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grizzlibear's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
shawn_annets's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.25
librareee's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
2.5
This is not my favorite legends novel. The spirit of the characters is intact but the story lacks a true antagonist with the death of Palpatine, Thrawn, and the emperor's clone. The X-Wing novels don't struggle with this as much because it's easy to have an Imperial Warlord play the part of such an antagonist. It feels like novels with Han, Leia, and Luke as main characters demands something more and that makes it difficult on the author I think.
This also marks the first appearance of Callista, a Jedi who was killed on the ship "The Eye of Palpatine" 30 years ago who somehow was able to transport her consciousness into the ship. There are just a lot of characters suddenly thrust into this book and the way they're portrayed makes it seem like they're people you should have already known about in other stories. I had to check Wookiepedia to make sure I hadn't missed a book in my Legends re-read that would have helped with context.
Anyways, the ability to transfer human consciousness into computers and the ability to transfer them out again is a focal point in this book. I like when Star Wars gets weird but this seemed a bit out of left field even for me. The romance between Luke and Callista was also set to, forgive me, lightspeed and developed way too fast in my opinion. It made their relationship difficult for me to buy into.
Anyways, this is the first in a trilogy although each book is by a different author. I'm interested to see how the characters develop as the story continues.
Anyways, the ability to transfer human consciousness into computers and the ability to transfer them out again is a focal point in this book. I like when Star Wars gets weird but this seemed a bit out of left field even for me. The romance between Luke and Callista was also set to, forgive me, lightspeed and developed way too fast in my opinion. It made their relationship difficult for me to buy into.
Anyways, this is the first in a trilogy although each book is by a different author. I'm interested to see how the characters develop as the story continues.
sickeningtwist's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
I went into this knowing it was bad and I think I’ve decided not to rate legend books anymore bc it’s all fanfiction anyway.
The plot was random, the dialogue was random, and nothing made sense. A lot of random backstory of planets and people nobody cares about or knows. Cray deserved better. Callista was boring. And people want to bitch about Disney and TLJ mischaracterization of Luke, they haven’t seen anything until this.
Luke “Yeah sure Cray who I have a deep connection with and I am your mentor please let my ghost girlfriend take over your body so I can have sex.” Skywalker is worse than hermit Luke any day. Also, guess we’ll never talk about Cray again. It’s almost like she was created to serve as an object and host for male objectification.
Take a shot every time the male characters (Luke mostly) ogles her “perfection”, “makeup”, and “legs”
The plot was random, the dialogue was random, and nothing made sense. A lot of random backstory of planets and people nobody cares about or knows. Cray deserved better. Callista was boring. And people want to bitch about Disney and TLJ mischaracterization of Luke, they haven’t seen anything until this.
Luke “Yeah sure Cray who I have a deep connection with and I am your mentor please let my ghost girlfriend take over your body so I can have sex.” Skywalker is worse than hermit Luke any day. Also, guess we’ll never talk about Cray again. It’s almost like she was created to serve as an object and host for male objectification.
Take a shot every time the male characters (Luke mostly) ogles her “perfection”, “makeup”, and “legs”
autumnal54's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
crystalstarrlight's review against another edition
1.0
The great Jedi Master Luke passes out - Times Four!
Han, Luke, and Leia are on Ithor, enjoying the beautiful Time of Meeting, when an old associate of Han's appears and leaves them with a cryptic message. This message leads Han and Leia to the mysterious world of Belsavis, and Luke and his students, Cray Mingla, brilliant scientist, and her fiancee, Nichos Marr, head to the Moonflower Nebula. Both quickly uncover a plot by a former Emperor's Hand to destroy Belasavis.
NOTE: I read this book years ago and recently listened to the audiobook.
I Liked:
This time around I caught a small line that said that no one was quite sure who the Eye of Palpatine was created to attack, but it was a large enemy. Could that be the Yuuzhan Vong, whom Palpatine may have seen? Did he rise to power to prevent the galaxy from falling into their hands? No one knows, but it's interesting.
