Tumgik
#splinter of the mind's eye
mordicaifeed · 25 days
Text
Tumblr media
33 notes · View notes
azazel-dreams · 8 months
Text
Tumblr media
Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster
Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤
9 notes · View notes
blobracing · 3 months
Text
2) Splinter of the Mind's Eye, by Alan Dean Foster
Featuring classic scifi’s issues with women and racism, “He Would Not Fucking Say That”, and more . . . .
Splinter has lived in infamy with me for a while: I didn’t like it as a kid, when pretty much anything with the Star Wars label would get a mild thumbs-up at worst. The complaints I’ve repeated to myself from that time was that I didn’t like the prose, it felt like something was wrong with the characters, and every chapter– or scene change– would end with a trailing ellipsis. You can set your watch by it. 
I’m not sure it would be worth it to harp on things I dislike about the prose now– even those ellipses strike me as kind of charming, in that they feel left over from conventions about serialized adventures ending in cliffhangers. Like, it’s not to my taste, but who’s it hurting?
In scrolling through the first pages of Goodreads reviews to see if I could snag more succinct blurbs and pawn off some of the work, I noticed that none of the reviewers mention any of the physical violence, condescension, or sexual threats made against Leia. I don’t mean to pearl-clutch, and I’m the last person to worry about or condemn “problematic” writing, but there’s something about the more-explicit-than-casual sexism going unaddressed in a Star Wars novel that feels… weird. There’s an argument to be made that Splinter is essentially a pulpy scifi novel, that the concept of “a Star Wars novel” with all the caveats of adhering to canon (or keeping romance very courtly and mostly chaste) didn’t exist yet. Foster was set the task to write a follow-up for Star Wars following the genre conventions of the time.
Unfortunately, those conventions suck. Leia pendulums between Annoying Princess and Active Obstacle, Luke is full of derring-do, better ideas, and in the last half of the book seems to be getting paid by the word. No aliens have speaking roles, and come in three varieties of Savage– Pathetic, Useful, and Too-Primitive-To-Be-Truly-Noble. Vader is verbose (boo), briefly sexually threatening ( 👀) and ultimately a blathering fool not that far off from the throwaway Imperial commander antagonist that wastes a lot of our time earlier in the novel. 
So, let’s get into it. We’ll do the world’s fastest plot summary, get into why the characterization fails and the silliest examples of it, and maybe I’ll have finally worked this splinter out from under my skin.
Tumblr media
PLOT SPEEDRUN:
Luke and Leia are on their way to a planet to negotiate its support for the Rebel Alliance. They crashland on a nearby planet, find a secret Imperial mining colony, and are drawn into helping a Mysterious Eccentric Old Woman find a legendary Force-enhancing crystal. They’re briefly captured by the Imperials, break free with the help of two aliens, run from a giant worm and fall into an underground labyrinth of caves that ends in a long-abandoned city. Ritual fight to establish dominance over the “primitive natives,” Vader shows up, there’s a firefight, they find the temple with the crystal, Luke fights a beast, Vader shows up again, final fight, Vader gets dropped down a hole and the crystal revives Luke from death so he can heal Leia, done.  
Wookieepedia has a more in-depth summary if you’d prefer a nittier gritty.
It’s a little meandering, and has the cadence of a couple sessions of D&D where there are only two players and a DM with more setting ideas than story beats. The setting of a boggy planet full of ancient temples waiting to be explored and underground caves full of mysteries and aliens kinda fucks, and it feels like there may be some of Dagobah’s DNA in the descriptions of the swamp filled with alien birdcalls. (The Force-sensitive eccentric “oldster” [one of Al’s favorite words] Halla bears only a passing resemblance to Yoda in that Luke sort of forcibly adopts her as a mentor figure and she loves to lie.) 
