Splinter of the Mind's Eye (Star Wars) Review

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(More customer reviews)I read this book in 1978, when I was seven years old, and I thought it was terrific. I read it again three years ago, and I still think it's terrific. I'm delighted to see that it's still (back?) in print, because I think it has a heck of a lot more spirit and energy than most of the Star Wars franchise drivel being pumped out nowadays.
Reading through the other reviews I see a lot of "I liked it a lot, but"--followed by some complaint about an inconsistency with the subsequently established Star Wars canon. I know that there's a bit of popular mythology out there that George Lucas had the entire Star Wars series plotted out before he put the first one on celluloid, but I'm here to tell you it ain't so (check out Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays by Laurent Bouzereau for the skinny on this). That is, there was no way for Alan Dean Foster to know that Luke, Leia, and Vader were family, or that Vader was a cyborg under all that armor, or that Leia and Han were going to get romantic, or that Luke would get his lightsaber-wielding butt stomped in the next movie, or that Leia would develop beyond the sarcastic damsel in distress we saw in the first movie.
Which is all to say that DESPITE what you read in these other reviews, Foster actually does a pretty terrific job of making this consistent with the characters AS THEY ARE PORTRAYED IN THE FIRST MOVIE. The reason they're different from their portrayals in Empire, Jedi, etc. is that, well, the characterization in the original film was pretty thin. Luke, Leia, Han, Vader--even the droids and Chewbacca--really only developed three dimensional personalities in the second film. So this is a decidedly different Luke and Leia than the ones you're used to, and--swamp planet aside--this doesn't feel like most of the Star Wars that's come since. If the Star Wars that's come since can be compared to Lord of the Rings (epic scope, huge conflict), this is more like one of those original, great Conan novels by Robert E. Howard--well done, fun stuff, but a bit raw.
And THAT'S why you should buy it. ...

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