Exploring the Star Wars Expanded Universe - Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Hello and welcome to a series I'm doing. So I have made the decision to read all of the books in the Star Wars Expanded Universe - that is, the Star Wars works outside of the films and The Clone Wars that were released prior to April 25, 2014.

I will not only cover the novels here, but the games and comic books. But mostly the novels, for that's where most of the EU's content is. I will cover the novels in order, except for the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian Adventures, because I accidentally forgot they existed between reading Splinter of the Mind's Eye and Heir to the Empire. I'll go back to them before reading the Han Solo trilogy. I will not be covering the novels intended for younger audiences, however. At least not right now. So don't expect to see any Jedi Prince stuff here.

Anyhow, let's begin with the one that started it all: Alan Dean Foster's 1978 novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

Now, you may or may not know the history behind this one. If you do, I'm sorry you've got to hear it again. If not, here you go. Alan Dean Foster wrote Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (ghost-wrote, to be exact - the book is credited to George Lucas), which was the novelization of the original Star Wars film. In fact, it was the very first Star Wars release ever, pre-dating the film by over seven months. During this time, it appears that Lucas was absolutely certain he wanted to make a sequel, even if the film flopped. But if it had flopped, we wouldn't have gotten The Empire Strikes Back. No, no, we would have gotten Splinter of the Mind's Eye, only in the form of a film. You see, Lucas commissioned Foster to write Splinter to be the basis of a low-budget sequel had the film failed. But obviously, the film didn't fail and Splinter became just a book. Well, one that was canon until 2014 (taking place between Star Wars and Empire), but I'm kind of glad no longer is.

First off, I'll just say I don't think it's all that great, partially due to some decisions made to keep the budget low if it had become a film. The whole book takes place pretty much on one planet and lacks Han and Chewie. Lack of Han in a book he totally could have been in loses a point with me. Just does.

The plot is basically this: Leia's going on a mission to recruit some rebels on the planet Circarpous IV and Luke assists her. However, they have to make an emergency landing on Circarpous V (also known as Mimban). On Mimban is a mysterious artifact called the Kaiburr crystal, which is pretty powerful, so Luke's gotta keep it out of the wrong hands. I don't really remember how (I've slept since I've read this thing), but Vader gets involved and goes after the crystal as well.

Oh yeah, and Luke totally has the hots for Leia throughout the whole book.

Regardless of what Lucas says, he did not plan it from the beginning to have them be siblings. And nothing makes it more obvious than this book. Here are a few passages:

"Whenever he looked at her, she caused emotions to boil within him like soup too long on the fire, no matter if she was separated from him by near vacuum as at present or by only an arm's length in a conference room."

"Her body heat was near palpable to Luke and he had to force himself to keep his attention on what he was doing."

"Luke felt the warmth of the body next to him, lowered his gaze. Framed in the faint light from above, the Princess looked more radiant, more beautiful than ever. "Leia," he began, "I..."

Cue the banjo music. But yeah, this stuff has been uncomfortable since 1983. It might have been uncomfortable before then as well, as it's not particularly well-written anyway. Wookieepedia has this unsourced claim purportedly from Lucas: "Lucas has stated that this tension was intentional, to show that the two had feelings for one another, but that they did not know exactly what type of feelings."

That doesn't really make it any better, George. If you really did say that.

Another interesting thing is that Luke and Leia both fight Vader in this. They quickly get whooped, but then Obi-Wan Kenobi's spirit takes over Luke and fights Vader, severing his robotic hand. Yes, really. Then Vader prepares to kill Luke, but falls into a pit (surviving, according to Luke's senses).

So is this book worth reading? To me, it can be skipped. I find it more interesting for its history than what the book actually consists of. It doesn't really introduce anything massive to the Star Wars universe, other than a pre-Empire duel between Luke and Vader. I'm not sure what current canon states, but I was always under the impression that Empire was the first time the two came face-to-face, so that's another reason why I'm kind of glad this one is no longer canon.

If you want to read it - have at it. While I didn't find it to be particularly compelling, you might. Just don't expect Thrawn Trilogy-level material here, because you won't find it.