★★★ (of 5)

• Full Title: Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye
• Author: Alan Dean Foster
• Year: 1978 (mine was 2015 paperback)
• Pages: 297
• Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy
• Publisher: Del Rey
• ISBN 978-0-345-32023-0 (mass market paperback)
• Wikipedia page
• Author’s Wikipedia page

 

Summary

This novel is the original sequel to the original Star Wars story (now known as Episode IV: A New Hope), written by the same author who ghostwrote the novelization of the first Star Wars movie. Foster was reportedly given considerable leeway to develop the story — with the caveats that it should function as a low-budget sequel should A New Hope flounder at the box office. So there’s only one planet (misty jungle), few creatures (mostly humanoid), no Han Solo (Harrison Ford hadn’t yet signed a sequel contract), only one scene of space travel, and almost all the props could be re-used from the first film.

The story: Luke and Leia, along with the two most famous droids, head to Circarpous IV to meet with an underground rebel faction in hopes to enlarging the Rebel Alliance, but instead crash land on the swampy planet Mimban in the same star system. There, they are startled to find a secret Imperial base but also a strange old woman who tells them of the Kaiburr crystal — which can supposedly focus the powers of the Force. They’re sidetracked by imprisonment in an Imperial jail, but break out with the help of two Yuzzem, start searching for the crystal, get attacked by a giant worm, travel underground for many days, help a newly-discovered sentient species battle stormtroopers, and then fight with Darth Vader upon discovering the crystal.

 

Commentary

The book was fun to read, and incredibly quick. In a very rare feat for me, I finished it in less than a day. The action scenes were easy to follow, the dialog mostly realistic.

Despite a few complaints and distractions (listed below), the book had its good moments. Late in the game, when Luke expresses dismay that some of the indigenous folk are killing wounded stormtroopers, Leia responds: “Yes, it’s almost human.” When Luke sharply retorts, she gently points out to him: “There’s very little in this universe that rises above the mean and petty. Maybe the stars themselves.”

 

Canonical Considerations (INCLUDING SPOILERS)

In distant hindsight, it’s merely amusing that this was under serious consideration as a sequel to A New Hope. So much of what we later learned about the universe and backstory is missing here, or contradicted. On the other hand, much of it tracks with the adventure films of the time and I assume it could have made a decent box office showing had it been made instead of Empire Strikes Back.

For one thing, Luke is able to hold his own against Darth Vader in a light saber battle, without the months of training he later received from Yoda. In fact, just before that, Leia battles Vader with a light saber and doesn’t do too poorly. Vader manages to survive, but is missing an arm and trapped down a nearly-bottomless pit in an old ruin.

Additionally, since no one yet knew Leia was supposed to be Luke’s sister, there is considerable romantic tension between the two of them here. It also seems no one told Foster that Vader was supposed to be their father — because that climactic light saber battle would have been a good time for him to mention it. And the stormtroopers (which we now know were all programmed clones) are presented as normal people with differing personalities.

 

Points Off For...

I won’t take off any points for the canonical problems; none of that was on Foster’s radar. But the writing is slipshod at times. Just one example: Halla (the old woman) says at one point, while struggling with a big rover’s controls, that she’s only good at smaller craft. Later, she easily operates an even larger troop carrier and claims she can drive any vehicle on the planet.

While Luke and Leia’s personalities and speech remain relatively consistent — both within this book and compared to the previous one — other characters do not. Halla, for example, sometimes is written as uneducated, simple, and possibly unhinged, but at other times is written as knowledgeable and wise — depending on the current needs of the plot. R2-D2 and C3PO also have their personalities shift, both from the original movie and within this book. (And, unlike in the movies, they aren’t part of the plot here; they’re only along for the ride, for unexplained reasons.)

It is also never explained how Mimban was never explored by humans (other than the secret Imperial base), though other planets in the same system host thriving human civilizations with regular cargo and passenger traffic. I think even an untrained, not very bright galactic explorer, upon first mapping this system thousands of years ago, would have thought to check out this one other planet — which clearly has atmosphere and a climate suitable for human life. It was too much suspension of disbelief for me to think the multiple sentient species on the planet were never discovered before now.

 

Conclusion

I’m glad I finally read this, a book that’s been hidden in plain sight for the past 40 years of Star Wars fandom. I was too young to read it when it first came out, and subsequent films made it irrelevant by the time I would have been interested. It’s an interesting and early hiccup in the powerhouse saga, and a quirky look into what might have been.

 

 

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