[bksvol-discuss] Star Wars books
- From: "Tracy Carcione" <carcione@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 13:15:00 -0500 (EST)
At the end of the Star Wars book I just validated is a list of other Star
Wars books. I thought I'd post the list, and what I see, at a quick
glance, that Bookshare already has. If some Star Wars fan sees one they
fancy that we don't have, maybe someone will be moved to scan it.
Offhand, I notice we have book 3 of the Corellian series, but not 1 or 2.
Ignore the page numbers that are still in the list.
Bookshare has:
New Rebellion
Rogue Squadron #1
The Approaching Storm
Showdown at Centerpoint (book 3 in Corellian series)
The Truce at Bakura
Heir to the Empire
Dark Force Rising
The Last Command
THE TRUCE AT BAKURA by Kathy Tyers
Setting: Immediately after Return of the Jedi
The day after his climactic battle with Emperor Palpatine and the
sacrifice of his father, Darth Vader, who died saving his life, Luke
Skywalker helps recover an Imperial drone ship bearing a startling message
intended for the Emperor. It is a distress signal from the far-off
Imperial outpost of Bakura, which is under attack by an alien invasion
force, the Ssi-ruuk. Leia sees a rescue mission as an opportunity to
achieve a diplomatic victory for the Rebel Alliance, even if it means
fighting alongside former Imperials. But Luke receives a vision from
Obi-Wan Kenohi revealing that the stakes are even higher: the invasion at
Bakura threatens everything the Rebels have won at such great cost.
STAR WARS: X-WING
by Michael A. Stackpole
ROGUE SQUADRON
WEDGE'S GAMBLE
THE KRYTOS TRAP
THE BACTA WAR
Setting: Three years after Return of the Jedi
Inspired by X-wing, the bestselling computer game from LucasArts
Entertainment Co., this exciting series chronicles the further adventures
of the most feared and fearless fighting force in the galaxy. A new
generation of X-wing pilots, led by Commander Wedge Antilles, is combating
the remnants of the Empire still left after the events of the STAR WARS
movies. Here are novels full of explosive space action, nonstop adventure,
and the special brand of wonder known as STAR WARS.
In this very early scene, young Corellian pilot Corran Horn faces a tough
challenge fast enough to get his heart pounding- and this is
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only a simulation! [P.S.: "Whistler" is Corran's R2 axtnimech droid]:
The Corellian brought his proton torpedo targeting program up and locked
on to the TIE. It tried (o break (he lock, but turbolasur fire from the
Komlev boxed it in. Corran's heads-up display went red and he triggered
the torpedo. "Scratch one eyeball."
The missile shot straight in at the fighter, but the pilot broke hard to
port and away, causing the missile to overshoot the target. Nice flying!
Corran brought his X-wing over and started down to loop in behind the TIE,
but as he did so. the TIE vanished from his forward screen and reappeared
in his aft are. Yanking the stick hard to the right and pulling it back,
Corran wrestled the X-wing up and to starboard, then inverted and rolled
out to the left.
A laser shot jolted a tremor through the simulator's couch. Lucky thing I
had all shields aft! Corran reinforced them with energy from his lasers,
then evened them out fore and aft. Jinking the fighter right and left, he
avoided laser shots coming in from behind, but they all came in far closer
than he liked.
He knew Jacc had been in the bomber, and Jacc was the only pilot in the
unit who could have stayed with him. Except for our leader. Corran smiled
broadly. Coming to see how good I really am. Commander Antilles? Let me
give you a clinic. "Make sure you're in there solid, Whistler, because
we're going for a little ride."
Corran refused to let the R2's moan slow him down. A snap-roll brought the
X-wing up on its port wing. Pulling back on the stick yanked the fighter's
nose up away from the original line of flight. The TIE stayed with him,
then tightened up on the arc to close distance. Corran then rolled another
ninety degrees and continued the turn into a dive. Throttling back, Corran
hung in the dive for three seconds, then hauled back hard on the stick and
cruised up into the TIE fighter's aft.
The X-wing's laser fire missed wide to the right as the TIE cut to the
left. Corran kicked his speed up to full and broke with the TIE. He let
the X-wing rise above the plane of the break, then put the fighter through
a twisting roll that ate up enough time to bring him again into the TIE's
rear. The TIE snapped to the right and Corran looped out left.
