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sunnyskywalkerWhy read-through?
Chapter One
Chapter Six
It's been a while since the last chapter. I apologize for not posting much other than things I found on my hard drive lately; RL issues have gotten in the way. (So I might seem a little grumpier or more scattered than usual.) I just started school again, and I wanted to make sure I got something up before things got crazy, so here it is!
There are a few nice bits in this chapter, but a lot more that made me want to smack the characters into the Maw. Remember how I said I thought things improved after Chapter Five? I must have meant Chapter Seven. Overall, the chapter feels lumpy - it'll be good, then awful, then okay, and so on.
-Leia and Isoldertake a turn about the park stroll through the Alderaan section of the botanical gardens on Coruscant. I like that Wolverton does not give Leia OMG ANGST – she only went to the oro woods once, as a child, and she just feels a little better knowing these gardens exist. It also reminds us of Han's accusation that she fell in love with Hapes because it reminded her of home without banging us over the head with it.
-Sadly, as soon as the first paragraph is over, the irritation starts: Isolder walked hand in hand with her. And then they went to the soda fountain and talked about how lucky she was to be rid of that loser who loved her but was like totally poor and didn't have a varsity jacket or anything. Isolder says he called his mom, who is coming to pick them up after the big game in her super-special vehicle. Sorry, but they're really getting on my nerves.
-Isolder and Leia call it Ta'a Chume's “own personal” vehicle/ship. This is one of my pet peeves. If Isolder says his mother is bringing her personal vehicle, I can figure out that it's her own, thanks. Piling on another possessive word without a compelling reason leeches strength from the rest of the sentence. It isn't a big deal on its own – it's just one word – but a book with many such overlong stock phrases gets irritating. It's good to be mindful of the Wordy Force, which is quick, easy, and seductive. Take it from one who know too well. Case in point: this entry.
-The vehicle is “thousands of years old” and “rather eccentric in design.” I know they're totally different types of vehicles, but I would still like to see Han and Ta'a Chume talking about ship modifications.
-Leia tells Isolder about the arallute, a weed with a purple flower. Supposedly, if a bride finds one growing in her yard, she'll have a child soon. It's a neat detail, but this book has made me over-sensitive to gender issues, and I can't help but notice that the story is all about the bride's female relatives reinforcing the idea that the newlyweds ought to be trying for a baby right away. What if they don't want kids yet, or at all? And why don't the bride's male relatives or the groom's relatives get involved? I still don't see where Wolverton got this view of Alderaan and the GFFA as stereotypical '50s suburbia.
-Isolder says how sad it is that it's all gone, and Leia says the refugees will make a garden when they get a new world. Once again, Wolverton restrains himself and lets us remember that Han tried and failed to get a suitable planet, and Isolder has the power and money to do so easily. Well done, Dave.
-Threkin calls with the “great” news that Leia's trip to the Roche system has been canceled. Because Verpine-Barabel relations have disintegrated too much. Yeah, Threkin, that's really great. If it's true, that is... but let's not jump ahead. According to Threkin, General Solo is leading a fleet of Star Destroyers there to protect the Verpines, and Mon Mothma will handle the rest personally.
-Leia asks if she can help, but Threkin assures her she'll help the New Republic far more by opening her legs to their new friend from Hapes. Mon Mothma has given Leia eight months off. For a six month trip. Damn, how do I get to be a diplomat? Half the year on vacation, and two months to unpack? This sounds awfully cushy. Of course, the downside is that she's getting sold to the highest bidder and put at great risk of getting assassinated, and that's a pretty big downside.
-Isolder squeezes Leia's hand, and she decides that it's really for the best, and we suddenly find out that she's been feeling overwhelmed by the assignment all along. Because she never dealt with anything this hard before? What has she been doing these past years, exactly? You'd think that rebuilding the galaxy after a devastating civil war would involve lots of assignments this tough. Maybe Wolverton is actually trying to show that Isolder's patronizing is a bad influence. I hope it's something like that.
-Leia thinks that Mon Mothma doesn't need her for this at all (with the implication that Leia thinks Mon Mothma doesn't need her at all, period? I think so) and that MM will deal with it better because the Barabels will respect the “pack leader” of the NR more.
-Building on this pack leader (and hive mother) idea, Wolverton gets metaphorical: Leia had been so curious, trying to understand why a Verpine hive mother would be allowed to go feral, that she had been planning to attack the problem from the wrong angle. She should have been looking at the Barabels all along. I don't think this exactly maps onto the main plot – Ta'a Chume can be the poor mad hive queen easily enough, but the New Republic hasn't been “eating” Hapes. They are possibly betraying their ideals by allying with a dictatorship which isn't necessarily better than the Empire, and they are essentially selling Leia, so you could see that as them “eating” their own. (Though Ta'a Chume later says that Leia as Queen Mother would weaken Hapes... oh, never mind, it's stretching too much.) Leia is focused on the wrong parts of the problem, like why Han is being grumpy rather than why in the galaxy Ta'a Chume would want her for a daughter-in-law and why she (Leia) is willing to leave her entire life behind and marry a stranger. And lack of communication is a big problem for everyone. I still wish Wolverton could make this point without so much exposition.
