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A review by berenikeasteria
Jedi Trial by Dan Cragg, David Sherman
1.0
Despite being a long-time, multiple re-reading Expanded Universe fan, there are a handful of books which managed to slip through the net and which I’ve never picked up. Mainly these are the ones that came out in the final years of the EU, when my free time was severely curtailed by the fact that I went off to university, applied for jobs, and other adult time sinks. So I had never actually read Jedi Trial until now. And now I wish I hadn’t.
Jedi Trial has got to be a strong contender for worst book in the Expanded Universe. Within the first two pages I found myself thinking; “Oh dear,” when I came across this example of dialogue:
The reason I cringed was because this exchange sounded exactly like something you might read in fan fiction. I should add the qualifier that not all fan fiction is bad, of course, but a decent portion of it is written by young writers attempting to find their feet and lacking experience, often resulting in awkward, clunky dialogue between characters that doesn’t sound like anything people in real life would say. That’s what this exchange reminded me of. Scenes where a kooky, dreamy character implausibly cannot hear someone yelling in their face – despite the fact that this would be pretty hard to miss in real life – and issuing redundant dialogue. In retrospect, this poor quality of writing on the second page should’ve served as a warning, but I can imagine very few books that I’d give up on after just two pages, and so I pressed ahead.
Our familiar touchstone for this book is Anakin, but there’s two problems with this. First, for an established character who’s meant to draw the reader in to this book, Anakin feels like he’s barely in it. Second, when he does appear, we get Whiny Anakin, constantly complaining about how a jealous Obi-Wan is holding him back and pestering people to allow him to take his trial to become a Jedi Knight. Most of the other protagonists are original characters. The Expanded Universe has created some deeply fascinating and beloved original characters over the years – Mara Jade, Corran Horn, Mitth’raw’nuruodo. These are not among them. Mainly because they are written as shallow stock tropes, there’s far too much telling rather than showing going on, and they seemingly have no personality at all. The authors rely far too much on picking out one single bit of trivia about a character and repeating it ad nauseam. Imagine if every other sentence Han’s lopsided smile was mentioned, but none of his witty comebacks, stubbornness, or grudgingly revealed heart of gold. He’d just be a weird guy who smiles an inappropriate amount. I had trouble remembering or distinguishing people here, and a lot of them seemed like faceless redshirts. Several of them have plotlines that make no impact on the story whatsoever. The villain is an awful stereotype of arrogant cackling and overconfidence – no, I’m not talking about Asajj Ventress; she only has a cameo despite being prominently and rather deceptively showcased on the book’s cover.
So, on the one hand I have a set of thinly sketched characters who I’ve never met before and don’t care about at all, and on the other hand I have Anakin, who I care about but only because he’s such an important part of the Star Wars universe and not because he’s actually likable, entertaining, or empathetic in any way. Tell a lie, there is a character I care about in this book: Nejaa Halcyon. But Corran Horn’s beloved grandfather is rendered so clumsily, so unrecognisably, that to call the character in this book by the same name is frankly insulting. We’re supposed to buy into the notion that he and Anakin form a friendship, but instead of showing this to us, the authors summarise far too often, for example telling us that;
This is so uninteresting and boring. Both in terms of repetitive sentence structure and in terms of telling me rather than showing me how their friendship develops. On a sidenote: the prequels really screw over Jedi like Nejaa Halcyon and their pre-established families. Actually, I could go off on a whole rant about how stupid the ‘no love’ rule was in the prequels, not just because several pieces of existing lore established Jedi families, but because of false causality. It’s not love that needs to be banned, but the notion that love is the most important thing in the galaxy and that we should sacrifice everything for it, pay any cost to gain it, including our most cherished principles on the altar of True Love. Speaking of romance, what is it with the prequels and young couples marrying in haste? Erk and Odie have known each other all of a few days – and he has shown seriously questionable behaviour during that time. I also laughed long and hard at Anakin’s attempts to write a love letter to Padme – he seems devoid of any capability to speak earnestly and authentically to her, and instead fills his missive full of purple prose and clichéd lines. As if he’s going through the motions of what he thinks love is rather than having any understanding of a real, healthy relationship where you can be yourself.
I can completely understand other readers who say they struggled to find something positive to praise in Jedi Trial. The only thing I can think of is that the authors definitely know their stuff when it comes to military logistics – both are ex-military, so I don’t question their expertise. The problem is they don’t know how to judiciously apply it. Instead the book is crammed with extremely dull information dumps that have no relevance to actually advancing the plot. Just because you know your stuff doesn’t mean you should try to cram every fact you can think of into your book. That does not make a compelling story. I struggled to stay awake whenever I picked up Jedi Trial, and by the time I got to 20% in I caught myself skimming – mostly to get through these dry info dumps, or the pallid, uninteresting protagonists’ scenes in order to get back to Anakin, Nejaa, or anyone who showed a bit of internal life really. I suppose you might enjoy it if you like repressed military types who spout clichéd one-liners that we’ve all heard before, laugh at moments that are definitely not funny, and wouldn’t recognise an emotion if it bit them on the nose.
I honestly think this book is worse than The Crystal Star. The Crystal Star had some weird, out-of-character shit in it, but its out-there ideas at least made it attention-grabbing and interesting on some level. I am most definitely scrubbing Jedi Trial from my canon and my conclusion is that it’s best left forgotten.