OKAY COOL WHATEVER GET TO THE PART WHERE YOU TALK ABOUT LEIA:
As one of three returning “"canon”” characters and one of two main protagonists, Leia gets a lot of airtime and really doesn’t do much in the first half of the book besides scold Luke for acting sensibly but against her sensibilities, worry about the wrong things and get corrected for it, and get slapped either literally or by the narrative. It’s difficult to try and remember that at the time this was written, there wasn’t a large corpus of work that helped flesh out her character and give her agency and respect– but I don’t think that’s really an excuse. In Splinter, she’s frequently shrill and stuffy, infantilized, and in turns both naive but somehow knowing more than Luke– although his instincts usually prove to be right over her experience. 
Goodreads reviewers correctly note that the sexual tension between Luke and Leia is pushed hard and makes the reveal in Empire that they’re siblings… complicated. Luke/Leia has legs as a ship and I’m not about to deny it, but unfortunately the things that would make it interesting or compelling– the separation and then reuniting, both of them giving Han grief, the tension and intimacy granted by their potential bond through the Force– are best left in the hands of fic writers, since obviously it would never be even remotely embraced in canon. Foster’s take on Luke’s attraction to Leia is blithely and standardly horny in a boring way. After a day of trudging through the swamp and Leia harping at him, they huddle together for warmth at a campfire.
“Then he happened to glance down at his companion’s face. It was not the face of a Princess and a Senator or of a leader of the Rebel Alliance, but instead that of a chilled child. Moistly parted in sleep, her lips seemed to beckon to him. He leaned closer, seeking refuge from the damp green and brown of the swamp in that hypnotic redness.
He hesitated, pulled back. [...]
His assignment was to protect her. [...] He would do it out of respect and admiration and possibly out of the most powerful of emotions, unrequited love.
He would even defend her from himself, he determined tiredly. In five minutes he was fast asleep. . . .”
Damn, dude. The hypnotic redness? This part mostly stands out to me as being purple prose and a relic of “ohoho, this was back before we knew they were twins” writing– cherry on top being the idea of her as a “chilled child,” and the weird sort of babydoll innocent-sexy convention that we all know by now. It’s not worth excoriating Foster for this, we all know the real ways that it sucks and the tiredness of it as a fictional trope. It does tie into a lot of her (mis)characterization and irrationality in Splinter. 
Later, the two have snuck into the Imperial mining town after stealing some mining duds to blend in (which Luke steals, because Leia refuses to. Yeah, Leia ‘famously worried about personal property’ Organa.) and are getting something to eat at a tavern. Luke’s made a point to tell Leia to walk differently, to put dirt on her face, to disguise her regal bearing, but attentions from an officer make her anxious.
“They do suspect!” she whispered tightly. She started to stand. “I’ve had enough, Luke. Let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t rush off, especially if we’re being watched,” he countered. “Don’t panic, Princess.”
“I said I’m leaving, Luke.” Nervous, she started to turn and leave.
Without realizing what he was doing, he reached out, slapped her hard across the face, and as heads turned in their direction said loudly, “No favors for you until I’m finished eating!”
One hand went to her burning cheek. Wide-eyed and voiceless, the Princess slowly sat back down. Luke frantically attacked his steak as the uniformed Imperial sauntered over to them, backed by the attendant at a discreet distance.”
Luke spins them a tale of how she’s a servant he bought and is still breaking in, and they buy it and congratulate him on his taste.
“It was the first logical thing I could think of,” he insisted. “Besides, it explains you as well as anything could.” He sounded pleased. “No one will question you once the word gets around.”
Like, what happened to protecting her hypnotic redness? What makes this even more dumb and insidious bad is that occasionally, the story will cue us that Luke is being prompted by the Force to do things, even his hunches are usually correct, and none of his plans completely fail. The servant story is bought until they’re brought before the Imperial boss of the place, who proceeds to beat Leia until Luke spins him another story that’s miraculously believed. 
Beyond the shittiness of Wormie Skywalker, who has now been portrayed by doe-eyed cat-cuddler Mark Hamill, slapping Leia and then propping it up with a cover story, it’s the fact that he never faces any prompting from the narrative that this was, perhaps, shitty! 
When they’re outside, Leia kicks his shins to get back at him and he then instigates a mud-throwing fight– yeah– that evolves into wrestling in the mud– yeah, no, yeah– that gets to the point where local roughnecks show up to join in and try to get in on assaulting Leia once they see that she’s Beautiful Woman. That leads to their Imperial capture and drags the plot along by the barest of sinews. 