-Leia's brain still functions enough that she realizes sending a fleet would be pointless, but she doesn't follow up on that thought because His Hormonal Highness interrupts with, “Why are you frowning, little one?” I... I can't think of a creative way to point out yet again how offensively patronizing Isolder is. It must be the Gun of Command. Astarta is lurking in the background somewhere.
-Wait, is Astarta supposed to be Astarte, Phoenician goddess of fertility, sexuality, and war? Nice.
-Leia worries that Mon Mothma has too much control. This sounds like the start of something interesting. Didn't Garm Bel Iblis leave the Rebellion because he worried about the same thing? And couldn't we make some neat parallels between Mon Mothma and Ta'a Chume? But I don't think Wolverton followed up on this. Pity. Hope I'm wrong. Otherwise Wolverton bashed Mon Mothma for nothing.
-Isolder is so wonderfully understanding about how hard it's going to be for Leia to leave her entire life and the government she's spent years helping establish. He even suggests she take several days to say goodbye to her friends and pretend it's just a long visit, if she wants to. He claims there are no strings attached – or is that part of what she can tell her friends? Slippery devil. There must be some oil beads or bubble bath in that “wave of warm water” in his words.
-Leia is, of course, overwhelmed by his amazing consideration and gets her spirit buoyed by his AquaPowered voice. She falls into his arms and nearly tells him she loves him, but decides it's a little to soon to say so. Not to feel so, mind; it doesn't occur to her that if this were a different sort of story, she would soon be lying dead in a deserted corner of the gardens, and the detectives would be saying how tragic it is that girls let themselves get so besotted that they forget to follow elementary safety tips such as “don't follow charming strangers into deserted cornersof Central Park alone, no matter how much they claim they love you.” (Where's Briscoe and his wisecracks when you need them?)
-Disturbingly, in light of that train of thought, Isolder tells Leia he loves her. Wolverton immediately skips away from the scene, so we have no idea how Leia reacts.
-Han is out testing his flying, Imperial IFF Transponder (on option fourteen, as if we care – what do the other thirteen do, huh?), and high-powered jammers in Coruscant's orbital junkyard (isn't that a flight hazard?). It's obviously part of a Sekrit Plan. Uh-oh.
-Dangerous flying calms him down, which I think is a good insight. It's something he's good at, and it makes him feel in control. Also, Han and the other main characters are used to life on the edge, and I think one of their problems in this book is that they're just not handling semi-normal life well. When your life revolves around surviving the crisis at hand and trying to prepare for the one immediately coming up, you get tunnel vision, and adjusting to keeping track of the endless little details of normal life and setting your own course is hard.
-Blah blah blah Zsinj's Raptors, strong arm of his secret police, infiltration and destruction blah blah blah. Could all this Zsinj stuff be important later? Nah... after all, the Verpines and Barabels just got written out.
-The call he'd been waiting for came in on audio. Ordinarily, I'd feel sorry for poor Han waiting by the phone, but I know what's about to happen. Also, why not visual too? Can't Leia bear to look him in the eye?
-Leia says she'd like to get together for a few hours before he leaves with the fleet, like nothing has happened between them. Ouch. But Han plays along, which is a Bad Sign.
-Especially since he is not taking a fleet, just one Star Destroyer, and he realizes he had underestimated [Threkin], and now they planned to ship him off, to a galaxy far, far away, so that Leia could forget about him. Bastards. Really, though, I think this is a cause for concern. Threkin and Mon Mothma may think it's all for the best, but lying to a subordinate to help manipulate her into leaving her lover, also their subordinate, for a potentially life-threatening marriage is ethically problematic at best. Or have all the characters forgotten about that little assassination attempt?
-Leia notices that Han doesn't look happy. Gee, I wonder why.
-Leia has the rainbow gems scattered on her dresser, and the smart fruit tree is there too, but she asks if Han is unhappy because he's being sent to the Roche system. Maybe she's trying to be tactful somehow, but I'm not optimistic.
-With all these extravagant gifts lying around, I keep hearing this in my head: “Take back your mink/Take back your pearls/What made you think/That I was one of those girls?” Too bad Isolder and Leia can't hear my brainwave radio.
-Han tells her he resigned his commission five minutes ago. Since Leia was hoping Threkin's career would go down the tubes after the droid incident and thinking that maybe Mon Mothma has too much power without even knowing about Threkin and Mon Mothma's lie, you'd think she'd assume Han is disgusted by the NR right now. (In her mind. I'd also expect her to defend the NR to Han. But we don't get into that much in this chapter.)
-He walked into her bedroom, stood staring down at her bed, remembering the good old days? Hmm... I think Wolverton is getting better at subtlety as the book goes on. (Alternatively, The Jealous General could be considering smothering her in her bed... wait, no, that's a different story.) glanced at the gems on her dresser, the piles of treasure from Hapes. No doubt thinking, Leia is quite the mercenary. I wonder if she really cares about anything. Or anyone. Part of Leia but not all of her, for some reason was still surprised to have it here. If she'd had any sense, she told herself, she would have had it locked up. But then, she reflected, she clearly had no sense. I wonder whether she means to keep it safe or to get rid of the reminder that this isn't entirely about love.
