Star Wars: I, Jedi in The Expanded Universe

Apr 06, 2008 Keith rated it liked it

Shelves: star-wars, best-covers

Stars: 3
Re-read: Yes
Recommend to: People who've already ready the Rogue Squadron series and liked it.

I, Jedi was probably the first Star Wars novel that I really grabbed me when I was a kid. Corran Horn was such a cool character and this book seemed like peak storytelling to the young teenage version of me. Sadly, I can no longer view this as a Star Wars masterpiece.

I spent most of the book perplexed at the decisions Stackpole made regarding the plot. Maybe they were dictated to him from above Stars: 3
Re-read: Yes
Recommend to: People who've already ready the Rogue Squadron series and liked it.

I, Jedi was probably the first Star Wars novel that I really grabbed me when I was a kid. Corran Horn was such a cool character and this book seemed like peak storytelling to the young teenage version of me. Sadly, I can no longer view this as a Star Wars masterpiece.

I spent most of the book perplexed at the decisions Stackpole made regarding the plot. Maybe they were dictated to him from above because his earlier books were much better paced. Over half of the book has the plot overlap with a previous trilogy in the series (Jedi Academy). I'm not talking about cool little scenes that reference other books. I'm talking about inserting Corran Horn into the previously told story when he wasn't mentioned before. This was cool at first because Stackpole would have to come up with clever ways to make it believable that Corran wouldn't have been mentioned in those three books. It quickly became very tedious though because, if you'd recently read the Jedi Academy trilogy like I had, you are essentially reading large portions of those stories all over again from a slightly different perspective.

Sometimes Stackpole's writing gets to me. He is fond of pretty cheesy dialogue, but worse are how he describes people responding to things in the most over-the-top manner possible. If someone walks into a room and is surprised to see something, he falls to his knees with his mouth hanging open. Someone will be in a quiet public place thinking about something they don't like, and they'll slam their hand down on the table and yell, "NO!" Someone will say something that is mildly amusing and a character will throw their head back and laugh.

There are a few things that Stackpole does well and illustrates how good this book could've been. (view spoiler)

The greatest fault of the book by far is the first 260 pages that should've been cut, but another big issue is Stackpole not allowing evil people to be evil. (view spoiler)

It is also really annoying reading how Stackpole is trying to justify why Corran's action are just fine with the light side of the Force. I'm of the opinion that it is best to talk about the Force as a philosophy as little as possible because it doesn't hold up very well (at least beyond the movies). Stackpole spends way too much time trying to reconcile these issues, and I think he largely failed because they can't be reconciled. It makes it even worse when you have Luke explaining how basically everything is of the dark side but then he and Corran are okay with very questionable things. (view spoiler)

Other thoughts:
- (view spoiler)
-Luke seems even more stupid than he did in the Jedi Academy trilogy.
- Another problem with merging this book with the previous trilogy is that you have to work with the major problems with that trilogy. (view spoiler)
- This was unbelievably stupid. (view spoiler)
-Towards the end of the book, Stackpole has Corran unironically say this, (view spoiler)
- (view spoiler)
- They have a fake diamond made of "kubaz xurkonia". Good Lord.
- (view spoiler)
- The pirates don't make sense as a military unit. (view spoiler)
- I think Stackpole just gave up at the end. (view spoiler)

Long story short, this book didn't live up to my recollection of being a masterpiece. I actually think it wasn't as good as the first 3-4 Rogue Squadron books. It was still enjoyable.

First Reads: 5 Stars (1999/2003/2007) ...more

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May 13, 2009 Wicked ♥ (Wickedly Bookish Reviews) aka Bat-Jess rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, sci-fi, star-wars, books-i-own, 2010

Honestly, this is one of the best Star Wars books I've read so far. After the dreadful Jedi Academy trilogy, this was like and oasis in a desert of dry material. I guess reading the Thrawn trilogy gave me high expectations which were immediately dashed by the not so great writing of Kevin J. Anderson. I went into this book knowing a good portion of it was a retelling of the Jedi Academy trilogy in Corran Horn's point of view. I must say I didn't think I would like it much and that it would be an ...more

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