graff_fuller's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
This is my further adventure into Star Wars: Legends books/series. For the most part, this story is good, it is just jammed packed with names, places, characters that don't really effect the plot movement.
It is good to be around the main characters, but their adversaries didn't do much for me.
I like seeing Luke being battered/bruised and not at his A game. That was good.
This illusive Calista is a good character in this trilogy. I also am interested in the AI development within this period of time in Star Wars.
Love the banter (as always) with Leia and Han.
The Eye of Palpatine was something I had not known, before reading this book...which was interesting...the collosal asteroid type Death Star. Boy the Empire had a one track mind. Jeesh.
This being the first book in a trilogy, at this rating, I would usually dip out, but I think I will push through. I might regret it, but having exposure to the Legends era/Extended Universe, when it was the Wild West...and pretty much ANYTHING goes mentality of what could happen in a story.
#BucketListathon2023
It is good to be around the main characters, but their adversaries didn't do much for me.
I like seeing Luke being battered/bruised and not at his A game. That was good.
This illusive Calista is a good character in this trilogy. I also am interested in the AI development within this period of time in Star Wars.
Love the banter (as always) with Leia and Han.
The Eye of Palpatine was something I had not known, before reading this book...which was interesting...the collosal asteroid type Death Star. Boy the Empire had a one track mind. Jeesh.
This being the first book in a trilogy, at this rating, I would usually dip out, but I think I will push through. I might regret it, but having exposure to the Legends era/Extended Universe, when it was the Wild West...and pretty much ANYTHING goes mentality of what could happen in a story.
#BucketListathon2023
radioisasoundsalvation's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
twilliamson's review against another edition
1.0
If Vonda McIntyre's The Crystal Star is the worst Star Wars novel ever, Barbara Hambly's Children of the Jedi desperately wants to try for the title. It takes a lot to make a book as bad, but virtually every decision Hambly makes for Luke and company is the wrong one.
The books flaws are multitude, but it bears repeating the worst parts:
1) Luke spends the entire novel passing out, with almost every one of his chapters ending with a fade to black, as if that helps build narrative tension;
2) Luke has a wet dream about a Force ghost and then decides he is in love with her in spite of only knowing her Force ghost self for, like, three days or something;
3) Luke's Force ghost girlfriend inhabits the corpse of one of Luke's hot students;
4) Luke's hot student only gives up her body because she can't stand to live without her boyfriend;
5) Mara Jade gets mad that she wasn't the only one of Palpatine's side pieces;
6) The main antagonist of the novel doesn't show up for almost 60% of the book;
7) The main crisis of the book is yet another stupid megaweapon lost by the Emperor somewhere;
8) The main antagonist of the novel is believed to be one of Palpatine's heirs;
9) The book retroactively decides that the Galactic Civil War, which ended prior to Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy, isn't over anymore;
10) All the Gamorreans speak Galactic Basic now for no reason whatsoever;
11) Tusken Raiders show up on the giant spaceship superweapon, along with Jawas and plant people, for absolutely no fucking reason other than to add length to an already overwrought plot.
It's also worth noting that while Hambly is objectively the best prose writer of any of the Star Wars books from 1976-1995, the book's plot doesn't start to come together until well over half the book's length, at which point the development of the plot barely resembles its original premise. In spite of her prose, the book is a slog of boring exposition, ridiculous subplot elements that do nothing to serve the characters or the setting of Star Wars and its lore, and simply retcons whole developments of the expanded universe timeline for no appreciable reason. Some of that blame surely lies at the feet of the editorial team behind the expanded universe's design, but it seems objectionable that Hambly simply ignores much of the expanded lore in order to shoehorn whatever bad idea she has for the universe--whether it be on the nature of Gamorrean speech or on the truly abominable sexual politics of this novel.
But, hey, at least the cover's bitchin', right?
The books flaws are multitude, but it bears repeating the worst parts:
1) Luke spends the entire novel passing out, with almost every one of his chapters ending with a fade to black, as if that helps build narrative tension;
2) Luke has a wet dream about a Force ghost and then decides he is in love with her in spite of only knowing her Force ghost self for, like, three days or something;
3) Luke's Force ghost girlfriend inhabits the corpse of one of Luke's hot students;
4) Luke's hot student only gives up her body because she can't stand to live without her boyfriend;
5) Mara Jade gets mad that she wasn't the only one of Palpatine's side pieces;
6) The main antagonist of the novel doesn't show up for almost 60% of the book;
7) The main crisis of the book is yet another stupid megaweapon lost by the Emperor somewhere;
8) The main antagonist of the novel is believed to be one of Palpatine's heirs;
9) The book retroactively decides that the Galactic Civil War, which ended prior to Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy, isn't over anymore;
10) All the Gamorreans speak Galactic Basic now for no reason whatsoever;
11) Tusken Raiders show up on the giant spaceship superweapon, along with Jawas and plant people, for absolutely no fucking reason other than to add length to an already overwrought plot.