-Leia asks where he'll go. Dathomir, he says, and her mouth drops open. Finally, something Leia and I can agree on: that's a stupid idea. But I'll get into that more in the next chapter.
-She objects that it's dangerous, and he says his last order was a strike-and-fade operation that will keep Zsinj far away. “That,” Leia said loudly, “is an abuse of authority!” That, Sunny said, is an abuse of adverbs. The exclamation point is sufficient.
-Han turned his interest from the gems, looked up at her and grinned. “I know.” Uh-oh, that line. So he's abusing his authority because he loves her? Too bad the PT wasn't out yet, because there could be some interesting parallels there. (He assures us the soldiers will be okay. They had better be, Han.)
-But more to the point, why doesn't Han tell her Threkin and Mon Mothma have been using their authority questionably and it pissed him off? It's not like she can say he's imagining things, the way she did when he said he didn't trust Hapans. It seems like Wolverton wants Han to stick to talking about love, but I just can't see why he would hold this information back. Maybe it would have been better to drop that detail, since I don't think Wolverton does much with it later. (I hope I'm wrong.)
-But nooo. Instead, we have Han's Dathomir beach fantasy. “It was all so sweet.” Sweet. Who knew Han was a surfer dude?
-Leia tells him he's burned out, and she'll pull some strings to get him a few weeks of vacation. Isn't she considerate. Han tells her they're both burned out – I think he's on to something there – and she should run away with him. She says she can't, and he points out that that's exactly what she's doing with Isolder. No response, verbal or mental. I would really like to know what she thinks of that.
-Han hopes she'd fall back in love with him. He sounded so pitiable. Leia felt guilty for the past few days, for ignoring him, deserting him. About damn time! If only she didn't sound like she felt guilty the way my mom feels guilty when she has to leave her dog for a few days. The poor baby is incapable of understanding why I have to go.
-She remembered how she'd felt the day Vader had encased Han in carbonite, shipping him back to Jabba the Hutt, the joy they had shared when the Emperor was vanquished. She'd loved him then. But that was a long time ago, she told herself. Yes, but what about five months ago, when he left to chase Zsinj? Did you love him then? What about a year ago? There's a big blank space between the movies and this book which Wolverton isn't even trying to fill. I don't mean details, just vague emotional outlines. I can believe she'd try to make herself forget any good years they had, but we should notice her doing that.
-That does, however, once again show how these characters only function well in crises. Though you'd think they'd have had a few little crises since then for her to remember.
-“Look, Han, I'll always be fond of you,” Leia found herself saying. She's going all-out on denying responsibility for this break-up. She didn't say it; she “found herself saying” it, like some outside force is doing it for her. Like political necessity, I guess. (Or perhaps... the Gun of Command?) “But have a nice life?” Han asked. Or, If you're so fond of me, then why are you being such a bitch?
-Leia found herself shaking. And now we get too subtle. Just one more clue about why she's shaking, please? Anger? Sheer tension? Guilt and fear and loss suppressed and expressed as anger?
-And then Han snatches up the Gun of Command. “You can't do this!” Leia pleaded, raising a hand as if it could ward off the blast. “I thought you loved rogues,” Han said. A spray of blue sparks erupted from the gun, bringing forgetfulness and the night. This is horrifying. This is a gun that “virtually neutralize[s] an enemy's voluntary thought processes” and makes them “helpless as invalids.” That's one of the worst kinds of violation I can think of. It makes Threkin and Mon Mothma's little lies and peer pressure look harmless. I can't think of an exact equivalent, but imagine if your ex drugged you with Rohypnol or something and then kidnapped you. Would you ever trust him again, no matter how much you still cared about him beforehand?
-I wonder if this is why Wolverton went so far out of his way to make Leia so completely irrational and bitchy and Han such a sympathetic victim. Because if we sympathized with her too much and knew he wasn't always thoughtful and sweet and right, why would we want them to get together after this? But that sort of “so now they're even and they can work it out” idea makes the reader somewhat complicit in this fictional kidnapping, which is icky.
-I think the best solution would be to scrap the Gun of Command altogether. It's too much of a Deus Ex Machina device anyway. There has got to be a better way to get everyone to Dathomir than that. Besides, the whole elaborate kidnapping plot is too Mr B and Pamela, and Han isn't cast as the rake who needs to be reformed for the rest of the book, so it doesn't really fit. Why not a spontaneous kidnapping? Leia comes by the Falcon to pick up a few things, Hapan assassins do something dastardly, and Han decides to run really far away with Leia rather than heading to the nearest NR safe haven. It's more believable to me, and a little more forgivable.
-Now, on to Isolder! He's so cowed by his mother that he doesn't dare look at her “veiled face” even on holo vid. So, he's overcompensating by being so controlling with Leia or something?
-A news network spycam outside Leia's quarters filmed the kidnapping. At least the news subplot was good for something, even if Wolverton didn't exploit its full potential.
