adventure Journal and Galaxy and Gamer stories were written to promote Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, the point of which, I thought, was that you could be anyone in the Star Wars galaxy you wanted to be. So why do so many of these stories go the predictable route of having their protagonists end up joining the Rebellion? “I love or am indifferent to the Empire! Oh no, the Empire fucked me over in the most horrible way, I guess they were evil after all.” This same arc plays out so many times these stories end up feeling like white noise. How about an Imperial protagonist who doesn’t switch sides at the end? We’ve got the TIE Fighter game, select issues of the Empire comic, and…?

But on the plus side, “Turning Point” features the earliest chronological appearance of Alex Winger! She’s only six here, but we will watch her career with great interest. Sadly the same cannot be said about our already forgotten hero, Das Hairlip.

Cleanliness Is Next to Impossible

The Great Heep

Writer: Ben Burtt

Medium: Television

Air Date: June 7, 1986 

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

 

A 45-minute TV special set between the second and third story arcs of the Droids cartoon. We're now entering the portion of the series that I have no familiarity with and no childhood nostalgia for. Despite owning and having watched the DVD that cobbles together the four Mungo Baobab episodes into a terrible "film," I remember absolutely nothing that happens in them. The Great Heep is a prequel to those episodes, but does little to set the stage for them. The special begins with R2-D2 and C-3PO already in the service of their new master, the space merchant Mungo Baobab, heir to the Baobab Merchant Fleet. We don't even get to see how they met!

 

That's okay, though, because once it gets going, this special is awesome. If you've been reading my Droids retrospective up to this point, you may have found yourself thinking, "This all sounds like dumb kiddie bullshit, why would anyone waste their time watching this crap in the year of our Lord 2025/26?" To that, I say: if you only ever watch a single episode of Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO, make it The Great Heep.

 

This has it all: fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles. R2-D2 gets a girlfriend, and it's the cutest thing ever. Would you believe me if I said that there is a non-zero chance that known Star Wars fan Takashi Yamazaki, writer-director of Godzilla Minus One, ripped off the ending of The Great Heep for his Oscar-winning kaiju film? Would you believe me if I told you that C-3PO, a mechanical automaton, sheds a tear, and it not only makes sense but is a genuinely moving and artful scene?

 

Wuv, twue wuv, will fowwow you foweva.

 

For the most part, the animation in the special is only slightly better than that of the regular series, the same low-detail designs and stiff character movements suggestive of low-budget Saturday-morning '80s fare. I say "for the most part," because about halfway through the special, for no reason at all there is a single shot of Admiral Screed's face reflecting the flames from an explosion that looks like it was animated by an entirely different studio or dropped in from a real animated movie. It looks awesome and it's bizarre seeing it in this cartoon. 

 

In summary, The Great Heep rocks, go watch it. But now let's talk about the Great Heep himself, and his weirdly significant place in Expanded Universe canon. Countless aeons ago, in another galaxy, lived the Yuuzhan Vong, arch-villains of the 19-book New Jedi Order series published by Del Rey Books between 1999 and 2003. A key cultural trait of their people was their species-wide religious technophobia, a prejudice developed when they were almost wiped out in a galactic war waged between the two advanced droid races of their home galaxy: the starfish-shaped Silentium, and the evil Abominor, massive mechanical monsters of varying shapes and sizes.

 

The war nearly destroyed everything, but ultimately the Yuuzhan Vong  drove the two robotic factions out of their native galaxy. Like the Yuuzhan Vong themselves eventually would, some of the surviving Silentium and Abominor ended up in the Star Wars galaxy. The former appeared in L. Neil Smith's 1983 trilogy The Lando Calrissian Adventures, while EU lore mentions eighteen known Abominor encounters, although only two were ever depicted in fiction. One was Ronyards from the Alan Moore Devilworlds comic Rust Never Sleeps, a junkyard world populated by droids who believed their planet was the body of a living god. The other was the Great Heep himself!

 

When the Great Heep arrived in the Star Wars galaxy, his batteries were dead and he ended up in a museum on Coruscant for 300 years until he was found and reactivated by Admiral Terrinald Screed of the Imperial Navy, with their subsequent partnership kick-starting the events of the Droids TV special. It's fun to watch this goofy '80s cartoon and think about R2-D2 and C-3PO fighting an ancient evil machine from another galaxy, the progeny of whose warmongering would arrive to trouble them forty years later, and being none the wiser to the broader significance of their adventure.

 

The war to end all wars.

 

(It should be noted that all of this is pure retroactive continuity established in The New Essential Guide to Droids (2006). The words "Silentium" and "Abominor" never appear in The Lando Calrissian Adventures, The Great Heep, or Rust Never Sleeps, nor did the authors of any of those '80s stories intend them to tie in to a book series that wouldn't be written for another two decades. But this is the connective, reinforcing beauty of EU continuity. Some fans balk at the esotericism of retcons like these, but my feeling is that as long as the original stories aren't being diminished or compromised in some way, they don't do no harm.)

 

Next: Escape from the Monster Ship