It's also worth noting that while Hambly is objectively the best prose writer of any of the Star Wars books from 1976-1995, the book's plot doesn't start to come together until well over half the book's length, at which point the development of the plot barely resembles its original premise. In spite of her prose, the book is a slog of boring exposition, ridiculous subplot elements that do nothing to serve the characters or the setting of Star Wars and its lore, and simply retcons whole developments of the expanded universe timeline for no appreciable reason. Some of that blame surely lies at the feet of the editorial team behind the expanded universe's design, but it seems objectionable that Hambly simply ignores much of the expanded lore in order to shoehorn whatever bad idea she has for the universe--whether it be on the nature of Gamorrean speech or on the truly abominable sexual politics of this novel.
But, hey, at least the cover's bitchin', right?
kellylynnthomas's review against another edition
5.0
Even though it might not quite fit in with the continuity created by the prequel trilogy, I thought this was a cool story.
silpulsar_lexapro's review against another edition
1.0
Hot mess express. It usually takes a day or two for me to read a Star Wars book. This one took a month. Too many drawn out descriptions and a storyline with Luke on some weird ghost ship. Boring as hell. One of my least favorite so far.
cm1987's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.25
O god, it took ages to finish this book! I looove Star Wars but damnn this felt like Slow Wars🤣
yak_attak's review against another edition
4.0
4... 4.5.... dare I say it...
Kept waiting for the shoe to drop and find out why people hate Children of the Jedi... and it never happened? It is, admittedly, a very different book that many others. Blends a pulp-sci-fi feel with romantic fantasy and horror? It's written very evocatively, and thus ends up pretty slow. But its mystery and atmosphere is excellent, like a Galaxy of Fear book, but in the main EU Canon? Leia has a huge, important and central part? awesome! Luke goes through like a Sci-Fi Die Hard? great. Zombies? Force robots? Mind-swapping? What the hell? I'm honestly kinda mad I was warned against this for so long. Characterization is on point and evocative, and the intrigue very different, but fits well with both backstory and the time that the novel's set it. Who cares if there are no X-wings, this is its own thing, and does it superbly!
Kept waiting for the shoe to drop and find out why people hate Children of the Jedi... and it never happened? It is, admittedly, a very different book that many others. Blends a pulp-sci-fi feel with romantic fantasy and horror? It's written very evocatively, and thus ends up pretty slow. But its mystery and atmosphere is excellent, like a Galaxy of Fear book, but in the main EU Canon? Leia has a huge, important and central part? awesome! Luke goes through like a Sci-Fi Die Hard? great. Zombies? Force robots? Mind-swapping? What the hell? I'm honestly kinda mad I was warned against this for so long. Characterization is on point and evocative, and the intrigue very different, but fits well with both backstory and the time that the novel's set it. Who cares if there are no X-wings, this is its own thing, and does it superbly!
snazel's review against another edition
2.0
C-390 was good. Learned interesting stuff about stormtrooper indoctrination. General plot and also the romance was passe at best.
colinmcev's review against another edition
2.0
Man, looking over some of the reviews of this book here on Goodreads, it seems a lot of people really HATED this book, huh? As for me, perhaps because I had fairly recently read I, Jedi, which I found absolutely terrible, I didn't think Children of the Jedi was quite as objectionable as many others seem to have. It's a 2.5-star book for me, and I honestly wrestled with whether to round up or down on it. (JUST ADD HALF-STAR RATINGS ALREADY, GOODREADS!) Certainly, Children of the Jedi is a flawed book. It drags at time, and some of its plotlines are cheesy or ineffective, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it for anybody except for Star Wars fanboys/completionists like myself. But it also had some interesting ideas, some moments of good fun, and while I didn't find Barbara Hambly's prose particularly impressive, I found her to be a fine genre writer, and far, FAR better than Michael A. Stackpole in that department. (Have I mentioned that I really hated I, Jedi?)