-The camera showed Han was armed with the Gun of Command. Idiot. If you're going to commit a crime, at least hide the weapon under your jacket.
-Ta'a Chume quizzes Isolder on what he's going to do now, and he reflects that Hapan women think men are totally inept. Inept means seemingly unable to ever do anything right, according to Wolverton. Thanks, Dave. I really needed that defined. At least it's usually funny when Lemony Snicket does that.
-The NR has sent a thousand detectives after Han, Astarta's getting hourly progress reports, and she and Isolder have called for bounty hunters. What, no news bulletin, hotline, or reward for information leading to capture?
-Ta'a Chume says she knows Isolder wants to rescue Leia himself, but he can't, because he has to stay safe and fulfill his duties as Chume'da. He can't be around when the assassins kill Han and Leia, or he might get caught in the crossfire.
-Okay, she doesn't add that last bit. But it makes me wonder why Isolder has to be clueless about his mother's intentions. He knows she's ruthless and devious, yet he always acts as if he thinks she's being completely honest. Why couldn't he suspect she wants Leia dead? Why couldn't he have been gambling that Leia would be the one girl both tough enough to help him take down his mother before she took them down and rule Hapes, but compassionate enough to rule it beneficently? He's got the submissive son thing down, so why not make that partly real and partly an act to lure her into complacency?
-He feels that she sees through him when he looks into her eyes. The lights around her “almost” give her an “aura of power.” Maybe this is her slight Force-sensitivity at work. (He had to get it from somewhere, right?) Or maybe it really is her personality. I prefer the latter, much as I'd enjoy the irony, given her views on Jedi.
-Anyway, Isolder is rebellious and says he's going after them anyway. She tells him she wishes she could cure him of his “selfless heroics” which are “no virtue,” but he's too much like his father. (Slytherin Mommy + Gryffindor Son = conflict!) I recall Yoda saying something similar about Luke. Interesting. I'm also wondering who Isolder's father was, what he was (is?) like, what happened to him, and whether he had any influence on Isolder's life. I can't remember ever hearing of him again.
-Ta'a Chume says Han will probably seek refuge with one of the warlords, so we know where she's going to start her investigation. Little does she know Han is instead planning to hang out in a warlord's territory without asking permission or even knowing what's there first.
-Ta'a Chume is coming with her fleet and her assassins, and Isolder thinks it's because honor demands she recover her successor. Again with wondering why he has to be so clueless. Maybe her Gaze of Persuasion wasn't totally ineffective after all.
-Isolder says he's trying to be strong, because she always says Hapes can only be as strong as her leaders and he's taken that to heart. He probably thinks he and Leia will be the kind of strong (but good instead!) rulers Ta'a Chume should have been.
-Then he hangs up on his mother. Somehow I don't think he's supposed to do that.
-Isolder almost pitied Han. General Solo could not possibly guess the kind of resources his mother would bring to bear on him. Why not? How much badder than Jabba and the Empire combined is she? I'm not remembering any unbelievable resources appearing later, either. Also, why does Isolder think of him first as Han, then as General Solo? It sounds like he slipped into familiarity and then reminded himself to keep his distance. Let's grasp at some straws to keep things interesting and speculate that Han wasn't the only one checking out the competition.
-And now we switch to the POV of Random Imperial Corporal Reezen. Is “Reezen” supposed to be a clever homophone for “reason,” or is that a coincidence? Anyway, I started off loving this character, because he not only has a believable motivation, he actually thinks and plans and acts sensibly. He has somehow managed to work in the military for seven years in relative obscurity, never attracting the praise or attention he felt to be his due. But he doesn't just whine about it to himself. He keeps his eyes open, and is the only person to notice Han's strike-and-fade operations and see them for the diversion they are. And he plans to send the report directly to Zsinj so he'll finally get his due. The New Republic should really try to recruit this guy. He's far more effective than their security people.
-But then he gets an “odd tingling in his bones” when he looks at Dathomir on the charts, and he remembers how Darth Vader stopped during a parade once and told him to trust his sensitivity, and I start losing interest in the character. Why does everyone in the galaxy have to be Force-sensitive? Adding in mysterious tingles and “somehow, Character X just knew” every time something is about to happen takes away some of the energy of the actual event as often as it adds suspense or spooky atmosphere, if not more often. It makes Reezan's brains seem irrelevant. It definitely makes the important Force-tingles look awfully pedestrian. And why does everyone have to be connected to a movie character? Why can't he just be Corporal Reezen, Nobody Anyone Knows?
-Anyway, we find out that Zsinj is hiding shipyards around Dathomir, which happens to be a secret penal colony with some prisoners the NR might want. And the natives give Reezen the willies. This is supposed to give the reader a foreboding tingle.
-Reezen recommends reinforcements for Dathomir, and thinks that Zsinj will take care of everything. Are you getting the foreboding tinglies yet?
-What we really need is a Verpine-Barabel relationship counseling show for Han and Leia to watch on the way to Dathomir. That would be hilarious, and would make as much sense as anything else in this book. (This week: “Is his broken antenna crippling his communication skills and making him a criminal?” and “How to tell when she's going to bite your head off.”)
