From the pages of Blue Harvest Episode Four...
Autumn 1994

Review: Kevin J. Anderson's  Champions of the Force
by James Addams
It’s sometimes difficult , when writing a review, not to compare the work reviewed with other related items.  In a review of the new SW Galaxy cards, it’s almost impossible to avoid mention of the classic SW cards of the late ‘70’s.  In a review of the new Nick Cave album, how can you avoid mentioning The Birthday Party?  The Star Wars comics from Marvel and those from Dark Horse will always be contrasted, as will Jaime Hernandez’s Love and Rockets  stories with his brother Gilbert’s.  Need I even mention the criticism the new SW films will face?

So here I am, preparing to review the Kevin Anderson Jedi Academy  stories, now that Champions of the Force  has been released and completed the trilogy.  But two words keep popping into my head, two words that should be almost irrelevant.  Those two words, both nouns in fact, are: Tim Zahn.

Tim and Kev have a lot in common.  A trilogy of SW novels may be the most obvious thing, and it’s the desire to compare and contrast Tim and Kevin’s trilogies that is driving me nuts.  This isn’t a review of Tim’s books.  I spent six pages of BH2 discussing Tim, and now it’s Kev’s turn.  I’m not going to mention Zahn anywhere in this review of The Jedi Academy Trilogy.  So here we go.

One good thing about Anderson’s books is that they move along at a much faster pace than... er, some other books  may have.  This has a pro of making them more cinematic, that is to say they’re paced like the films.  The con is that they’re not  films, of course, so in trying to pace them this way we loose a lot of the descriptive detail that is so important in the literary medium.  Also, the large-scale epic feel present in books by another author   isn’t quite present here.  But, that’s okay because Anderson came up with some great story ideas that brilliantly bring together the current SW continuity with the Tales of the Jedi - era stories of 4000 years prior.   Of course, he totally spoils the plot of Dark Lords of The Sith, the 12-issue comic series due to begin next month.  Or does he?  It is entirely possible that the perception that the characters in TJAT have of the events of 4000 years ago is a perception twisted by history, and twisted by the evil doings of Exar Kun.  Time will tell, as Dark Lords won’t be complete until almost 1996.

Anderson, like most of the other SW authors, including... um, the author with no name,  has come up with a slew of new characters to interact with the familiar ones.  Admiral Ackbar now has some Mon Calamari pals, like the tragically abused Terpfen, and the ambassador-turned-Jedi healer Cilghal.  In one of the more unlikely scenes in Champions of the Force, it is Cilghal who saves Mon Mothma’s life from a disease that she discreetly picked up in Jedi Search.  Nice foreshadowing, Kev.  Actually, this illustrates the planning that went into the trilogy.  It becomes obvious as you reach the end of the third book how much thought went into the trilogy before it was written.  But then, what do you expect from the king of continuity himself?



Anyway, the other new characters include various recruits to the book’s namesake Jedi Academy, or as Luke later dubs it, the praxeum.  Sure, Luke.  Praxeum.  Whatever....   Anderson keeps mentioning that there are twelve students, and even after several quit (Kyp, Mara) or die (Gantoris), he never mentions more than seven of them by name or description.  They are: Kiranna Ti, Dorsk 81, Streen, Tionne, Kam Solusar and Cilghal.  It is possible that he’s leaving room for other authors to create additional students, or perhaps ol’ Kev just got lazy.  Either way, this is a rather large group of new characters to have thrown at us at one time, and the result is that they remain pretty one-dimensional.  With any luck some of them will be fleshed out in the future, because most of them have a lot of potential.

I found it interesting that a lot of dead or aging characters have been subtly resurrected/replaced.  Daala replaces Tarkin (they were even romantically linked at one point in the past!), Kun replaces Vader (both Dark Lords o’ the Sith), Doole is the new Jabba, and Luke takes on characteristics of Ben and Yoda.  Kyp is a lot like young Luke (had he gone bad), and Mara takes on the role formerly filled by  young Leia.  Just an observation.

So, you may be asking, what exactly happens in these books?  Well, a lot actually.  There are about 20 plots going on, which of course, all come together in the end.  To sum it up in a hurry:  Luke is trying to train new Jedi, but the spirit of long dead Dark Lord Exar Kun is making things difficult.  Meanwhile, Han and Chewie go to Kessel to try to establish diplomatic contact, but are captured by Kessel’s paranoid administrator, Moruth Doole.  Han and Chewie meet up with Kyp in Moruth’s dungeon, and escape, only to stumble upon a top-secret Imperial weapons research facility.  They escape there too, with top scientist Qui Xux in tow.  Guarding the installation is Admiral Daala who has been cut off from the Empire.  She finds out that the Empire has fallen and goes of a mission of mindless destruction.  As if all that wasn’t enough, Ambassador Furgan of the Imperial Academy on Carida gets busy.  He poisons Mon Mothma, tries to kidnap Leia’s baby Anakin, and manipulates Terpfen into killing thousands and disgracing Ackbar.  Kyp has been influenced by Kun, and goes on the warpath with the Empire’s latest ultimate weapon, the Sun Crusher, but is coaxed back to reason by Han.   Luke’s students save him from Kun’s dark power, Jacen and Jaina show way too much ability and initiative for two-year-olds (Jedi offspring of not), and there’s the obligatory huge battle at the end during which the good guys kick ass, the bad guys get their asses kicked, and Kyp and Terpfen are redeemed.  And that’s that.  Oh, and Lando ends up owning the infamous Spice Mines of Kessel and Wedge gets a girlfriend.  Go read ‘em for yo’ self, G.

©1994 Blue Harvest

Here's a fun little tidbit from Episode Four's Delta Source...

THIS EPISODE'S WEIRD RUMOR:  LFL plans to "update" the special effects from the trilogy, then re-release it.  The only fact (?) we know of to substantiate this at all is that Lucasfilm has been recalling all prints of the trilogy (but of course, not what's on video, laser disc, etc.).  A friend in England passed along a related rumor that they were going to re-shoot the scene where Vader talks to the Emperor in TESB, then put it in future prints of the film.  Lucasfilm has no comment.

©1994 Blue Harvest


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