Blah blah, Leia is ogled and beat by the bog-standard Imperial Badguy officer, yadda yadda, thrown in a prison cell, Luke befriends the Yuzzems while Leia does nothing. Officer Badguy returns briefly to inform them that he’s called his bosses and an Imperial Governor will be by soon– which, interestingly but unsurprisingly, sends Leia into a panic attack.
“Imperial governors don’t take an interest in common thieves, Luke,” she whispered tightly. Something was clutching at her throat. “I’ll be interrogated again… like that time… that time.” She broke away, threw herself up against the back wall of the cell.
That time back on the Death Star. Small black worms crawled through her head. [...] The remorseless black machine, illegal, concocted by twisted Imperial scientists in defiance of every code, legal and moral. 
[...] Screaming, screaming, screaming never to stop she was…
Something hit her hard. She blinked, burned to see Luke looking at her, worried. She slid down to sit up against the wall.”
Nothing in the text contradicts the implication that Luke slaps her out of her panic attack. 
Later, she has some kind of screaming fit in the underground caverns and berates herself for missing a shot against Darth Vader in the middle of a fight. I could keep transcribing passages but like, I’m hoping you get the idea. 
Her one moment of sort-of triumph is when she takes up Luke’s lightsaber to duel Darth Vader– Luke has his leg trapped under a rock like on the cover and is momentarily out of commission. She surprises him at first but then spends the rest of the fight being wounded and toyed with until Luke is ready to get tagged back in. She dies? Or something maybe? And then gets healed– no scars, thank god, can you imagine if she wasn’t fuckable– wakes up, and has no speaking lines after wondering what happens to Threepio and Artoo. The old woman with a heart of gold gets cajoled into the Rebellion by Luke and everyone laughs.  
It sucks. It sucks! It’s so clearly just Default Woman Character and not informed by Carrie Fisher’s performance or anything other than the laxest tropes in adventure novel writing. And it’s not just her. This is nowhere more evident than the fact that Leia is characterized as not knowing how to swim– but Luke does.
OH SHIT, WHAT ABOUT LUKE?
Luke who? Luke Skywalker doesn’t exist here in any recognizable form. This is distilled perfectly in the last fourth of the book after he’s won his duel against a “primitive alien warrior.” Imagine this falling out of his cute little twink mouth:
“Don’t you understand?” [Leia] asked brightly. “You won. We can all go free now. That is,” she continued in a more subdued voice, staring around at the silent crowd and trying not to show any fear, “we can if these creatures have any sense of honor.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Leia,” he advised her, wiping water from his face. “Canu has judged, remember? Besides, it takes many thousands of years of advanced technological development for a society to reduce honor to an abstract moral truism devoid of real meaning.”
Tumblr media
AND… THE RACISM?
Right, whoops. Let’s see– our three kinds of indians– I mean, uh, natives– I mean, native aliens! I meant aliens. The three kinds: pathetic, useful, and too-primitive-to-be-truly-noble. 
Pathetic: Local humanoid-but-furry aliens are seen speaking in broken English and begging Imperials for liquor. See: the firewater myth and stereotype of the Drunken Indian.   
Useful: Luke and Leia meet two almost-humanoid-and-furry, ultra-strong Yuzzems, Hin and Kee, who were also imprisoned by the Imperials for accidentally signing themselves in slavery and then getting drunk and trying to wreck the mine. They don’t have any speaking lines, and are only able to communicate through Luke. They function as a kind of “shit, we need the characters to get this resources” tool and nothing is ever learned about their personal lives or personalities beyond their ability to tear Imperials limb from limb. One of them gets gonked offscreen by Vader and the other one lives long enough to die helping Luke in the final fight. No time is spent mourning them.
