Books

I finished Force Unleashed and since I had already played the Wii version of the game all the way through, I thought the novel was somewhat superfluous. I mean, it did a better job with character motivations, interior monologue and whatnot, but the action sequences were kind of weak, and the plot was the same. Eh. Nice cover art, but it's the same as the game. Maybe I can pick up the RPG supplement?

I also finished James Silke's Prisoner of the Horned Helmet. It's fairly turgid. Which is why it took so long for me to get through it, of course. Silke is a huge fan of over-the-top metaphor. Except sometimes you can't tell when it's metaphor and when it's real. I was really surprised when the flaming eyes of Gath of Baal actually managed to catch someone on fire. Oh, you mean that was literal? Weird. I kinda wish I hadn't also picked up the next two in the series at the used bookstore when I got that one, because now I'm going to feel obligated to read them eventually, and this book didn't do much for me. The characters were kinda weak, the plot was predictable and cliched, the descriptions and action set-pieces were bleagh, and all in all the book was mediocre in just about every way.

Now that it's done, I picked up Splinter of the Mind's Eye which I've had for years but never read for some reason. This was an Alan Dean Foster book that was published in 1978, and the plot was worked out between Foster and George Lucas as a potential low-budget sequel to Star Wars. Foster actually wrote the novelization of the film, too, for that matter, which was published before the film's release. It's interesting to see which ways the story could have gone. Clearly Vader is not yet Luke's father, nor the Emperor's main man here (he's referred to as a "henchman" of Tarkin) and the relationship between Luke and Leia wasn't even a glimmer in anyone's eye (the romantic tension just in the first chapter is pretty palpable.) Of course, I've mentioned more than once that the idea that Lucas had all the details of his story mapped out this early is patently ridiculous, but this is pretty blatant evidence to that effect right here.