So now that chunk of the Plot o'Doom is in motion and we can get on with things. I hope. Make the jump to Chapter Eight
Chapter One
Chapter Six
It's been a while since the last chapter. I apologize for not posting much other than things I found on my hard drive lately; RL issues have gotten in the way. (So I might seem a little grumpier or more scattered than usual.) I just started school again, and I wanted to make sure I got something up before things got crazy, so here it is!
There are a few nice bits in this chapter, but a lot more that made me want to smack the characters into the Maw. Remember how I said I thought things improved after Chapter Five? I must have meant Chapter Seven. Overall, the chapter feels lumpy - it'll be good, then awful, then okay, and so on.
-Leia and Isolder
-Sadly, as soon as the first paragraph is over, the irritation starts: Isolder walked hand in hand with her. And then they went to the soda fountain and talked about how lucky she was to be rid of that loser who loved her but was like totally poor and didn't have a varsity jacket or anything. Isolder says he called his mom, who is coming to pick them up after the big game in her super-special vehicle. Sorry, but they're really getting on my nerves.
-Isolder and Leia call it Ta'a Chume's “own personal” vehicle/ship. This is one of my pet peeves. If Isolder says his mother is bringing her personal vehicle, I can figure out that it's her own, thanks. Piling on another possessive word without a compelling reason leeches strength from the rest of the sentence. It isn't a big deal on its own – it's just one word – but a book with many such overlong stock phrases gets irritating. It's good to be mindful of the Wordy Force, which is quick, easy, and seductive. Take it from one who know too well. Case in point: this entry.
-The vehicle is “thousands of years old” and “rather eccentric in design.” I know they're totally different types of vehicles, but I would still like to see Han and Ta'a Chume talking about ship modifications.
-Leia tells Isolder about the arallute, a weed with a purple flower. Supposedly, if a bride finds one growing in her yard, she'll have a child soon. It's a neat detail, but this book has made me over-sensitive to gender issues, and I can't help but notice that the story is all about the bride's female relatives reinforcing the idea that the newlyweds ought to be trying for a baby right away. What if they don't want kids yet, or at all? And why don't the bride's male relatives or the groom's relatives get involved? I still don't see where Wolverton got this view of Alderaan and the GFFA as stereotypical '50s suburbia.
-Isolder says how sad it is that it's all gone, and Leia says the refugees will make a garden when they get a new world. Once again, Wolverton restrains himself and lets us remember that Han tried and failed to get a suitable planet, and Isolder has the power and money to do so easily. Well done, Dave.
-Threkin calls with the “great” news that Leia's trip to the Roche system has been canceled. Because Verpine-Barabel relations have disintegrated too much. Yeah, Threkin, that's really great. If it's true, that is... but let's not jump ahead. According to Threkin, General Solo is leading a fleet of Star Destroyers there to protect the Verpines, and Mon Mothma will handle the rest personally.
-Leia asks if she can help, but Threkin assures her she'll help the New Republic far more by opening her legs to their new friend from Hapes. Mon Mothma has given Leia eight months off. For a six month trip. Damn, how do I get to be a diplomat? Half the year on vacation, and two months to unpack? This sounds awfully cushy. Of course, the downside is that she's getting sold to the highest bidder and put at great risk of getting assassinated, and that's a pretty big downside.
-Isolder squeezes Leia's hand, and she decides that it's really for the best, and we suddenly find out that she's been feeling overwhelmed by the assignment all along. Because she never dealt with anything this hard before? What has she been doing these past years, exactly? You'd think that rebuilding the galaxy after a devastating civil war would involve lots of assignments this tough. Maybe Wolverton is actually trying to show that Isolder's patronizing is a bad influence. I hope it's something like that.
-Leia thinks that Mon Mothma doesn't need her for this at all (with the implication that Leia thinks Mon Mothma doesn't need her at all, period? I think so) and that MM will deal with it better because the Barabels will respect the “pack leader” of the NR more.
-Building on this pack leader (and hive mother) idea, Wolverton gets metaphorical: Leia had been so curious, trying to understand why a Verpine hive mother would be allowed to go feral, that she had been planning to attack the problem from the wrong angle. She should have been looking at the Barabels all along. I don't think this exactly maps onto the main plot – Ta'a Chume can be the poor mad hive queen easily enough, but the New Republic hasn't been “eating” Hapes. They are possibly betraying their ideals by allying with a dictatorship which isn't necessarily better than the Empire, and they are essentially selling Leia, so you could see that as them “eating” their own. (Though Ta'a Chume later says that Leia as Queen Mother would weaken Hapes... oh, never mind, it's stretching too much.) Leia is focused on the wrong parts of the problem, like why Han is being grumpy rather than why in the galaxy Ta'a Chume would want her for a daughter-in-law and why she (Leia) is willing to leave her entire life behind and marry a stranger. And lack of communication is a big problem for everyone. I still wish Wolverton could make this point without so much exposition.