Another tiny part that recurrs is the Emperor's Hand. In the Thrawn Trilogy, Thrawn tells Mara she wasn't the only Emperor's Hand. Here, we get to see another, Roganada Ismaren.
Seeing Callista and Altis reminds me of the books by Traviss where they make cameo appearances. Kinda interesting to see how they have been tied in. I hope we get more stories of Callista from the prequel era.
Lastly, Han and Leia's investigation of Belsavis isn't that bad.
I Didn't Like:
On one hand, I didn't feel the revulsion for this book that I had felt for it when I read it as a teen (surprise, I know!) or for the Jedi Academy trilogy. On the other hand, it doesn't mean it was an amazing book.
The first thing I noticed was the pervasive flowery language. I've noticed audiobooks can cut out some of that (which I appreciate), but this book opened with a particularly flowery passage that I had to listen to more than once to get an idea what the heck was going on. There are several other parts where things are happening, and Hambly just stops to detail everything in the scene. And really, for this story, there is no need for over-describing.
I appreciated how Hambly didn't try to shoehorn everyone into the book, but none of the characters quite felt themselves. One of Han Solo's first lines is a particularly nasty line about Cray, which comes out like "you mean the blonde with legs?" Uh, excuse me? What Han is this? Not the Han Solo that is happily married to Leia. Speaking of Leia, I don't think she would be particularly impressed with Han buying her a dress that cost 30% of most planet's incomes. Leia has never been that kind of woman at all. Luke Skywalker is nasty, honestly, but I want to talk about him separately. The choice to continue the Mara and Lando subplot is hideous (at least it is easily retconned by Zahn--thank you!!). Nichos Marr feels too much like Data--a man with his own hands and head, but everything else is robotic? And they couldn't transfer his personality so he acted like a droid? What about Darth Vader? That guys was almost all robot and he still could love and think and emote. Cray was a stereotypical scientist, hot and sexy, yet brilliant and Force-sensitive too! And Callista, while good...well, let me talk about her separately too.
The concept of the Eye of Palpatine is one that has seen too much exposure in the novels of this time: the Empire creating superweapons. Number one, how did they have the money, after the TWO Death Stars, to build this? Number two, why so many superwepaons? If the Death Star was the ultimate power, why have the Sun Crusher, the Eye of Palpatine, the Galaxy Gun? And Number three, why make something as unwieldy as the Eye of Palpatine? Supposedly it is so big and secretive...only, how could something that big be so secretive? Why send your troops to random planets for this big, huge superweapon to pick up and attract attention to itself? Why make this thing so stupid it can't tell the difference between stormtroopers and Jawas, Gamorreans, and Tusken Raiders? If I were Palpatine, I would be getting my money back on this thing.
Another big beef I have with this book is the Luke Skywalker plot. He goes searching in the Moonflower Cluster, at the beckon of the Force, and basically does nothing but hobble around on the superweapon, getting into fights between two opposing Gamorrean (!) clans, and having literal cybersex with a computer. Actually, not a computer. This is Callista, who was a Jedi, but somehow learns to get into a computer (I have never met anyone who was actually able to explain how the heck this happens in Star Wars, but it must be related to how Palpatine keeps coming back as a clone). Luke meets her and two seconds later, they are in lurve, and he can't bear to part from her, and he is calling her "Baby" (BABY?!?! Not even Han says that to Leia!). What. The. Heck??? Talk about love at first sight! Their relationship is so slapshod, so hasty, so chemistry-less that I was gagging whenever I had to hear these two together.
Another part that really gets my goat is this:
Lastly, and I promise this is it, Luke Skywalker, the only Jedi Master, the man who destroyed the first Death Star, fought with the Emperor, and saved Darth Vader, passes out FOUR times in this novel. Almost every scene with him ends with him getting knocked unconscious or blacking out! It almost makes Eragon look tame (at least Eragon was an idiot and not a Jedi Master!).
Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
A few cases of d*** and h***.
Cray and Nichos are lovers. Callista and Luke have cybersex (tee hee).