He watched the tracking display as the distance between them grew to be a
kilometer and a half, then slowed, fine, you want to go nose to nose? I
've got shields and you don't. If Commander Antilles wanted to commit
virtual suicide, Corran was happy to oblige him. He tugged
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the stick back to his sternum and rolled out in an inversion loop. Coming
at you!
The two starfighters closed swiftly. Corran centered his foe in the
crosshairs and waited for a dead shot. Without shields the TIE fighter
would die with one burst, and Corran wanted the kill to be clean. His HUD
flicked green as the TIE juked in and out of the center, then locked green
as they closed.
The TIE started firing at maximum range and scored hits. At that distance
the lasers did no real damage against the shields, prompting Corran to
wonder why Wedge was wasting the energy. Then, as the HUD's green color
started to flicker, realization dawned. The bright bursts on the shields
are a distraction to my targeting! I better kill him now!
Corran tightened down on the trigger button, sending red laser needles
stabbing out at the closing TIE fighter. He couldn't tell if he had hit
anything. Lights flashed in the cockpit and Whistler started screeching
furiously. Corran's main monitor went black, his shields were down, and
his weapons controls were dead.
The pilot looked left and right. "Where is he, Whistler?"
The monitor in front of him flickered to life and a diagnostic report
began to scroll by. Bloodred bordered the damage reports. "Scanners, out;
lasers, out; shields, out; engine, out! I'm a wallowing Hutt just hanging
here in space."
THE COURTSHIP OF PRINCESS LEIA
by Dave Wolverton Setting: Four years after Return of the Jedi
One of the most interesting developments in Bantam's Star Wars novels is
that in their storyline. Han Solo and Princess Leia start a family. This
tale reveals how the couple originally got together. Wishing to strengthen
the fledgling New Republic by bringing in powerful allies, Leia opens
talks with the Hopes consortium of more than sixty worlds. But the
consortium is ruled by the Queen Mother, who, to Han's dismay, wants Leia
to marry her son. Prince holder. Before this action-packed story is over,
Luke will join forces with holder against a group of Force-trained
"witches" and face a deadly foe.
393
HEIR TO THE EMPIRE DARK FORCE RISING THE LAST COMMAND
by Timothy Zahn
Setting: Five years after Return of the Jedi
This bestselling trilogy introduces two legendary forces of evil into the
Star Wars literary pantheon. Grand Admiral Thrawn has taken control of the
Imperial fleet in the years since the destruction of the Death Star, and
the mysterious Joruus C'baoth is a fearsome Jedi Master who has been
seduced by the dark side. Han and Leia have now been married for about a
year, and as the story begins, she is pregnant with twins. Thrawn's plan
is to crush the Rebellion and resurrect the Empire's New Order with
C?baoth's help--and in return, the Dark Master will get Han and Leia 's
Jedi children to mold as he wishes. For as readers of this magnificent
trilogy will see, Luke Skywalker is not the last of the old Jedi. He is
the first of the new.
The Jedi Academy Trilogy:
JEDISEARCH
DARK APPRENTICE
CHAMPIONS OF THE FORCE
by Kevin J. Anderson Setting: Seven years after Return of the Jedi
In order to assure the continuation of the Jedi Knights, Luke Skywalker
has decided to start a training facility: a Jedi Academy. He will gather
force-sensitive students who show potential as prospective Jedi and serve
as their mentor, as Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenohi and Yoda did for him. Han
and Leia's twins are now toddlers, and there is a third Jedi child: the
infant Anakin, named after Luke and Leia's father. In this trilogy, we
discover the existence of a powerful imperial doomsday weapon, the
horrifying Sun Crusher--which will soon become the centerpiece of a
titanic struggle between Luke Skywalker and his most brilliant Jedi
Academy student, who is delving dangerously into the dark side.
394
CHILDREN OF THE JEDI by Barbara Hambly
Setting: Eight years after Return of the Jedi
The Star Wars characters face a menace from the glory days of the Empire
when a thirty-year-old automated Imperial Dreadnought comes to life and
begins its grim mission: to gather forces and annihilate a long-forgotten
stronghold of Jedi children. When Luke is whisked onboard, he begins to
communicate with the brave Jedi Knight who paralyzed the ship decades ago,
and gave her life in the process. Now she is part of the vessel, existing
in its artificial intelligence core, and guiding Luke through one of the
most unusual adventures he has ever had.