Too Primitive To Be Truly Noble: In the underground city, Luke and Leia meet a settlement of humanoid-but-furry aliens called the Coway, who appear to be living in the remains of a more ‘advanced’ civilization. They challenge Luke to a ritual duel to determine if he and his captured friends should be set free, which Luke wins through an instinctive use of the Force. The Coways they kill before this point aren’t mourned by their people, and for winning the fight they throw Luke and Luke’s Friends a party. The settlement is attacked soon after by Imperials, but thanks to Luke and Luke’s Friends marshalling them, they defeat the stormtroopers. After the battle is done, the Coways kill any injured Imperials, which Leia condones and Luke finds morally repugnant.
I don’t super want to quote any of the passages illustrating how the narrative feels about these characters. It shouldn’t be shocking: old scifi is frequently as racist as it is misogynist. New scifi is frequently as racist as it is misogynist. (Shoutout to Rebel Moon, woo! Time I’ll never get back!) Part of Star Wars' genetic material is that of westerns, for good and ill.
DO WE HAVE TIME FOR HORNY DARTH VADER? WOULD THAT LIGHTEN THE MOOD? :( 
“Do you remember that day back on the station,” Vader mused, with deliberate patience, “when the late Governor Tarkin and I interviewed you?” He placed a peculiar stress on the word “interviewed.”
Leia had both hands on opposite shoulders and was shivering as if from intense cold.
“Yes,” Vader observed, perverse amusement in his voice, “I can see that you do. I am truly sorry I have nothing as elaborate to treat you to at this time. However,” he added, swinging his weapon lightly, “one can do some interesting things with a saber, you know. I’ll do my best to show you all of them if you’ll cooperate by not passing out.” 
Incredible prediction of itsorlo’s steez.  
FINAL THOUGHTS
My allotted “Um, Actually” for this post is pointing out that Luka and Leia navigate an underground lake by using rods of selenite as paddles on a giant lily pad– selenite is water-soluble. 
The first use of “stang” as a curse word shows up– “What the Stang!” Probably my preferred Star Wars expletive, considering how goofy they get. 
Oh– Leia does say “Well, darn” after missing Vader with a rifle shot. 
Do I recommend it? It's an unimpressed and dispassionate no from me, bud. The things that made Foster’s work charming in the ANH novelization are fewer and farther between, and additionally now that we know who Luke and Leia are, their mischaracterization means the only thing left of interest is the worldbuilding. Even that’s shallow at best, and not remotely worth the weird racist mouthfeels and seeing Leia get shit on. There are better adventure novels, there are better scifi novels, and there are better Star Wars novels. 
NEXT TIME:
Han Solo at Star's End, by Brian Daley.
Tumblr media
3 notes · View notes
machetelanding · 2 years
Photo
Tumblr media
Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster (1978)
Cover art by Ralph McQuarrie
49 notes · View notes
Text
So I’ve been reading Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye (the first original Star Wars novel, which came out right after the original movie) and it’s been really interesting in the context of all the canon stuff that came out afterward—the mythical “Kaiburr Crystal” is clearly the precursor to the “kyber crystals” later described to power lightsabers, heavy focus on Luke’s intense crush on Leia that’s ookier with the context that they later turn out to be you know—but [SPOILERS] during the big climax Leia has a lightsaber fight with Darth Vader and I’m shaking, why didn’t we get this in the movies, we were robbed
Leia’s hands dropped to her sides. The fear did not leave her, but she forced it into the back alleys of her mind by sheer will. Running the few steps to Luke's side, she knelt and groped at his wrist. When she rose, she was holding the lightsaber carefully in one hand.
Vader looked on approvingly. "You're going to fight. Good. That will make it interesting."
She spat at the advancing giant, a pitifully feeble gesture as she brandished the lightsaber. "The Force give me leave to kill you before I die," she snarled.
An awful coughing laugh issued from behind the gargoylish breath mask. "Foolish infant. The Force is with me, not you. But," he shrugged amiably, "we will see." He assumed a position of readiness. "Come, girl-woman . . . amuse me."
Grimly determined, mouth clenched, she moved toward him. As she did so Vader abruptly let his arm fall, let the lambent beam of his saber hang limply at his side.
