So after much delay, here are my thoughts on the second LOTF Entry,
Bloodlines. The reason for this delay has everything to do with the book itself, as I will explain later.
With this being my first brush up against Karen Traviss’ work, I went in with many reservations. She’s arguably the most controversial EU writer after Troy Denning (and possibly Kevin J. Anderson, depending on who you ask). Her insatiable Mando obsession, her moral soapbox tirades against the Jedi, her scalding interactions with critics…hell, the number of heated discussions she’s sparked on this very thread should be a testament to how contested her work is. And although her…
penchant for writing Mando characters is definitely front and center, I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would.
Boba Fett’s characterized the way you’d expect, and I think Traviss did a good job with his dialogue. They feel in-character for him without feeling too excessive or edgy, and it’s easy to picture Temura Morrison saying these kind of lines in that Kiwi voice of his. I also like the prose around his dialogue, where he’ll says something callous and harsh to preserve his uncompromising Mando image, while the prose will detail what actual uncertainties or reservations are running through his mind. His conversation with the Kaminoan scientist in the beginning is a good example of this, especially when closeted feelings about his childhood and his attitude towards the Clone Army are revealed (there was also a moment where he expressed disdain for the Kaminoans using clones to repel the Empire—I couldn’t tell if that was a reference to the Clone Rebellion mission from the OG Battlefront II, but if it is, that’s really cool to get his reaction to that). Some people might object to all these details about Fett distracting from the narrative, but I’m not too bothered by it. If what I’ve researched is correct, in terms of publishing, these portions of the book were the first major updates regarding Boba Fett’s exploits after ROTJ since, what, the Bantam novels and Dark Horse comics in the 90’s? Considering Fett and the Mandalorians play a bigger role than cameos in this story arc, and with more information on Fett’s backstory being available now that AOTC had been released, I’m not surprised that Traviss would commit time to getting the reader up to date on what Fett’s been up to. Having said all that, I would be lying if I said I was at all interested in Boba’s side of the story…which I wasn’t. I like the character fine, but following his doddering exploits in search of “muh cure” and “muh abandoned daughter” did nothing for me, and never matched the emotional weight of what was going on with the rest of the story.
Because if I have any real gripes with the new focus on the Fett and the Mandos, it’s the
timing. This really didn’t need to be the first thing to be addressed in the wake of the major events of the previous book. Boba Fett having butt cancer and needing to hunt down Taun We really has fuck all to do with the Corellian Uprising, Lumiya’s return, Jacen’s downfall, or really anything for at least 2/3rds of the book. Even the element of his daughter eying Thrackan-Sal’s contract on the Solo Family boils down to settling her daddy issues with Boba than the overarching plot at hand. And even though it
eventually intersects with the main plot way later in the book, by then it feels too unimportant and inconsequential compared to everything else for me to care. Like, what possessed Karen Traviss to think that the best course of action was to take the reader, who is still preoccupied with Jacen Solo’s character drama that Aaron Alliston
spent the entire previous book establishing as the basis for this current story arc, and hand-cuff them to an infinitely less relevant plot about Boba Fett and his retarded Punished Snake melodrama? Why this, and more importantly, why
now? This all could’ve easily been pushed to Book #3 of this story arc…not the very next thing we read after Jacen decapitates a fellow Jedi Knight and takes his first steps towards Sith teachings. For fuck’s sake. Also, another gripe I had was that prologue of Boba Fett in first person—
that shit was cringe to read, and felt like the author getting physical arousal at writing Fett as the most “too-cool-for-you” edgelord in the universe. The prose is so try-hard and reads so much like a Sonic OC bio that I half expected Boba to at one point go:
“Psh. Nothing personnel, kid.” Keep in mind, I don’t hate the inclusion of this sub-plot, and enjoyed portions of it—particularly the reunion of Fett and the Solo’s, due to great interactions—but the implementation was laughable. I can certainly see why this a major point of contention for EU fans.