In this scene, Luke discovers that an evil presence is gathering, one that
will force him to join the battle:
Like See-Threepio, Nichos Marr sat in the outer room of the suite to which
Cray had been assigned, in the power-down mode that was the droid
equivalent of rest. Like Threepio, at the sound of Luke's almost noiseless
tread he turned his head, aware of his presence.
"Luke?" Cray had equipped him with the most sensitive vocal modulators,
and the word was calibrated to a whisper no louder than the rustle of the
blueleaves massed outside the windows. He rose, and crossed to where Luke
stood, the dull silver of his arms and shoulders a phantom gleam in the
stray flickers of light. "What is it?"
"I don't know." They retreated to the small dining area where Luke had
earlier probed his mind, and Luke stretched up to pin back a corner of the
lamp-sheath, letting a slim triangle of butter-colored light fall on the
purple of the vulwood tabletop. "A dream. A premonition, maybe." It was on
his lips to ask, Do you dream? but he remembered the ghastly, imageless
darkness in Nichos's mind, and didn't. He wasn't sure if his pupil was
aware of the difference from his human perception and knowledge, aware of
just exactly what he'd lost when his consciousness, his self, had been
transferred.
In the morning Luke excused himself from the expedition Tomla El had
organized with Nichos and Cray to the Falls of Dessiar, one of the places
on Ithor most renowned for its beauty and peace. When they left he sought
out Umwaw Moolis, and the tall herd leader listened gravely to his less
than logical request and promised to put matters in train to fulfill it.
Then Luke descended to the House of the Healers, where Drub McKumb lay,
sedated far beyond pain but with all the perceptions of agony and
nightmare still howling in his mind.
395
"Kill you!" He heaved himself at the restraints, blue eyes glaring
furiously as he groped and scrabbled at Luke with his clawed hands. "It's
all poison! I see you! I see the dark light all around you! You're him!
You're him!" His back bent like a bow; the sound of his shrieking was like
something being ground out of him by an infernal mangle.
Luke had been through the darkest places of the universe and of his own
mind, had done and experienced greater evil than perhaps any man had known
on the road the Force had dragged him . . . Still, it was hard not to turn
away.
"We even tried yarrock on him last night," explained the Healer in charge,
a slightly built Ithoriiin beautifully tabby-striped green and yellow
under her simple tabard of purple linen. "But apparently the earlier doses
that brought him enough lucidity to reach here from his point of origin
oversensitized his system. We'll try again in four or five days."
Luke gazed down into the contorted, grimacing face.
"As you can see," the Healer said, "the internal perception of pain and
fear is slowly lessening. It's down to ninety-three percent of what it was
when he was first brought in. Not much, I know, but something."
"Him! Him! HIM!" Foam spattered the old man's stained gray beard.
Who?
"I wouldn't advise attempting any kind of mindlink until it's at least
down to fifty percent. Master Skywalker."
"No," said Luke softly.
Kill you all. And, They are gathering . . .
"Do you have recordings of everything he's said?"
"Oh, yes." The big coppery eyes blinked assent. "The transcript is
available through the monitor cubicle down the hall. We could make nothing
of them. Perhaps they will mean something to you."
They didn't. Luke listened to them all, the incoherent groans and screams,
the chewed fragments of words that could be only guessed at, and now and
again the clear disjointed cries: "Solo! Solo! Can you hear me? Children .
. . Evil . . . Gathering here . . . Kill you all!"
396
DARKSABER by Kevin J. Anderson Setting: Immediately thereafter
Not long after Children of the Jedi, Luke and Han learn that evil Hutts
are building a reconstruction of the original Death Star--and that the
Empire is still alive, in the form ofDaala, who has joined forces with
Pellaeon, former second in command to the feared Grand Admiral Thrawn. In
this early scene, Luke has returned to the home of Obi-Wan Kenobi on
Tatooine to try and consult a long-gone mentor:
He stood anxious and alone, feeling like a prodigal son outside the
ramshackle, collapsed hut that had once been the home of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Luke swallowed and stepped forward, his footsteps crunching in the
silence. He had not been here in many years. The door had fallen off its
hinges; part of the clay front wall had fallen in. Boulders and crumbled
adobe jammed the entrance. A pair of small, screeching desert rodents
snapped at him and fled for cover; Luke ignored them.