1 out of 10
Jedi Trial has got to be a strong contender for worst book in the Expanded Universe. Within the first two pages I found myself thinking; “Oh dear,” when I came across this example of dialogue:
“Anakin –”
“I’ve barely begun to unpack – I can meet you at the spaceport in an hour.”
“Anakin!” Obi-Wan tried again. “Anakin!”
Anakin didn’t turn around. “Where should I meet you?”
“ANAKIN!”
Obi-Wan’s shout finally caught Anakin’s attention and he spun about, taken aback by the unusually harsh tone. “Master?”
The reason I cringed was because this exchange sounded exactly like something you might read in fan fiction. I should add the qualifier that not all fan fiction is bad, of course, but a decent portion of it is written by young writers attempting to find their feet and lacking experience, often resulting in awkward, clunky dialogue between characters that doesn’t sound like anything people in real life would say. That’s what this exchange reminded me of. Scenes where a kooky, dreamy character implausibly cannot hear someone yelling in their face – despite the fact that this would be pretty hard to miss in real life – and issuing redundant dialogue. In retrospect, this poor quality of writing on the second page should’ve served as a warning, but I can imagine very few books that I’d give up on after just two pages, and so I pressed ahead.
Our familiar touchstone for this book is Anakin, but there’s two problems with this. First, for an established character who’s meant to draw the reader in to this book, Anakin feels like he’s barely in it. Second, when he does appear, we get Whiny Anakin, constantly complaining about how a jealous Obi-Wan is holding him back and pestering people to allow him to take his trial to become a Jedi Knight. Most of the other protagonists are original characters. The Expanded Universe has created some deeply fascinating and beloved original characters over the years – Mara Jade, Corran Horn, Mitth’raw’nuruodo. These are not among them. Mainly because they are written as shallow stock tropes, there’s far too much telling rather than showing going on, and they seemingly have no personality at all. The authors rely far too much on picking out one single bit of trivia about a character and repeating it ad nauseam. Imagine if every other sentence Han’s lopsided smile was mentioned, but none of his witty comebacks, stubbornness, or grudgingly revealed heart of gold. He’d just be a weird guy who smiles an inappropriate amount. I had trouble remembering or distinguishing people here, and a lot of them seemed like faceless redshirts. Several of them have plotlines that make no impact on the story whatsoever. The villain is an awful stereotype of arrogant cackling and overconfidence – no, I’m not talking about Asajj Ventress; she only has a cameo despite being prominently and rather deceptively showcased on the book’s cover.
So, on the one hand I have a set of thinly sketched characters who I’ve never met before and don’t care about at all, and on the other hand I have Anakin, who I care about but only because he’s such an important part of the Star Wars universe and not because he’s actually likable, entertaining, or empathetic in any way. Tell a lie, there is a character I care about in this book: Nejaa Halcyon. But Corran Horn’s beloved grandfather is rendered so clumsily, so unrecognisably, that to call the character in this book by the same name is frankly insulting. We’re supposed to buy into the notion that he and Anakin form a friendship, but instead of showing this to us, the authors summarise far too often, for example telling us that;
“They sparred again the next day, and the next, and the day after that. Each day, each improved, and each surprised the other with new moves and tricks. After the first few days they didn’t immediately part company when their sparring was over, but sat and talked. The next day they talked for a longer time. And the day after that, they dined together.”
This is so uninteresting and boring. Both in terms of repetitive sentence structure and in terms of telling me rather than showing me how their friendship develops. On a sidenote: the prequels really screw over Jedi like Nejaa Halcyon and their pre-established families. Actually, I could go off on a whole rant about how stupid the ‘no love’ rule was in the prequels, not just because several pieces of existing lore established Jedi families, but because of false causality. It’s not love that needs to be banned, but the notion that love is the most important thing in the galaxy and that we should sacrifice everything for it, pay any cost to gain it, including our most cherished principles on the altar of True Love. Speaking of romance, what is it with the prequels and young couples marrying in haste? Erk and Odie have known each other all of a few days – and he has shown seriously questionable behaviour during that time. I also laughed long and hard at Anakin’s attempts to write a love letter to Padme – he seems devoid of any capability to speak earnestly and authentically to her, and instead fills his missive full of purple prose and clichéd lines. As if he’s going through the motions of what he thinks love is rather than having any understanding of a real, healthy relationship where you can be yourself.
I can completely understand other readers who say they struggled to find something positive to praise in Jedi Trial. The only thing I can think of is that the authors definitely know their stuff when it comes to military logistics – both are ex-military, so I don’t question their expertise. The problem is they don’t know how to judiciously apply it. Instead the book is crammed with extremely dull information dumps that have no relevance to actually advancing the plot. Just because you know your stuff doesn’t mean you should try to cram every fact you can think of into your book. That does not make a compelling story. I struggled to stay awake whenever I picked up Jedi Trial, and by the time I got to 20% in I caught myself skimming – mostly to get through these dry info dumps, or the pallid, uninteresting protagonists’ scenes in order to get back to Anakin, Nejaa, or anyone who showed a bit of internal life really. I suppose you might enjoy it if you like repressed military types who spout clichéd one-liners that we’ve all heard before, laugh at moments that are definitely not funny, and wouldn’t recognise an emotion if it bit them on the nose.
I honestly think this book is worse than The Crystal Star. The Crystal Star had some weird, out-of-character shit in it, but its out-there ideas at least made it attention-grabbing and interesting on some level. I am most definitely scrubbing Jedi Trial from my canon and my conclusion is that it’s best left forgotten.
1 out of 10