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Star Wars:
The New Jedi Order - Vector Prime Star Wars: The New Jedi Order - Agents Of Chaos I:
Hero's Trial Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Empyre X-Men Generation X: Genogoths The joys of tie-ins. This handful of books ranges over the spectrum when it comes to both the quality of the writing and the level of enjoyment to be had from each, not to mention the amount of time each takes to read.
Hero's Trial, on the other hand, is nowhere near as engaging or interesting. Aside from Han Solo coming across as a monumental jerk, the book labors through a rather tedious storyline that seems to be suffering from basic stretching and stuffing to make it last long enough for two books. The sheer effort of making it through the first managed to put me off the second, and I'm pretty much a Han Solo fan. Luceno's writing is adequate to the task, but to keep this one going strong, he would really have needed to be a far better writer.
Rusch and Smith's X-Men novelization is just about adequate, one
of those things writers toss out in a couple of weeks without paying much attention to it
(a sin I avoid, though I'm not sure why...!) It's based on a slightly easlier
version of the script than the one that was shot, so there are some differences --
Wolverine isn't cage fighting, and Rogue initially gets him to save her from a horny
truckdriver, for example. For some odd reason, they describe Wolverine with eight
claws, rather than the usual six. Generation X: Genogoths is a fairly well written advanture romp, with several of the Gen-X characters caught between bad guys with a deadly agenda for some of their number, and a hidden mutant group that has an odd and disturbing agenda of its own. York keeps the pace up, the characterization active, and the story just edgy enough to make it a reasonable rainy-day page-turner. Having had less than wonderful experiences with the Marvel mutant novels in the past, this is a nice change. ©2000 by Steven E. McDonald |
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Vector Prime was the launch platform
for Del Rey's spin on the expanded Star Wars universe, post-Return Of The
Jedi. It's understandable that they should feel that the more immediate aspects
of the universe had been milked dry, and that more major change might be a big benefit (it
was certainly becoming obvious to many that radical change in the film side was not to be
expected.) Hence, the creation of the Yuzhon Vong, and implacable enermy from a
neighboring galaxy, arriving in generation ships and bearing an agenda of
assimilation-or-destruction. As an extra, as everyone knows by now, we were also
handed the death of one of the main characters -- though it could be said that dropping a
moon on Chewbacca removed one of the least problematic characters available, with the
benefit of being able to wring a multi-book story arc out of the
resulting emotional
dissolution of Han Solo. Vector Prime is an engaging story, fairly well
written, and laden with interesting images (though the Yammosk, a giant biological
computer, reminds me very much of the Kree Supreme Intelligence from Marvel Comics.)
Will Murray's work on Empyre fares
better, but he's also only working through the story for a single book. He's also
writing about a subject that he has a strong connection to (psychic work) and tying that
into a series background that lends itself to somewhat off-the-wall ideas. Empyre
also succeeds in another aspect, which is making it very clear that the world is well
overdue for a big-budget Nick Fury film. Empyre is sometimes dead
serious, sometimes cheerfully goofy, and
is throughout an enteraining read.