Gingerly, he ducked low and stepped into the home of his first mentor.
Luke stood in the middle of the room breathing deeply, turning around,
trying to sense the presence he desperately needed to see. This was the
place where Obi-Wan Kenobi had told Luke of the Force. Here, the old man
had first given Luke his lightsaber and hinted at the truth about his
father, "from a certain point of view," dispelling the diversionary story
that Uncle Owen had told, at the same time planting seeds of his own
deceptions.
"Ben," he said and closed his eyes, calling out with his mind as well as
his voice. He tried to penetrate the invisible walls of the Force and
reach to the luminous being of Obi-Wan Kenobi who had visited him numerous
times, before saying he could never speak with Luke again.
"Ben, I need you," Luke said. Circumstances had changed. He could think of
no other way past the obstacles he faced. Obi-Wan had to answer. It
wouldn't take long, but it could give him the key he needed with all his
heart.
Luke paused and listened and sensed- -
But felt nothing. If he could not summon Obi-Wan's spirit here in the
empty dwelling where the old man had lived in exile for so many years,
Luke didn't believe he could find his former teacher ever again.
He echoed the words Leia had used more than a decade earlier,
397
beseeching him, "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi," Luke whispered, "you're my only
hope."
THE CRYSTAL STAR
by Vonda N. Mcintyre
Setting: Ten years after Return of the Jedi
Leia 's three children have been kidnapped. That horrible fact is made
worse by Leia's realization that she can no longer sense her children
through the Force! While she, Artoo-Detoo, and Chewbacca trail the
kidnappers, Luke and Han discover a planet that is suffering strange
quantum effects from a nearby star. Slowly freezing into a perfect crystal
and disrupting the Force, the star is blunting Luke's power and crippling
the Millennium Falcon. These strands converge in an apocalyptic threat not
only to the fate of the New Republic, but to the universe itself.
The Black Fleet Crisis
BEFORE THE STORM
SHIELD OF LIES
TYRANT'S TEST
by Michael P. Kube-McDowell
Setting: Twelve years after Return of the Jedi
Long after setting up the hard-won New Republic, yesterday's Rebels have
become today's administrators and diplomats. But the peace is not to last
for long. A restless Luke must journey to his mother's homeworld in a
desperate quest to find her people; Lando seizes a mysterious spacecraft
with unimaginable weapons of destruction; and waiting in the wings is an
horrific battle fleet under the control of a ruthless leader bent on a
genocidal war.
Here is an opening scene from Before the Storm:
In the pristine silence of space, the Fifth Battle Group of the New
Republic Defense Fleet blossomed over the planet Bessimir like a
beautiful, deadly flower.
The formation of capital ships sprang into view with startling suddenness,
trailing fire-white wakes of twisted space and bristling with weapons.
Angular Star Destroyers guarded fat-hulled fleet carriers, while the
assault cruisers, their mirror finishes gleaming, took the point.
398
A halo of smaller ships appeared at the same time. The fighters among them
quickly deployed in a spherical defensive screen. As the Star Destroyers
firmed up their formation, their flight decks quickly spawned scores of
additional fighters.
At the same time, the carriers and cruisers began to disgorge the bombers,
transports, and gunboats they had ferried to the battle. There was no
reason to risk the loss of one fully loaded--a lesson the Republic had
learned in pain. At Orinda, the commander of the fleet carrier Endurance
had kept his pilots waiting in the launch bays, to protect the smaller
craft from Imperial fire as long as possible. They were still there when
Endurance took the brunt of a Super Star Destroyer attack and vanished in
a ball of metal fire.
Before long more than two hundred warships, large and small, were bearing
down on Bessimir and its twin moons. But the terrible, restless power of
the armada could be heard and felt only by the ships' crews. The silence
of the approach was broken only on the fleet comm channels, which had
crackled to life in the first moments with encoded bursts of noise and
cryptic ship-to-ship chatter.