Now, the juiciest part of this book, and what I’m rapidly coming to enjoy the most about LOTF overall, is the family drama. Jacen’s decision to become a Colonel in the Alliance’s Anti-Terror effort does not go ignored…it rattles both Skywalker and Solo families, causing divide as some members side with him and others are horrified by what he’s doing. It all especially works because unlike most Dark Side Turns, he hasn’t leapt to pure evil yet, and is operating legally and pacifistically…but his pragmatic measures create a ton of revulsion in Han, Jaina, and especially Luke, all of which is in-character and written superbly. Some of the scenes with Mara and Luke debating whether or not they want their son being contaminated by Jacen’s influence, along with the arguments staged between Luke and Jacen, felt so real at times that I sometimes completely phased out of caring about the Civil War being waged, and more about the quiet but gut-wrenching scenes unfolding in the Senate Offices and Apartments. Those horrible moments where the characters return to their homes wracked from battle or politics and realize in hollow defeat that they can’t relieve stress by talking it out with their family anymore…because the family rift has forced them to sever contact with each other. The more I read LOTF, the more I realize that this bitter family division might be the core asset of this story arc, the same way the philosophical drama of the Force and the Vong was to NJO.
The more of Jacen’s scenes that I read, the more I feel like this series is going to give NJO a run for its money in terms of pure, heart-wrenching tragedy. NJO allowed for a lot of levity and emotional relief from its more harrowing moments…but LOTF is just constant, wracking sadness, all well-earned and spectacularly written. And if it’s one thing I can credit Traviss for, it’s for writing Jacen’s self-loathing and helpless descent just as well as Alliston, sometimes better. But part of that can be attributed to her not shoe-horning comedy where it doesn’t belong like Alliston, which helped the tonal consistency of the story tremendously.
Scenes like that desperate message that Jacen types for Jaina then deletes, or the sleepless night he spends thinking about his wife and daughter that he can’t see, all tug at the heart strings. You can see that he’s struggling under his uncertainty in the bad decisions he’s making, and doesn’t feel like he can bring his anxieties to anyone. It’s the kind of conflicted helplessness that I hear Disney Drones inexplicably credit the ST for showing in Crylo Ren, despite it barely materializing in the actual films
at all. Also, unlike that lip-quivering brat, Jacen is actually shown to be doing everything with the misguided belief that he’s
saving everyone—and that for all of his stupid decisions, he still loves his family, and wants them to stay alive. He doesn’t even want to kill Luke like Kylo does (at least, at the stage that I’m reading), if anything, he’s trying to do what his uncle isn’t willing to do, to protect him from his own weaknesses. And probably the most bitter aspect of Jacen’s turn, as the shock and horror of his actions start turning the heads of people in his personal life, is watching him forcefully—but miserably—cut ties with the rest of his family with every act of necessity he takes. The distrust he instills in Luke, the vile resentment he creates in Jaina…and then, the final scene. Those of you who’ve read this book know the one I mean: the one where Jacen returns the Falcon to his parents—who are waiting with full knowledge of what he’s done in a certain interrogation room—and they greet him the same way the heartbroken and horrified parents of a school shooter would. Let me tell you, as someone who watched the Solo Family grow and bond together as early as
Young Jedi Knights, this scene was fucking heart-breaking, especially what Han says to his son right before they depart. I would almost compare it to the frigid confrontation between Han and Anakin Solo in
Vector Prime after the Serpindal Moon scene, but this scene actually defies nature and is even more of an emotional, sickening gut punch than even
that. I know people accuse the “Denningsverse” books as being gore porn, but I disagree. This is outright
misery porn. If there’s been a noticeable gap between this post and the one I made on
Betrayal, it’s only because this book was a struggle to get through, because I couldn’t make it three chapters without needing to do something,
anything else to not sink into a reclusive state of depression.