Lightsaber duels, explosions, violent Gamorreans, Luke walking around all day on a broken leg.
Overall:
Probably more like a 1.5 or even (pushing it) a 2, this book has a good, solid idea and flounders in flowery writing, out of character experiences, and a horrendous love story. Fortunately, little to nothing in this book (or series) has any factor on later books, so I recommend you skip this one all together.
Han, Luke, and Leia are on Ithor, enjoying the beautiful Time of Meeting, when an old associate of Han's appears and leaves them with a cryptic message. This message leads Han and Leia to the mysterious world of Belsavis, and Luke and his students, Cray Mingla, brilliant scientist, and her fiancee, Nichos Marr, head to the Moonflower Nebula. Both quickly uncover a plot by a former Emperor's Hand to destroy Belasavis.
NOTE: I read this book years ago and recently listened to the audiobook.
I Liked:
This time around I caught a small line that said that no one was quite sure who the Eye of Palpatine was created to attack, but it was a large enemy. Could that be the Yuuzhan Vong, whom Palpatine may have seen? Did he rise to power to prevent the galaxy from falling into their hands? No one knows, but it's interesting.
Another tiny part that recurrs is the Emperor's Hand. In the Thrawn Trilogy, Thrawn tells Mara she wasn't the only Emperor's Hand. Here, we get to see another, Roganada Ismaren.
Seeing Callista and Altis reminds me of the books by Traviss where they make cameo appearances. Kinda interesting to see how they have been tied in. I hope we get more stories of Callista from the prequel era.
Lastly, Han and Leia's investigation of Belsavis isn't that bad.
I Didn't Like:
On one hand, I didn't feel the revulsion for this book that I had felt for it when I read it as a teen (surprise, I know!) or for the Jedi Academy trilogy. On the other hand, it doesn't mean it was an amazing book.
The first thing I noticed was the pervasive flowery language. I've noticed audiobooks can cut out some of that (which I appreciate), but this book opened with a particularly flowery passage that I had to listen to more than once to get an idea what the heck was going on. There are several other parts where things are happening, and Hambly just stops to detail everything in the scene. And really, for this story, there is no need for over-describing.
I appreciated how Hambly didn't try to shoehorn everyone into the book, but none of the characters quite felt themselves. One of Han Solo's first lines is a particularly nasty line about Cray, which comes out like "you mean the blonde with legs?" Uh, excuse me? What Han is this? Not the Han Solo that is happily married to Leia. Speaking of Leia, I don't think she would be particularly impressed with Han buying her a dress that cost 30% of most planet's incomes. Leia has never been that kind of woman at all. Luke Skywalker is nasty, honestly, but I want to talk about him separately. The choice to continue the Mara and Lando subplot is hideous (at least it is easily retconned by Zahn--thank you!!). Nichos Marr feels too much like Data--a man with his own hands and head, but everything else is robotic? And they couldn't transfer his personality so he acted like a droid? What about Darth Vader? That guys was almost all robot and he still could love and think and emote. Cray was a stereotypical scientist, hot and sexy, yet brilliant and Force-sensitive too! And Callista, while good...well, let me talk about her separately too.
The concept of the Eye of Palpatine is one that has seen too much exposure in the novels of this time: the Empire creating superweapons. Number one, how did they have the money, after the TWO Death Stars, to build this? Number two, why so many superwepaons? If the Death Star was the ultimate power, why have the Sun Crusher, the Eye of Palpatine, the Galaxy Gun? And Number three, why make something as unwieldy as the Eye of Palpatine? Supposedly it is so big and secretive...only, how could something that big be so secretive? Why send your troops to random planets for this big, huge superweapon to pick up and attract attention to itself? Why make this thing so stupid it can't tell the difference between stormtroopers and Jawas, Gamorreans, and Tusken Raiders? If I were Palpatine, I would be getting my money back on this thing.