At the center of the formation of great vessels was the flagship of the
Fifth Battle Group, the fleet carrier Intrepid, She was so new from the
yards at Hakassi that her corridors still recked of scaling compound and
cleaning solvent. Her huge realspace thruster engines still sang with the
high-pitched squeal that the engine crews called "the baby's cry."
It would take more than a year for the mingled scents of the crew to
displace the chemical smells from the first impressions of visitors. But
after a hundred more hours under way, her engines' vibrations would drop
two octaves, to the reassuring thrum of a seasoned thruster bank.
On Intrepid'* bridge, a tall Dornean in general's uniform paced along an
arc of command stations equipped with large monitors. His eye-folds were
swollen and fanned by an unconscious Dornean defensive reflex, and his
leathery face was flushed purple by concern. Before the deployment was
even a minute old, Etahn A'baht's first command had been bloodied.
The fleet tender Afiazi had overshot its jump, coming out of hyperspace
too close to Bessimir and too late for its crew to recover from the error.
Etahn A'baht watched the bright flare of light in the upper atmosphere
from Intrepid^s forward viewstation, knowing that it meant six young men
were dead.
399
THE NEW REBELLION by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Setting: Thirteen years after Return of the Jedi
Victorious though the New Republic may be. there is still no end to the
threats to its continuing existence- this novel explores the price of
keeping the peace. First, somewhere in the galaxy, millions suddenly
perish in a blinding instant of pain. Then, as Leia prepares to address
the Senate on Coruscant, a horrifying event changes the governmental
equation in a flash.
Here is that latter calamity, in an early scene from The New Rebellion:
An explosion rocked the Chamber, flinging Leia into the air. She flew
backward and slammed onto a desk, her entire body shuddering with the
power of her hit. Blood and shrapnel rained around her. Smoke and dust
rose, filling the room with a grainy darkness. She could hear nothing.
With a shaking hand, she touched the side of her face. Warmth stained her
cheeks and her earlobes. The ringing would start soon. The explosion was
loud enough to affect her eardrums.
Emergency glow panels seared the gloom. She could feel rather than hear
pieces of the crystal ceiling fall to the ground. A guard had landed
beside her, his head tilted at an unnatural angle. She grabbed his
blaster. She had to get out. She wasn't certain if the attack had come
from within or from without. Wherever it had come from, she had to make
certain no other bombs would go off.
The force of the explosion had affected her balance. She crawled over
bodies, some still moving, as she made her way to the stairs. The
slightest movement made her dizzy and nauseous, but she ignored the
feelings. She had to.
A face loomed before hers. Streaked with dirt and blood, helmet askew, she
recognized him as one of the guards who had been with her since Alderaan.
Your Highness, he mouthed, and she couldn't read the rest. She shook her
head at him, gasping at the increased dizziness, and kept going.
Finally she reached the stairs. She used the remains of a desk to get to
her feet. Her gown was soaked in blood, sticky, and clinging to her legs.
She held the blaster in front of her, wishing that she could hear. If she
could hear, she could defend herself.
A hand reached out of the rubble beside her. She whirled, faced it,
watched as Meido pulled himself out. His slender features were covered
with dirt, but he appeared unharmed. He saw her blaster and
400
cringed. She nodded once to acknowledge him, and kept moving. The guard
was flanking her.
More rubble dropped from the ceiling. She crouched, hands over her head to
protect herself. Small pebbles pelted her, and the floor shivered as large
chunks of tile fell. Dust rose, choking her. She coughed, feeling it, but
not able to hear it. Within an instant, the Hall had gone from a place of
ceremonial comfort to a place of death.
The image of the death's-head mask rose in front of her again, this time
from memory. She had known this was going to happen. Somewhere, from some
part of her Force-sensitive brain, she had seen this. Luke said that Jedi
were sometimes able to see the future. But she had never completed her
training. She wasn't a Jcdi.
But she was close enough.