And I want to be clear about this: this should all be considered mountainous praise. Oh, this book was depressing, but it was a good kind of depressing…the kind where you can’t help but marvel at how well the author is achieving their goal. For however dark or bleak this book got, not a single part of it felt unearned. This wasn’t a bad 90’s anime or Zack Snyder film, not an exercise in navel-gazing angst or forced superficial melodrama. Everything about Jacen’s parts of the story felt measured, understated and psychological…everything I didn’t expect to see again after NJO, or in these relentless quantities. And I know it’s cliché to parrot at this point, but the more of Jacen’s downfall I read, the more I’m flabbergasted that we didn’t get something like this from the ST. How did three random authors—X-Wing writer, a Mando fetishist, and a Gorehound, all with conflicting interests and writing styles—manage to convey a character’s downfall better than a multi-million dollar movie trilogy with infinitely more resources and star power? It’s fucking unbelievable how amateurish these books make the ST look, even with the myriad of problems they have.
The other effective thing this book does is that it firmly establishes the difference between Jacen’s swerve to the Dark Side, and Anakin’s. Rather than do what the ST did with Kylo, clambering fruitlessly at replicating Anakin’s conflict verbatim, this book makes a conscious effort to show Jacen learning about his grandfather’s downfall (even using the Force to explore the bloody memories that ensued in the Coruscant Jedi Temple during the night of Order 66), and definitively saying that he will rise above making the same mistakes his grandfather did…and never compromise his morals or his loved ones, no matter how much of the Dark Side he embraces for the “right reasons”. This is something I definitely appreciate, as this story arc is taking careful measures as to not repeat the events of the films, and even deconstruct them…again, as opposed to the ST, which simply regurgitates the same cycle of events as its preceding trilogy for no narrative gain whatsoever. The other thing that really separates Jacen from Anakin during this phase is that in some ways…he’s actually scarier. There’s a scene in this book where Jacen interrogates a prisoner and accidentally kills her, in front of his apprentice Ben. The thing that makes this scene so unsettling to me is how unnaturally back to normal and caring Jacen goes back to when Ben expresses discomfort at what he sees, saying that the boy can return home to his parents and that this all might be too much for him. He does these cold, calculating things, and still remains in-character and with his master-student bond with Ben intact. There’s no murderous angry shift like you see with Anakin…he’s just the same logical and assertive Jacen he’s grown to be through NJO and
Dark Nest, but applying that logic to scary conclusions.
Speaking on the conflict itself, it’s actually taking more shape in this book. The American Civil War parallels are even more apparent in this book, what with Traviss going out of her way to establish the growing tensions and divisions brought about by it…not just between the Coruscanti and the Corellians, but within the Skywalker-Solo families. A lot of Han’s Inner Monologue about his conflicting feelings about his son being involved in the Corellian attack and his daughter siding with the New Republic, how familial ties and political leanings are at odds with each other, is a particular highlight. I want to see more scenes like this and the Dinner Argument from
Betrayal, as Civil War media (being a passion of mine) mines some of its greatest storytelling from the narrative drama of families being divided by the war. Also, remember how I said that LOTF continues to cement the idea of the Swarm War being utterly irrelevant? Jacen utters this line about the oncoming Civil War:
“I don’t think the galaxy could endure another war so soon after the Yuuzhan Vong invasion.”
Fucking
ouch. The Swarm War was such a minor nothing on the protagonists’ radar that it doesn’t even come up in a conversation about the state of the galaxy. Troy Denning can’t catch a break, the poor fucker.
