Andrew's Review of Planet of Twilight

2/5 Rancors - Barbara Hambly's Planet of Twilight is the end of the unofficial "Callista Trilogy," started in Hambly's other Star Wars novel Children of the Jedi and continued in Kevin J. Anderson's Darksaber. I didn't much care for Children of the Jedi, finding its plot derivative and the prose rather unwieldy. The character of Callista was also problematic, feeling more like a plot device than a thought-out realistic person. Luke Skywalker's relationship with Callista came off as more ridiculous than romantic, and Darksaber, despite some exciting action scenes and a fairly brisk plot, didn't do anything to deepen it.

Planet of Twilight represents a step up from Children of the Jedi thanks to a more original and involving storyline, but one thing it doesn't do is wrap up the Luke/Callista romance well. Their love truly ends with a whimper rather than a bang and it's hard not to feel it was a waste of time reading about it. That said, in real life some relationships go the same way, so perhaps it can be viewed as a small building block towards Luke's more meaningful relationships later in life.

Planet of Twilight focuses on the mad ambitions of Seti Ashgad to rule the galaxy by means of the hideous Death Seed plague, a feared disease wrongly believed to have been wiped out centuries earlier. Ashgad is isolated on the well-detailed planet of Nam Chorios. Hambly puts a great deal of effort into describing the locale and its many environmental quirks, most noticeably the vile insect-like drochs that lurk in every dark corner. While I can't say I found the planet exactly enjoyable to learn about, it was certainly memorable, no small feat in the vast Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Luke is portrayed with more strength than the last couple of novels granted him and it is a welcome change. There's only so much I can take of reading about a sickly, weak Luke barely able to put one foot in front of another (I'm looking at you, Children of the Jedi). However, this time around we do get a large number of chapters featuring a drugged and sickly Princess Leia, so the net effect is a wash. Most of the other usual film cast is present, but the Luke/Leia storyline is given precedence over the Han/Chewie/Lando and C-3PO/R2-D2 "B" plots. I found Han's adventures confusing and struggled with what he was trying to accomplish in some chapters.

Like Children of the Jedi, Planet of Twilight is overly verbose and I was glad to get to the end of it. Both novels feel curiously detached from Star Wars, almost as if Hambly had written original sci-fi novels and then simply pasted the Star Wars characters into them. There's little of the typical sweeping space opera adventure to be found in either book. Sometimes it's nice to have a change of pace in these stories, but this particular direction didn't do much for me. I was glad to see the end of the Callista storyline and look forward to reading the ninth book in the X-wing series next.