Andrew's Review of The Jedi Academy Trilogy Vol. 1: Jedi Search

3/5 Rancors - Kevin J. Anderson played a prominent role in the Star Wars Expanded Universe for a few years in the mid-1990s. His projects included the Tales of the Jedi comics published by Dark Horse, the Illustrated Guide to the Star Wars Universe, editorial and authorial duties on three Tales collections, various youth-oriented fiction, and a few of the adult novels. Jedi Search was his first book in the Jedi Academy Trilogy, set after the pivotal events of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy and the Dark Empire comic series. This trilogy typifies many of the characteristics often associated with the 90s Bantam Spectra era of Star Wars publishing, following the main movie characters as they battle a newly emerged ex-Imperial leader and throwing a new super weapon or two into the mix.

This first part of the trilogy opens with the New Republic in the process of re-claiming Coruscant after the recent Imperial reoccupation. It's interesting how openly the book ties to the Dark Empire comics series in some of the early scenes. Readers who stick only to the books will be quite confused when things such as the Emperor's resurrection and Luke Skywalker's fall to the dark side are mentioned. For my part, I applaud the inclusion of story points from multiple media in these books. Star Wars is unusual in that there is a concerted effort to create a single unified chronology where everything is at one level of canon or another.

Han and Chewbacca are sent on a mission to Kessel to negotiate a possible alliance when their plans go awry and they find themselves enslaved to work the spice mines. They meet Kyp Durron, a teen with untrained Force potential who will go on to be an enduring figure of the later Expanded Universe. Kessel is evocatively portrayed, especially the chilling lightless mines and the monsters that lurk within. Later in the book our heroes find themselves in the Maw, an old Imperial research facility hidden by a veritable nest of black holes. The primary new Imperial adversary for this trilogy, Admiral Daala, is in charge of the facility and is shocked to discover the Emperor is dead and the galaxy has a new order. Kudos for coming up with this facility and the plot device of its isolation. It brings a realistic new threat to the galaxy in the wake of classic ones such as Thrawn and the resurrected Emperor.

Not so realistic is the new super weapon in development. Subtly named the Sun Crusher, it's a small fighter-size craft capable of sending a star into supernova phase and thereby destroying entire solar systems. It's a massive reach in believability to accept the Death Star required such a massive scale to house a planet-destroying weapon but only a few years later this dinky little craft can do so much more. Held in reserve is also a prototype Death Star, mentioned but not used in the plot of this particular volume.

Luke spends this book laying the foundations for his new Jedi Academy. His first step is finding quality candidates, so he embarks on the titular Jedi search. Two encounters are depicted in detail. The first, on a wasteland of a mining planet with a leader named Gantoris, is not well executed. Gantoris puts Luke through a series of life-threatening and cruel tests to ascertain if he will allow himself to be trained. This has the effect of making Luke's character very weak and in no way do I accept Luke would permit Gantoris the latitude he does here. The second, with a gas miner named Streen on the fringes of Bespin, is much better: interesting setting, good new character, and believable actions.

This book is a rapid read. Scenes are brisk and there is never much of a lull between action sequences. Anderson writes in a plain-spoken, easily digestible manner and keeps the pace fluid. The two major storylines come together at the end in a big, if tactically unsound, space battle. Where the book struggles most is in accurately characterizing the familiar cast from the films and in relying too much on super weapons and thinly developed new villains. The events of this trilogy are too big to ignore if you're interested in understanding the larger Expanded Universe, but expect a fairly light, brisk read that probably won't leave a strong impact on you.