Star Wars Joiner King

 I just read Star Wars The Joiner King by Troy Denning, so on to the next in the Dark Nest series called the Unseen Queen. First I’m not sure why Hans Solo is featured on the cover of this book being that it is not primarily about him. It is a good story and well written. I did not have any issues with the book and it eventually did prove to be one of those can’t-put-down books.

Sometimes I think the Star Wars writers have too much of the callous silly movie style in mind, such as sly witty remarks, never any real sense of danger as well as the characters never display the magnitude of risk or danger endemic in what they do. Actually, with Han Solo, Denning does well in doing away with any silly invincibleness with him, but it’s Mara Jade and Luke that get pretty annoying.

There is always something disturbing about sentient insects and so the story has that going for it. One problem I have with some Star Wars writers is that they get so technical and descriptive that I have no idea what they are talking about or in many cases I simply cannot visualize the situation. I imagine they have a couple of goals, one to meet the standards of the Star Wars brand, Lucas, et al, thus they have to show a well researched product. On the other hand, they should do focus groups with regular readers like myself and see if we can decipher what’s going on. In a light saber duel or space ship duel, after, three pages of stuff, I have no clue what just happened and I’m basically scanning to see who won. The technical expertise is impressive but still the point of writing is to communicate.

One interesting idea Denning explores in this book is the whole conscious versus unconscious personality. The idea was that all living things have a conscious personality that is influenced by an unconscious personality. In the case of the Killik, an insect species, their unconscious personality becomes inbued with the dark side of the force and causes all kinds of trouble. It is interesting because they present both personalities as distinct, discrete and independent–thus you can be evil but not aware of the root of the evil influence or in the case of the Killik, not even able to acknowledge the darkness because you are not conscious of it.