Review - "Conviction" by Aaron Allston

"Conviction" by Aaron Allston.

I make no bones about it - I enjoy reading Aaron Allston. I like his sense of humor, although I can imagine that some find it to occur a bit too frequently. But when it boils down to it, I like his books, I like how he hands characters and situations. But let's get to the EU (good), the Bad, and the Ugly.

The EU - Luke Skywalker Has a Mind - You know, considering that Luke Skywalker is the Jedi "Grand Master", he hasn't been all that on the ball in the last two series. Let's face it, Legacy of the Force can almost be viewed as the tragic story of Luke Skywalker being blind to Jacen's fall. Seriously - Luke ignores the signs, ignores Mara's warnings (even to such an extent where she feels she has to go after Jacen alone!).

This plays off of a whole Post-New Jedi Order theme. Luke Skywalker's "power" is shown primarily more and more in his ability to do bigger and bigger tricks. This isn't a theme I like - it's the anti-Zahn approach - it throws the ideas focused upon in the Thrawn Duology on their head.

Until this book. Seriously - the ending of this book all drives to Luke Skywalker, Jedi Grand Master, kicking all sorts of butt, not because he can spin Midicholorians around quicker than anyone else... but because he is wiser, he out thinks people - he understands other people... Abeloth, Vestara, Ben, the Sith... and because he understands, he is victorious.

And it is wonderful and it is beautiful. He acts like a Wise Jedi Master... not just the most powerful Jedi bully. And this is a wonderful thing.


The EU - Querdan Dei - Querdan Dei is a one-book villain. Every book needs them - the villain of the day. The immediate, yet temporary foil. He's not the giant villain, maybe more of a level boss. Yet Allston creates a complex and deep character here, strong enough where the story can take his point of view and be interesting and compelling... (and the last page that Dei gets is just a wonderful bit of writing, really, it is. Troy Denning... go read that a few times before you try to have write a death scene.).

This just gives this book a bunch of depth. One of the wonders of good writing, a good universe, be it Star Wars (properly done) or Tolkein or what have you is the illusion of depth - that there is far, far more than you see. You get Dei give passing commentary on the other members of his family and how his approach differs from theirs. I don't know if we will run into any of this family -- we don't need to. That passing reference created depth of universe... and it's an interesting universe. A Star Wars author doesn't have to reveal all the secrets of the universe - he just needs to hint at them and let the reader's imagination take over.

The EU - Letters to Papa For the first time in this series, Vestara seems like an actual character who could seriously grow into a love interest and mate for Ben Skywalker rather than just some drawing room idea where someone said, "wouldn't it be cool if we made a Sith hottie for Ben? Yeah, that'd be awesome!" And Allston does this by having Vestara go through an interesting thing... she composes fake letters to her father, but she writes these letters as though she were like Ben or Luke in order to "understand her enemy". And she evaluates them... and you see character growth and development.

This really is a beautiful device... instead of just an assumed "oh, yeah, they are going to have to get together because that would be cool" you start seeing character growth and development that would cause them to grow together.

You know... like what Zahn did with Luke and Mara. Not what happened with all the other "oh, here is the perfect love interest for Luke that just falls out of the sky, because after all, all relationships just fall out of the sky" one dimensional tarts that got written for him. Just well done and with a neat literary device.

The Bad - Tahiri? - Okay, I sort of like Tahiri as a character, more than I have any right to as I never read the Juvenile books. I only know her starting in the New Jedi Order books. And I even sort of find the idea of her trial (and I'm guessing her upcoming redemption) to be a fascinating idea.

The only problem it doesn't belong in this book.

Seriously - it just drives the plot into a screeching halt. It's fascinating... but then you leave it, and then 5o pages later when you are off entranced in something else - bam, a bit of Tahiri. It's jarring... and it's a shame because it could be a fascinating story.

I think the whole Tahiri arc from the entire series would have been much better served if it were approached in the same way that Traitor was done. Have it be "Tahiri's Trial" - a completely separate story that parallels the main story. That way we can appreciate it.

Actually, this gets to a qualm I have with the whole FOTJ series -- it jumps all over the place too much... and it seems like it is... stretched to make a full 9 book series. My solution. Rearrange and cut. How?

Book 1. Start earlier than this one than Outcast... show some early adventure of Valin so we know who he is (as a real character - seriously, when had Valin taken any narrative in any other book -- why should I care about *him* -- this stinks for Corran and Mirax who I know, but who is their kid)... show increasing tension between Daala and the Jedi... then 85% of the way through the book have Valin go mad, then other Jedi, and conclude the book with Skywalker's exile.

Then we break the series up into bit. What do we have?

A Three Book Series following Luke in Exile -- cover the events from Kel Dor up through to the end of Conviction in three books, focusing just on Luke, Ben, and Vestara. You don't need to jump to the other plots... Luke is exiled... you can maybe have a cryptic messages coming in.

A One Book Story about The Jedi versus Daala - slightly modified to where you have the Jedi trying to thwart Daala's tyranny... and have the climax of this book be her deposing then the government being resettled (maybe have Daala refuse a recall vote, so it is clear that the Jedi are defending Democracy) and the Jedi free to come to Luke's aid (other than the few rebellious ones who had jumped out to help earlier)

A One Book Story about the Trial and Escape of Tahiri

Then the big 1 book Conclusion that wraps everything up - Abeloth, the Sith and it all.

The One book story on Politics could be released between the 2nd and third Exile Books, the Tahiri could be right after the last Exile book - and then everything is ready to go. From 9 books to 8, but you are really dropping almost to 7 books and adding a completely new first book to establish the new background. It would have worked much better.

Of course, this really doesn't have much to do with Allston's book. Not directly - but instead of neat stories that just sort of fill us in on what the "main" or "favorite" characters are doing... just focus on stories that move the plot. So yeah... Kessel and the whole Slave thing... gone from the series. Work Leia and Allana in another way.

The Ugly - The Cover Flap Dear Lucas Arts and Del Rey. When your cover flap begins "So and so has been _______" an the events of that blank don't happen around page 189 of 366, this is a drastic, drastic flaw. See "has been _____" is what we call a "perfect passive" - which denotes a past occurance which has present implications. The problem is that when I pick up the book and read the cover, this was not yet a pass event.

You failed. You gave out your own spoilers. Seriously ... I mean, is this meant to be the cover text for the next book, because it would make sense there almost. Oh well.

The Grade - A- I enjoyed the book. I loved Allston's writing, his use of some very neat rhetorical and literary devices was excellent -- and he accomplished what this book was supposed to do quite well. Now, some of the overarching aspects of the series that I find annoying were annoying here too... but that's an editorial thing, not on the author or this specific book itself. When viewed on its own merits, this book is good, very, very good. Perhaps the best writing Allston has done (although there are other stories I like better).