-Leia's brain still functions enough that she realizes sending a fleet would be pointless, but she doesn't follow up on that thought because His Hormonal Highness interrupts with, “Why are you frowning, little one?” I... I can't think of a creative way to point out yet again how offensively patronizing Isolder is. It must be the Gun of Command. Astarta is lurking in the background somewhere.
-Wait, is Astarta supposed to be Astarte, Phoenician goddess of fertility, sexuality, and war? Nice.
-Leia worries that Mon Mothma has too much control. This sounds like the start of something interesting. Didn't Garm Bel Iblis leave the Rebellion because he worried about the same thing? And couldn't we make some neat parallels between Mon Mothma and Ta'a Chume? But I don't think Wolverton followed up on this. Pity. Hope I'm wrong. Otherwise Wolverton bashed Mon Mothma for nothing.
-Isolder is so wonderfully understanding about how hard it's going to be for Leia to leave her entire life and the government she's spent years helping establish. He even suggests she take several days to say goodbye to her friends and pretend it's just a long visit, if she wants to. He claims there are no strings attached – or is that part of what she can tell her friends? Slippery devil. There must be some oil beads or bubble bath in that “wave of warm water” in his words.
-Leia is, of course, overwhelmed by his amazing consideration and gets her spirit buoyed by his AquaPowered voice. She falls into his arms and nearly tells him she loves him, but decides it's a little to soon to say so. Not to feel so, mind; it doesn't occur to her that if this were a different sort of story, she would soon be lying dead in a deserted corner of the gardens, and the detectives would be saying how tragic it is that girls let themselves get so besotted that they forget to follow elementary safety tips such as “don't follow charming strangers into deserted corners
-Disturbingly, in light of that train of thought, Isolder tells Leia he loves her. Wolverton immediately skips away from the scene, so we have no idea how Leia reacts.
-Han is out testing his flying, Imperial IFF Transponder (on option fourteen, as if we care – what do the other thirteen do, huh?), and high-powered jammers in Coruscant's orbital junkyard (isn't that a flight hazard?). It's obviously part of a Sekrit Plan. Uh-oh.
-Dangerous flying calms him down, which I think is a good insight. It's something he's good at, and it makes him feel in control. Also, Han and the other main characters are used to life on the edge, and I think one of their problems in this book is that they're just not handling semi-normal life well. When your life revolves around surviving the crisis at hand and trying to prepare for the one immediately coming up, you get tunnel vision, and adjusting to keeping track of the endless little details of normal life and setting your own course is hard.
-Blah blah blah Zsinj's Raptors, strong arm of his secret police, infiltration and destruction blah blah blah. Could all this Zsinj stuff be important later? Nah... after all, the Verpines and Barabels just got written out.
-The call he'd been waiting for came in on audio. Ordinarily, I'd feel sorry for poor Han waiting by the phone, but I know what's about to happen. Also, why not visual too? Can't Leia bear to look him in the eye?
-Leia says she'd like to get together for a few hours before he leaves with the fleet, like nothing has happened between them. Ouch. But Han plays along, which is a Bad Sign.
-Especially since he is not taking a fleet, just one Star Destroyer, and he realizes he had underestimated [Threkin], and now they planned to ship him off, to a galaxy far, far away, so that Leia could forget about him. Bastards. Really, though, I think this is a cause for concern. Threkin and Mon Mothma may think it's all for the best, but lying to a subordinate to help manipulate her into leaving her lover, also their subordinate, for a potentially life-threatening marriage is ethically problematic at best. Or have all the characters forgotten about that little assassination attempt?
-Leia notices that Han doesn't look happy. Gee, I wonder why.
-Leia has the rainbow gems scattered on her dresser, and the smart fruit tree is there too, but she asks if Han is unhappy because he's being sent to the Roche system. Maybe she's trying to be tactful somehow, but I'm not optimistic.
-With all these extravagant gifts lying around, I keep hearing this in my head: “Take back your mink/Take back your pearls/What made you think/That I was one of those girls?” Too bad Isolder and Leia can't hear my brainwave radio.
-Han tells her he resigned his commission five minutes ago. Since Leia was hoping Threkin's career would go down the tubes after the droid incident and thinking that maybe Mon Mothma has too much power without even knowing about Threkin and Mon Mothma's lie, you'd think she'd assume Han is disgusted by the NR right now. (In her mind. I'd also expect her to defend the NR to Han. But we don't get into that much in this chapter.)
-He walked into her bedroom, stood staring down at her bed, remembering the good old days? Hmm... I think Wolverton is getting better at subtlety as the book goes on. (Alternatively, The Jealous General could be considering smothering her in her bed... wait, no, that's a different story.) glanced at the gems on her dresser, the piles of treasure from Hapes. No doubt thinking, Leia is quite the mercenary. I wonder if she really cares about anything. Or anyone. Part of Leia but not all of her, for some reason was still surprised to have it here. If she'd had any sense, she told herself, she would have had it locked up. But then, she reflected, she clearly had no sense. I wonder whether she means to keep it safe or to get rid of the reminder that this isn't entirely about love.
