Luke Skywalker's Nightmare...or Ours?

I don't believe we'll see a new Star Wars film from Walt Disney Pictures in 2015...it's too soon - that date is just to get us, the fans, all abuzz with excitement.  That photo of the cast assembling for the first reading of the script assured us that Luke, Leia & Han are back, albeit looking ready to collect their social security checks in a galaxy far, far away...and that few women exist within that universe...and Andy Serkis is there, perhaps in person or in a motion-capture suit.

But there was another announcement...buried within...that gave Star Wars fans a case of the blues...

They're ignoring the books.

The new trilogy is going to start fresh and ignore the continuity created by the long-running series of Star Wars novels - most of which were set after Return of The Jedi  but many are set before that and in different eras of the series. This decision is clearly meant to make the new films accessible to audiences who love Star Wars,  but don't follow the books closely,  or at all.

It just seems so...ironic. We have a genre of feature films based on trashy "young adult" romance novels...what's wrong with adapting Star Wars novels into films? The only answer I can give to that question is not entirely satisfactory: the filmmakers do not feel obligated to adapt what were essentially tie-in merchandise to fulfill a demand for new adventures. None of the James Bond novels written by John Gardner or Raymond Benson were adapted into films by Eon productions after they ran out of Ian Fleming material to adapt (and they really dipped their pens into that well long after it went dry) , and some of those books were better than the original stories written for the screen.

It's not clear if we should also infer that none of the characters introduced in the novels will appear, either.  I was imagining Dana Delany as Luke's wife, Mara Jade Skywalker, but I couldn't picture anyone as the Jedi kids, who became adults as the series progressed: Jacen,  Jaina & Anakin Solo (I know he was killed off, but whatever) and Ben Skywalker. Maybe J.J. Abrahams and Lawrence Kasdan were upset about Chewbacca getting killed off in Vector Prime and were like, "Oh, hell no!!"  and that became their excuse to ignore it. Who knows? Or maybe the decision to turn Jacen Solo into a villain who gets killed in a final duel with his sister, Jaina, after killing Mara Jade in Sacrifice?  Who knows? Or maybe it's that there are only four or five novels that are highly regarded? * Who knows?

There is precedent: there were only two instances where the films used material from the novels: the name of the planet Coruscant and the name of the speeder bikes that appeared in Return of The Jedi: "Swoops". That is all.

With that kind of track record,  maybe Luke's sweet tooth for cups of hot chocolate will find a way in the new movies...

*I'm not a fan of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, but a lot of fans love it. I remember enjoying Steve Perry's Shadows of The Empire. The only novels I still own are Star by Star and The Unifying Force, from the New Jedi Order  series...it's all imaginary stuff...from long, long ago...coming soon to a used bookstore or Goodwill/Salvation Army store near you.

The Magrs Method of Book Reporting: Awoken by Serra Elinsen

Encapsulate the book in one sentence?

Andromeda Slate, a teenage girl who prefers to be called "Andi", falls in love with a teenage boy who is actually the monster Cthulhu in disguise.

When did I buy it? How did  I buy it?

The book is available on Amazon Kindle.  A paperback edition was also available for a short time.

What year or edition?

2013

What's your verdict?

Flat out bizarre.  Too convincing in some places to be "bad", too dull in other places to be "good". As daft as the premise sounds (instead of going mad at the sight of the Lovecraftian monster, she becomes lost in his eyes), I wanted to read more scenes of Andromeda with Cthulhu and less of her cookie-cutter supporting cast. There's some potential here that's not quite fully-realized - perhaps if it had been narrated from HIS point of view, but the author seems to be working within the constraints of a very limited genre, and seems to take comfort in it, or play off it - Andromeda's teenage neuroses MIGHT be a side effect of Cthulhu's power taking effect. I could recommend better efforts at this sort of thing ( Tiger's Curse, Divergent, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones ), but the use of the Cthulhu Mythos made this interesting enough to keep turning the pages.

What genre would you say it is?

Teen Paranormal Romance ( "Young Adult " ) :P

What surprises did it hold - if any?

That it could work? But if Stephanie Meyer can have vampires climbing trees in the daytime, we can have Cthulhu going steady with vapid teenage girls. The book is popular enough to have inspired fan art (see below after the cover image)

Is it available today?

Yes. On Kindle as an ebook for $4.99

Give me a good quote?

Sure..a rather ingenious one that may or may not be foreshadowing something...

Mythology. The boy had looked like someone from mythology to me, so larger than life and so inhumanly handsome. He looked like an Adonis...or even better, a Cupid - not that pudgy baby with angel wings most people think of, but the handsome young Greek god. I sighed heavily, remembering the story of forbidden love. Cupid, romancing innocent, beautiful Psyche in the secret dark..the terrible things Psyche had to suffer before she earned the right to truly marry her Cupid. Most of all, though, I could envision Cupid standing in the...with those bright, gleaming green eyes.

And then I was gone for a moment in the darkness.

Then I was Psyche, gazing into the emerald eyes of Cupid (and hearing that he had another name). The crashing of great waves came back as the Cupid consumed me with his simmering gaze, louder and faster this time...