However, with all this praise directed at the book (and my middling acceptance of the controversial Mando stuff), I have two massive complaints: the first of which is in regards to what I said earlier about Traviss retaining tone where Alliston seemingly could not. As I mentioned in my megapost on
Betrayal, Alliston had a teeth-grittingly frequent tendency to insert cringey Whedon-esque jokes where they didn’t belong, hobbling the dramatic tension and immersion of several scenes. Chief among them was a painfully self-aware and fart-huffing “Han Shot First” joke that came out of fucking nowhere, and utterly shattered immersion. For almost the entirety of
Bloodlines, Traviss was showing a notable improvement in this aspect, refraining from unbalancing the tone of her book with any needless humor….and then the scene where Boba Fett’s daughter murders Thrackan-Sal before Han Solo can, and Boba makes a comment about Han “needing to learn to shoot first, and I almost threw the fucking book outside of my top-story apartment window. Fucking
really? Do we need to shoe-horn this retarded Special Edition joke into EVERY ENTRY in this series? Note to EU authors everywhere: this knuckle-dragging, glue-scarfing, tired-ass meme wasn’t funny in 1997, it wasn’t funny in 2006, and it isn’t funny now. Shoe-horning this joke into dramatic scenes of all things is the literary equivalent of Steve Buschemi hauling two skateboards and asking how his fellow kids are doing, so fucking
stop.
My second big complaint is that, yet again, the author has opted to barely use the existing Jedi Characters established in NJO…and this is really starting to make my blood boil. This isn’t even just about Tahiri Veila anymore (although that would be a legitimate starting point of contention, considering she has the most narrative potential to exploit, and the authors seem deterimined to do fuck all with her, which is really getting on my last nerve), the story practically ignores
all of the young Jedi Knight characters, for reasons that utterly elude me. Hey, Karen…maybe instead of dedicating half the book to touching yourself to your favorite oily Kiwi Bounty Hunter, consider utilizing some of the existing Jedi Order Members to contribute to the narrative. I mean, for fuck’s sake…you have Jacen Solo join the Galactic Alliance equivalent of the East Berlin Stasi, generating daily controversy on Galactic HoloNews, and getting publicly compared to Darth Vader. You really don’t think some of the other members of the Jedi Order could offer some profound reactions to what’s going on? I mean, get why series regulars like Corran Horn and Kyle Katarn’s reactions were relegated to only a few pages…they’re technically the ‘old guard’ at this point, pushing into their 60’s. But why isn’t Kyp Durron given more to do? What about Tahiri Veila? What about Lowbacca, or Tenel Ka? Hell, Zekk is in this book, but he has barely anything to do or contribute. These are people that Jacen grew up with, his close friends, his companions of the fucking Yuuzhan Vong War. You’d think they would be the
first people to react to their best friend wreaking havoc in a black uniform with a secret police SWAT Team on live television. What the fuck is preoccupying them off-page, exactly? Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that Jaina’s part of the main drama—
finally—but having the other Solo Twin react to her brother’s dark descent is kind of a no-brainer, literally the most
basic thing I would expect to be addressed in a story arc like this. Whether Traviss or Alliston care or not, it is their obligation to make use of the carry-over characters from NJO…not invent arbitrary one-use Jedi for killing off and boosting Jacen’s arc, or Mando characters to sideline the main plot. I hear a lot of complaints about LOTF regarding its “grimdark tone” and “unbelievable arc for Jacen” and “focus on Mandos”, but this is the only problem with this series that is actively turning me livid, because it is the
LAST fucking blunder I would expect from professional authors to struggle with this late in the EU’s lifespan. You have rich and well-developed characters, so for God’s sake
make use of them. I’ve been really fucking lenient on this series’ flaws, but I’m about to enter the 1/3rd mark with
Tempest, and if they still haven’t fixed this problem, that lenience is going evaporate.
So those are my experiences with
Bloodlines, a book I’m relieved to say is, for the most part, as good if not better than
Betrayal was. To be honest, I was expecting a lot worse considering the things I’ve heard about this series, and Traviss’ contributions in particular, and the quality of the book left me pleasantly surprised. With the almost unanimously bad things I’ve heard about both this story arc and its follow-up, FOTJ, I’ve spent my reading constantly wary about the moment that the quality supposedly takes a swan-dive, and I still haven’t encountered it yet.
But I’m only two books in, and the next one’s by everyone’s favorite edgelord, Troy Denning, so I better not say anything two definitive. Alema Rar’s in the next book’s Dramatis Personae, so that’s encouraging at least.