The Corellian Trilogy:
AMBUSH AT CORELLIA
ASSAULT AT SELONIA
SHOWDOWN AT CENTERPOINT
by Roger MacBride Alien
Setting: Fourteen years after Return of the Jedi
This trilogy takes us to Corellia, Him Solo s homcworld. which Han has not
visited in quite some time. A trade summit brings Han, Leia, and the
children- -now developing their own clear personalities and instinctively
learning more about their innate skills in the Force--into the middle of a
situation that most closely resembles a burning jime. The Corellian system
is on the brink of civil war, there are New Republic intelligence agents
on a mysterious mission which even Han does not understand, and worst of
all, a fanatical rebel leader has his hands on a superweapon of
unimaginable power- -and just wait until you find out who that leader is!
Here is an early scene from Ambush that gives you a wonderful look at the
growing Solo children (the twins are Jacen and Jaina, and their little
brother is Anakin):
Anakin plugged the board into the innards of the droid and pressed a
button. The droid's black, boxy body shuddered awake, it drew in its
wheels to stand up a bit taller, its status lights lit, and it made a sort
of triple beep. "That's good," he said, and pushed the button again. The
droid's status lights went out, and its body slumped down again. Anakin
picked up the next piece, a motivation actuator. He frowned at
401
it as he turned it over in his hands. He shook his head. "That's not
good," he announced.
"What's not good?" Jaina asked.
"This thing," Anakin said, handing her the actuator. "Can't you telfi The
insides part is all melty."
Jaina and Jacen exchanged a look. "The outside looks okay," Jaina said,
giving the part to her brother. "How can he tell what the inside of it
looks like? It's sealed shut when they make it."
Anakin, still sitting on the floor, took the device from his brother and
frowned at it again. He turned it over and over in his hands, and then
held it over his head and looked at it as if he were holding it up to the
light. "There," he said, pointing a chubby finger at one point on the
unmarked surface. "In there is the bad part." He rearranged himself to sit
cross-legged, put the actuator in his lap, and put his right index finger
over the "bad" part. "Fix," he said. "Fix." The dark brown outer case of
the actuator seemed to glow for a second with an odd blue-red light, but
then the glow sputtered out and Anakin pulled his finger away quickly and
stuck it in his mouth, as if he had burned it on something.
"Better now?" Jaina asked.
"Some better," Anakin said, pulling his finger out of his mouth. "Not all
better." He took the actuator in his hand and stood up. He opened the
access panel on the broken droid and plugged in the actuator. He closed
the door and looked expectantly at his older brother and sister.
"Done?" Jaina asked.
"Done," Anakin agreed. "But I'm not going to push the button." He backed
well away from the droid, sat down on the floor, and folded his arms.
Jacen looked at his sister.
"Not me," she said. "This was your idea."
Jacen stepped forward to the droid, reached out to push the power button
from as far away as he could, and then stepped hurriedly back.
Once again, the droid shuddered awake, rattling a bit this time as it did
so. It pulled its wheels in, lit its panel lights, and made the same
triple beep. But then its holocam eye viewlens wobbled back and forth, and
its panel lights dimmed and flared. It rolled backward just a bit, and
then recovered itself.
"Good morning, young mistress and masters," it said. "How may I surge you?"
Well, one word wrong, but so what? Jacen grinned and clapped his hands and
rubbed them together eagerly. "Good day, droid," he said. They had done
it! But what to ask for first? "First tidy up this room,"
402
he said. A simple task, and one that ought to serve as a good test of what
this droid could do.
Suddenly the droid's overhead access door blew off and there was a flash
of light from its interior. A thin plume of smoke drifted out of the
droid. Its panel lights flared again, and then the work arm sagged
downward. The droid's body, softened by heat, sagged in on itself and
drooped to the floor. The floor and walls and ceiling of the playroom were
supposed to be fireproof, but nonetheless the floor under the droid
darkened a bit, and the ceiling turned black. The ventilators kicked on
high automatically, and drew the smoke out of the room. After a moment
they shut themselves off, and the room was silent.
The three children stood, every bit as frozen to the spot as the droid
was, absolutely stunned. It was Anakin who recovered first. He walked
cautiously toward the droid and looked at it carefully, being sure not to
get too close or touch it. "Really melty now," he announced, and then
wandered off to the other side of the room to play with his blocks.
The twins looked at the droid, and then at each other.
"We're dead," Jaeen announced, surveying the wreckage.
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