"Leia, don't!" Luke yelled to her. "It's a feint . . . he's daring you. Kill me, then yourself . . . it's hopeless now."
Vader looked over at Luke contemptuously, then back at the Princess. "Go on," he told her, "let him fight for you if you want. But I won't let you kill him. I've been robbed too often."
Leia appeared to hesitate, then lunged straight at Vader with the tip of the saber. Simultaneously the Dark Lord brought his own beam up in a lightning gesture to parry hers. But Leia performed a spinning, twisting arc in the air and brought her saber down in a slashing flare of blue light. Energy flashed as it contacted the Dark Lord's armored breath mask. Only superhuman reflexes enabled him to avoid the full effect of the blow.
If there was anyone in the vast chamber more surprised than Vader, it was Luke. He fought to free his trapped leg with a slight twinge of hope.
(And it goes on like this for PAGES!)
Also Vader can do this with the Force apparently
As Vader drifted slowly back to the floor he grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, made a fist, and seemed to convulse like a man retching. A ball of pure white energy the size of his fist materialized in front of Vader's hands and moved down toward the wide-eyed Luke.
Something made Luke realize he could never reach his saber before the white glove touched him. He threw up both hands and looked away. So he didn't see what happened.
His hands seemed to blur. The white glove struck them, bounced back, and contacted Vader gently as the latter touched the ground. There was a soft crack as of an explosion far in the distance. Vader was knocked head over heels and the glove vanished.
But when the white energy ball had touched Luke's hands, the power inherent in the kinetite, or restrained energy globe, had thrown him to the ground. Had he resisted it unsuccessfully it would have thrown him across the chamber and through the temple wall.
3 notes · View notes
prankprincess123 · 6 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
1K notes · View notes
gameraboy2 · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
The Splinter in the Mind's Eye, illustration by Ralph McQuarrie
1K notes · View notes
retroscifiart · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
Art by Noriyoshi Ohrai for Star Wars ‘Splinter of The Minds Eye’ novel by Alan Dean Foster (1978)
300 notes · View notes
star-wars-forever · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media
60 notes · View notes
pedroam-bang · 2 years
Photo
Tumblr media
Ralph McQuarrie’s cover art for Alan Dean Foster’s book Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye (1977)
237 notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media
62 notes · View notes
walkawaytall · 5 months
Text
In February of this year, I noticed that May the Fourth was on a Thursday, which happens to be when my Toastmasters group meets and I immediately asked the person who makes the schedule if I could lead the meeting that day. This is a summary of the presentation I gave to a group of coworkers -- 50% of whom had never seen Star Wars. Like, at all. I had much more energy during the actual presentation. But, you know, in case you've always wanted to listen to me talk about weird Star Wars stuff for seven-and-a-half minutes, here's me summarizing the presentation I gave for my friends.
6 notes · View notes
bobjackets · 11 months
Text
Tumblr media
Alan Dean Foster.
12 notes · View notes
legendscon · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media
Panel Announcement: Authors Geeking Out
Hear your favorite creators talk about all things Star Wars... except for their own contributions to the galaxy far, far away! Join us on Saturday, September 9th at the Marriott Convention Center in Burbank, CA for a discussion with Michael Kogge, Jason Fry and Abel Peña on favorite stories in the Expanded Universe.
Get your tickets now at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legends-consortium-2023-tickets-541786186067
4 notes · View notes
Text
BHOC: STAR WARS #7
BHOC: STAR WARS #7
The popularity of STAR WARS hadn’t even slightly begun to abate, and so even after the run of issues of the Marvel comic that adapted the entirety of the film over six issues had been reprinted as special 3-Bags, the program continued on beyond that, with the next STAR WARS 3-Bag containing issues #7-9. These were the first stories set in the STAR WARS universe that went beyond the events of the…
Tumblr media
View On WordPress
25 notes · View notes
arkham-prisoner · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media
Went digging through my book collection and found my Legends Reprint and my mothers original 1978 copy of Splinter of The Mind’s Eye
Love that the original isn’t listed as STAR WARS, just SOTME. Book has received a lot of love over the decades
2 notes · View notes