First, the good: I enjoyed how this book delved a little more into Princess Leia's emotional turmoil over the destruction of her home planet of Alderaan, still understandably strong even 12 years later. I found the guilt she continued to experience -- both at failing to stop the planet's destruction, and over her temptation to use her political power to seek revenge against those tangentially responsible -- to be compelling. I also enjoyed the characters of Cray and Nichos and the questions their relationship raised about how similar human intelligence and artificial intelligence are from each other. (Similar themes were explored with the Callista character, though less effectively for me.) The idea of Cray saving her lover Nichos' life from a fatal illness by transferring his consciousness into a mechanical body made for an interesting subplot, and it made me wish the two characters hadn't disappeared for such a long stretch of the novel.
As for the main plotline -- the asteroid-shaped Eye of Palpatine becoming remotely activated and racing to destroy a planet unless Luke Skywalker (who, by the way, REALLY got his ass kicked in this one!) and company can save it -- it was entertaining enough, but certainly a little half-baked. The idea of the ship abducting a bunch of random alien races and tricking them all into believing they were stormtroopers (with Gamorreans of Return of the Jedi fame all running around with pieces of stormtrooper armor covering their oversized bodies) has its B movie-esque amusements, but the whole thing felt a little too slapsticky. Worse than all that, however, was the romance that Hambly creates between Luke Skywalker and the disembodied Callista. The idea that Luke would fall in love -- let alone so quickly -- with a Jedi whose consciousness has been (for lack of a better word) uploaded into a spaceship for multiple decades just didn't work for me at all, and I'd have much rather all that silliness had just ended with the conclusion of this novel, rather than it being resolved the way it was.
I had a few other narrative qualms with this book (like Leia very conveniently uncovering a criminal conspiracy in deus-ex-machina fashion because she happened to run into and recognize some people on the street who, up to this point, hadn't even been introduced in the novel) but for all these criticisms, I did enjoy it on some level. Perhaps I'm just overly-inclined to go easy on Star Wars books, which is my escapist, guilty-pleasure reading. Suffice it to say, only Star Wars fans should bother with this one, and even they can definitely find better reads elsewhere.
First, the good: I enjoyed how this book delved a little more into Princess Leia's emotional turmoil over the destruction of her home planet of Alderaan, still understandably strong even 12 years later. I found the guilt she continued to experience -- both at failing to stop the planet's destruction, and over her temptation to use her political power to seek revenge against those tangentially responsible -- to be compelling. I also enjoyed the characters of Cray and Nichos and the questions their relationship raised about how similar human intelligence and artificial intelligence are from each other. (Similar themes were explored with the Callista character, though less effectively for me.) The idea of Cray saving her lover Nichos' life from a fatal illness by transferring his consciousness into a mechanical body made for an interesting subplot, and it made me wish the two characters hadn't disappeared for such a long stretch of the novel.
As for the main plotline -- the asteroid-shaped Eye of Palpatine becoming remotely activated and racing to destroy a planet unless Luke Skywalker (who, by the way, REALLY got his ass kicked in this one!) and company can save it -- it was entertaining enough, but certainly a little half-baked. The idea of the ship abducting a bunch of random alien races and tricking them all into believing they were stormtroopers (with Gamorreans of Return of the Jedi fame all running around with pieces of stormtrooper armor covering their oversized bodies) has its B movie-esque amusements, but the whole thing felt a little too slapsticky. Worse than all that, however, was the romance that Hambly creates between Luke Skywalker and the disembodied Callista. The idea that Luke would fall in love -- let alone so quickly -- with a Jedi whose consciousness has been (for lack of a better word) uploaded into a spaceship for multiple decades just didn't work for me at all, and I'd have much rather all that silliness had just ended with the conclusion of this novel, rather than it being resolved the way it was.
I had a few other narrative qualms with this book (like Leia very conveniently uncovering a criminal conspiracy in deus-ex-machina fashion because she happened to run into and recognize some people on the street who, up to this point, hadn't even been introduced in the novel) but for all these criticisms, I did enjoy it on some level. Perhaps I'm just overly-inclined to go easy on Star Wars books, which is my escapist, guilty-pleasure reading. Suffice it to say, only Star Wars fans should bother with this one, and even they can definitely find better reads elsewhere.
wyrmbergmalcolm's review against another edition
2.0
This really is a book of two halves. Luke’s chapters are gripping and really move the story along. The chapters on the planet are so slow and uninteresting I couldn’t even remember what the mystery was while reading the book. I was wanting to get on and see what Luke was getting up to. The action-packed conclusion just sort of fizzled out with a …to be continued, which was a bit annoying.