Another big beef I have with this book is the Luke Skywalker plot. He goes searching in the Moonflower Cluster, at the beckon of the Force, and basically does nothing but hobble around on the superweapon, getting into fights between two opposing Gamorrean (!) clans, and having literal cybersex with a computer. Actually, not a computer. This is Callista, who was a Jedi, but somehow learns to get into a computer (I have never met anyone who was actually able to explain how the heck this happens in Star Wars, but it must be related to how Palpatine keeps coming back as a clone). Luke meets her and two seconds later, they are in lurve, and he can't bear to part from her, and he is calling her "Baby" (BABY?!?! Not even Han says that to Leia!). What. The. Heck??? Talk about love at first sight! Their relationship is so slapshod, so hasty, so chemistry-less that I was gagging whenever I had to hear these two together.
Another part that really gets my goat is this:
Spoiler
Callista imports herself into Cray's body and starts to CHANGE Cray's eye color and hair color to Callista's. I may have been able to believe Callista taking over Cray's body, but for her to change it?! No way!Lastly, and I promise this is it, Luke Skywalker, the only Jedi Master, the man who destroyed the first Death Star, fought with the Emperor, and saved Darth Vader, passes out FOUR times in this novel. Almost every scene with him ends with him getting knocked unconscious or blacking out! It almost makes Eragon look tame (at least Eragon was an idiot and not a Jedi Master!).
Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
A few cases of d*** and h***.
Cray and Nichos are lovers. Callista and Luke have cybersex (tee hee).
Lightsaber duels, explosions, violent Gamorreans, Luke walking around all day on a broken leg.
Overall:
Probably more like a 1.5 or even (pushing it) a 2, this book has a good, solid idea and flounders in flowery writing, out of character experiences, and a horrendous love story. Fortunately, little to nothing in this book (or series) has any factor on later books, so I recommend you skip this one all together.
bradland's review against another edition
2.0
My 'Interpretive Study' for Year 11 English in 1998 for Children of the Jedi (warts and all):
The second book I am writing about is called ‘Star Wars – Children of the Jedi’ written by Barbara Hambly This noel was not meant to be part of a trilogy like ‘Heir to the Empire’ when it was first written and released. Over the next couple of years though, two other books based on the events in Children of the Jedi continued on the story There was a reason for this and the reason is there were already other books released before COTJ that were set sometime after. If COTJ were to be left like it was all the Star Wars novels would not connect to each other the way there meant to.
Children of the Jedi is set eight years after ‘Return of the Jedi’ and thee years after Heir to the Empire. During that three year period Luke Skywalker has established a Jedi Academy to teach potential Jedi students the ways of the Force and to become Jedi Knights. Princess Leia has become the Chief of State of the New Republic government during that time as well. Han Solo and Leia have had another child called Anakin, named after Luke and Leia’s father Anakin Skywalker before he became the evil dark load, Darth Vader.
The story is about Luke and Leia hearing a rumour about lost Children of the Jedi from the past who were in hiding when Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader were hunting down and killing any Force User. The lost children were also rumoured to be situated on the planet Ithor.
Luke, accompanied with two of his students Cray and Nichol and the golden droid C-3PO took a spaceship on a mission to investigate this rumour. Han, Leia, Chewie and R2-D2 were to meet up with Luke on Ithor later on in the Millennium Falcon
As Luke and the gang were travelling to their destination they received a radio transmission from another spacecraft that prompted them to investigate. This led to Luke’s ship being shot down and crash landing on the unknown ship that had sent the transmission and who had shot them down.
It turns out the unknown spaceship is a thirty year old Dreadnaught-Class Cruiser called the ‘Eye of Palpatine’ (dreadnaughts were considered the most powerful star-cruisers in the known galaxy in the past). This cruiser had been programmed thirty years ago by the Empire to attack Ithor because of the Jedi located there, but it near completed its mission for some unknown reason.