-Leia asks where he'll go. Dathomir, he says, and her mouth drops open. Finally, something Leia and I can agree on: that's a stupid idea. But I'll get into that more in the next chapter.
-She objects that it's dangerous, and he says his last order was a strike-and-fade operation that will keep Zsinj far away. “That,” Leia said loudly, “is an abuse of authority!” That, Sunny said, is an abuse of adverbs. The exclamation point is sufficient.
-Han turned his interest from the gems, looked up at her and grinned. “I know.” Uh-oh, that line. So he's abusing his authority because he loves her? Too bad the PT wasn't out yet, because there could be some interesting parallels there. (He assures us the soldiers will be okay. They had better be, Han.)
-But more to the point, why doesn't Han tell her Threkin and Mon Mothma have been using their authority questionably and it pissed him off? It's not like she can say he's imagining things, the way she did when he said he didn't trust Hapans. It seems like Wolverton wants Han to stick to talking about love, but I just can't see why he would hold this information back. Maybe it would have been better to drop that detail, since I don't think Wolverton does much with it later. (I hope I'm wrong.)
-But nooo. Instead, we have Han's Dathomir beach fantasy. “It was all so sweet.” Sweet. Who knew Han was a surfer dude?
-Leia tells him he's burned out, and she'll pull some strings to get him a few weeks of vacation. Isn't she considerate. Han tells her they're both burned out – I think he's on to something there – and she should run away with him. She says she can't, and he points out that that's exactly what she's doing with Isolder. No response, verbal or mental. I would really like to know what she thinks of that.
-Han hopes she'd fall back in love with him. He sounded so pitiable. Leia felt guilty for the past few days, for ignoring him, deserting him. About damn time! If only she didn't sound like she felt guilty the way my mom feels guilty when she has to leave her dog for a few days. The poor baby is incapable of understanding why I have to go.
-She remembered how she'd felt the day Vader had encased Han in carbonite, shipping him back to Jabba the Hutt, the joy they had shared when the Emperor was vanquished. She'd loved him then. But that was a long time ago, she told herself. Yes, but what about five months ago, when he left to chase Zsinj? Did you love him then? What about a year ago? There's a big blank space between the movies and this book which Wolverton isn't even trying to fill. I don't mean details, just vague emotional outlines. I can believe she'd try to make herself forget any good years they had, but we should notice her doing that.
-That does, however, once again show how these characters only function well in crises. Though you'd think they'd have had a few little crises since then for her to remember.
-“Look, Han, I'll always be fond of you,” Leia found herself saying. She's going all-out on denying responsibility for this break-up. She didn't say it; she “found herself saying” it, like some outside force is doing it for her. Like political necessity, I guess. (Or perhaps... the Gun of Command?) “But have a nice life?” Han asked. Or, If you're so fond of me, then why are you being such a bitch?
-Leia found herself shaking. And now we get too subtle. Just one more clue about why she's shaking, please? Anger? Sheer tension? Guilt and fear and loss suppressed and expressed as anger?
-And then Han snatches up the Gun of Command. “You can't do this!” Leia pleaded, raising a hand as if it could ward off the blast. “I thought you loved rogues,” Han said. A spray of blue sparks erupted from the gun, bringing forgetfulness and the night. This is horrifying. This is a gun that “virtually neutralize[s] an enemy's voluntary thought processes” and makes them “helpless as invalids.” That's one of the worst kinds of violation I can think of. It makes Threkin and Mon Mothma's little lies and peer pressure look harmless. I can't think of an exact equivalent, but imagine if your ex drugged you with Rohypnol or something and then kidnapped you. Would you ever trust him again, no matter how much you still cared about him beforehand?
-I wonder if this is why Wolverton went so far out of his way to make Leia so completely irrational and bitchy and Han such a sympathetic victim. Because if we sympathized with her too much and knew he wasn't always thoughtful and sweet and right, why would we want them to get together after this? But that sort of “so now they're even and they can work it out” idea makes the reader somewhat complicit in this fictional kidnapping, which is icky.
-I think the best solution would be to scrap the Gun of Command altogether. It's too much of a Deus Ex Machina device anyway. There has got to be a better way to get everyone to Dathomir than that. Besides, the whole elaborate kidnapping plot is too Mr B and Pamela, and Han isn't cast as the rake who needs to be reformed for the rest of the book, so it doesn't really fit. Why not a spontaneous kidnapping? Leia comes by the Falcon to pick up a few things, Hapan assassins do something dastardly, and Han decides to run really far away with Leia rather than heading to the nearest NR safe haven. It's more believable to me, and a little more forgivable.
-Now, on to Isolder! He's so cowed by his mother that he doesn't dare look at her “veiled face” even on holo vid. So, he's overcompensating by being so controlling with Leia or something?
-A news network spycam outside Leia's quarters filmed the kidnapping. At least the news subplot was good for something, even if Wolverton didn't exploit its full potential.
-The camera showed Han was armed with the Gun of Command. Idiot. If you're going to commit a crime, at least hide the weapon under your jacket.