To complete this feat the dreadnaught was also programmed to pick up al of the Empire’s stormtroopers situated on particular planets on the way to Ithor. Since all of the stormtroopers would have either left or died years ago on each planet, ‘The Eye of Palpatine’ picked up other different species from each planet, and brain-washed them into being loyal servant to the Empire/
Luke eventually discovers that a spirit of a Jedi Knight is on board the cruiser. Her name is Callista and she released her spirit from her body through the Force and into the gunnery compute, preventing anyone else from activating the deadly weapon. She existed in a dreamlike suspension for nearly thirty years. Luke and Callista join forces to stop the ‘Eye of Palpatine’ from fulfilling its mission.
When I read through this book I found it difficult to follow the plot. I kept having to go back through the booking thinking I have missed an important paragraph somewhere and discovering I hadn’t. The story was very hard to understand and it took me the longest time to read compared with the other Star Wars boos I have read. The plot also tended to drag on a bit, not like Timothy Zahn’s ‘Heir to the Empire.’
The follow on books ‘Darksaber’ by Kevin J Anderson and ‘Planet of Twilight’ by Barbara Hambly are slightly better than Children of the Jedi.
The second book I am writing about is called ‘Star Wars – Children of the Jedi’ written by Barbara Hambly This noel was not meant to be part of a trilogy like ‘Heir to the Empire’ when it was first written and released. Over the next couple of years though, two other books based on the events in Children of the Jedi continued on the story There was a reason for this and the reason is there were already other books released before COTJ that were set sometime after. If COTJ were to be left like it was all the Star Wars novels would not connect to each other the way there meant to.
Children of the Jedi is set eight years after ‘Return of the Jedi’ and thee years after Heir to the Empire. During that three year period Luke Skywalker has established a Jedi Academy to teach potential Jedi students the ways of the Force and to become Jedi Knights. Princess Leia has become the Chief of State of the New Republic government during that time as well. Han Solo and Leia have had another child called Anakin, named after Luke and Leia’s father Anakin Skywalker before he became the evil dark load, Darth Vader.
The story is about Luke and Leia hearing a rumour about lost Children of the Jedi from the past who were in hiding when Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader were hunting down and killing any Force User. The lost children were also rumoured to be situated on the planet Ithor.
Luke, accompanied with two of his students Cray and Nichol and the golden droid C-3PO took a spaceship on a mission to investigate this rumour. Han, Leia, Chewie and R2-D2 were to meet up with Luke on Ithor later on in the Millennium Falcon
As Luke and the gang were travelling to their destination they received a radio transmission from another spacecraft that prompted them to investigate. This led to Luke’s ship being shot down and crash landing on the unknown ship that had sent the transmission and who had shot them down.
It turns out the unknown spaceship is a thirty year old Dreadnaught-Class Cruiser called the ‘Eye of Palpatine’ (dreadnaughts were considered the most powerful star-cruisers in the known galaxy in the past). This cruiser had been programmed thirty years ago by the Empire to attack Ithor because of the Jedi located there, but it near completed its mission for some unknown reason.
To complete this feat the dreadnaught was also programmed to pick up al of the Empire’s stormtroopers situated on particular planets on the way to Ithor. Since all of the stormtroopers would have either left or died years ago on each planet, ‘The Eye of Palpatine’ picked up other different species from each planet, and brain-washed them into being loyal servant to the Empire/
Luke eventually discovers that a spirit of a Jedi Knight is on board the cruiser. Her name is Callista and she released her spirit from her body through the Force and into the gunnery compute, preventing anyone else from activating the deadly weapon. She existed in a dreamlike suspension for nearly thirty years. Luke and Callista join forces to stop the ‘Eye of Palpatine’ from fulfilling its mission.
When I read through this book I found it difficult to follow the plot. I kept having to go back through the booking thinking I have missed an important paragraph somewhere and discovering I hadn’t. The story was very hard to understand and it took me the longest time to read compared with the other Star Wars boos I have read. The plot also tended to drag on a bit, not like Timothy Zahn’s ‘Heir to the Empire.’
The follow on books ‘Darksaber’ by Kevin J Anderson and ‘Planet of Twilight’ by Barbara Hambly are slightly better than Children of the Jedi.
cyris_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
k_auck's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0