-Ta'a Chume quizzes Isolder on what he's going to do now, and he reflects that Hapan women think men are totally inept. Inept means seemingly unable to ever do anything right, according to Wolverton. Thanks, Dave. I really needed that defined. At least it's usually funny when Lemony Snicket does that.
-The NR has sent a thousand detectives after Han, Astarta's getting hourly progress reports, and she and Isolder have called for bounty hunters. What, no news bulletin, hotline, or reward for information leading to capture?
-Ta'a Chume says she knows Isolder wants to rescue Leia himself, but he can't, because he has to stay safe and fulfill his duties as Chume'da. He can't be around when the assassins kill Han and Leia, or he might get caught in the crossfire.
-Okay, she doesn't add that last bit. But it makes me wonder why Isolder has to be clueless about his mother's intentions. He knows she's ruthless and devious, yet he always acts as if he thinks she's being completely honest. Why couldn't he suspect she wants Leia dead? Why couldn't he have been gambling that Leia would be the one girl both tough enough to help him take down his mother before she took them down and rule Hapes, but compassionate enough to rule it beneficently? He's got the submissive son thing down, so why not make that partly real and partly an act to lure her into complacency?
-He feels that she sees through him when he looks into her eyes. The lights around her “almost” give her an “aura of power.” Maybe this is her slight Force-sensitivity at work. (He had to get it from somewhere, right?) Or maybe it really is her personality. I prefer the latter, much as I'd enjoy the irony, given her views on Jedi.
-Anyway, Isolder is rebellious and says he's going after them anyway. She tells him she wishes she could cure him of his “selfless heroics” which are “no virtue,” but he's too much like his father. (Slytherin Mommy + Gryffindor Son = conflict!) I recall Yoda saying something similar about Luke. Interesting. I'm also wondering who Isolder's father was, what he was (is?) like, what happened to him, and whether he had any influence on Isolder's life. I can't remember ever hearing of him again.
-Ta'a Chume says Han will probably seek refuge with one of the warlords, so we know where she's going to start her investigation. Little does she know Han is instead planning to hang out in a warlord's territory without asking permission or even knowing what's there first.
-Ta'a Chume is coming with her fleet and her assassins, and Isolder thinks it's because honor demands she recover her successor. Again with wondering why he has to be so clueless. Maybe her Gaze of Persuasion wasn't totally ineffective after all.
-Isolder says he's trying to be strong, because she always says Hapes can only be as strong as her leaders and he's taken that to heart. He probably thinks he and Leia will be the kind of strong (but good instead!) rulers Ta'a Chume should have been.
-Then he hangs up on his mother. Somehow I don't think he's supposed to do that.
-Isolder almost pitied Han. General Solo could not possibly guess the kind of resources his mother would bring to bear on him. Why not? How much badder than Jabba and the Empire combined is she? I'm not remembering any unbelievable resources appearing later, either. Also, why does Isolder think of him first as Han, then as General Solo? It sounds like he slipped into familiarity and then reminded himself to keep his distance. Let's grasp at some straws to keep things interesting and speculate that Han wasn't the only one checking out the competition.
-And now we switch to the POV of Random Imperial Corporal Reezen. Is “Reezen” supposed to be a clever homophone for “reason,” or is that a coincidence? Anyway, I started off loving this character, because he not only has a believable motivation, he actually thinks and plans and acts sensibly. He has somehow managed to work in the military for seven years in relative obscurity, never attracting the praise or attention he felt to be his due. But he doesn't just whine about it to himself. He keeps his eyes open, and is the only person to notice Han's strike-and-fade operations and see them for the diversion they are. And he plans to send the report directly to Zsinj so he'll finally get his due. The New Republic should really try to recruit this guy. He's far more effective than their security people.
-But then he gets an “odd tingling in his bones” when he looks at Dathomir on the charts, and he remembers how Darth Vader stopped during a parade once and told him to trust his sensitivity, and I start losing interest in the character. Why does everyone in the galaxy have to be Force-sensitive? Adding in mysterious tingles and “somehow, Character X just knew” every time something is about to happen takes away some of the energy of the actual event as often as it adds suspense or spooky atmosphere, if not more often. It makes Reezan's brains seem irrelevant. It definitely makes the important Force-tingles look awfully pedestrian. And why does everyone have to be connected to a movie character? Why can't he just be Corporal Reezen, Nobody Anyone Knows?
-Anyway, we find out that Zsinj is hiding shipyards around Dathomir, which happens to be a secret penal colony with some prisoners the NR might want. And the natives give Reezen the willies. This is supposed to give the reader a foreboding tingle.
-Reezen recommends reinforcements for Dathomir, and thinks that Zsinj will take care of everything. Are you getting the foreboding tinglies yet?
-What we really need is a Verpine-Barabel relationship counseling show for Han and Leia to watch on the way to Dathomir. That would be hilarious, and would make as much sense as anything else in this book. (This week: “Is his broken antenna crippling his communication skills and making him a criminal?” and “How to tell when she's going to bite your head off.”)
So now that chunk of the Plot o'Doom is in motion and we can get on with things. I hope. Make the jump to Chapter Eight
