Customer Reviews

STAR WARS: PLANET OF TWILIGHT.

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(44)

 

 

Barbara Hambly has twice proven to be incapable of handling the reins of the Star Wars Universe. She is supposedly an accomplished science fiction. While that may be true in other stories, she lacks the understanding and ability to embrace the Star Wars novels and create compelling episodes in this ongoing series. Her first attempt was "Children of the Jedi", which was a long, ponderous, and slow book. If a novel like this is slow, it's a cardinal sin in writing. The reader gets bored and then frustrated with the book and is tempted to put it down permanently. The disappointing thing about "Children of the Jedi" was that the story, itself, had a great deal of potential and could have (should have) been a rousingly exciting novel.

"Planet of Twilight" is Ms. Hambly's second attempt at a Star Wars novel. Sadly, it fails for all the same reasons that "Children of the Jedi" did. It is long, ponderous, and slow. Her prose is so wordy that she sometimes takes up to an entire page to describe items or scenes that should only take a sentence or two to describe. An editor could have helped her dramatically here. Her 'cutesy' terminology also causes the reader to do a double- take and wonder if they read what they just read. Some examples have her referring to a coffee-like beverage as 'coffeine' and a potato-like substance as 'topatoes'. It seems to indicate a lack of true imagination and it's slightly insulting to the reader who would much rather she used the original words or develop completely different words.

"Planet of Twilight" is comparable to "Children of the Jedi" in the sense that it has an equally interesting plot that is completely muted by Hambly's writing style. In this story, there appears to be a Death Seed plague that is infecting the galaxy and causing massive loss of life. In an attempt to find out what has happened and establish diplomatic ties with the Chorios system, Princess Leia traveled to the planet of Nam Chorios, where most of the distress seems to originate. It seems the Death Seed plague is actually a species of insect-like creatures called 'drochs' that can suck the life energy out of people. Unfortunately for Leia, she gets trapped on the planet by its evil ruler, Seti Ashgad and he suspicious assistant Dzym. Because of the strong defensive system set up on the planet, she is also unable to be rescued for quite some time. Luke Skywalker, of course, tries to save his sister while also tying up the loose ends of the Calista romance.

There are moments when this story seems like it could really take off and captivate the reader. Alas, Hambly continually confounds the reader with her writing. I can only hope that Hambly does not get another chance to write Star Wars novels. People read these stories because they are looking for an escape. They want an entertaining read that flows and isn't too much of a struggle to read. This isn't a novel for a school book report. If the writer's style makes the novel too much of a chore to read, the reader is just going to put it aside and not read it anymore. That is the true mark of the failure of a Star Wars novel and it is exactly what has happened with "Planet of Twilight".

Please don't plunk down your hard earned money for this. The action sequences (when there were any) were terrible. The plot was pretty improbable, but occasionally I found the plot to be half way decent, kind of like those old B movies. The problem was that some of the characters acted inconsistently, or they failed to act in character. Leia in particular bothered me, she was incredibly indecisive. The way characters interacted was also questionable, and the dialoges were often iffy. Buy The Courtship of Princess Leia, or Heir to the Empire instead.

Planet of Twilight rounds out a loose trilogy which started with Children of the Jedi (Hambly) and Darksaber (Kevin Anderson). The connection here is that Luke fell in love with a Jedi named Callista and she has lost her powers. So, she leaves Luke to try to find someway to regain her powers so they can be together. Nice and soap opera-ish. That's the connection. In Planet of Twilight, Leia is on a secret diplomatic mission to Nan Chorios to meet with a leader of a minority faction on the planet who wishes to join the New Republic and seeks assistance. Leia receives a message to avoid the planet and to not trust the man she is meeting. Luke receives the same message, only he realizes the message is from Callista. So while Leia is doing her secret meeting thing, Luke is also going in undercover (the majority of the planet is hostile to outsiders and the New Republic) to find Callista. Meanwhile, an ancient plague is unleashed on the diplomatic fleet and Leia is kidnapped. What will happen next?

*Yawn*. Excuse me.

The problem here is that this book has no lasting implications for the greater Star Wars universe. Sure, the Death Seed Plague should be this big dangerous thing, and it is...sort of. I guess I just didn't believe the stakes. Hambly is a reasonably competent author and I had read one of her non-Star Wars books over a decade ago and enjoyed it. Star Wars can be a lot of things in that hands of different authors, all valid. One thing it should never be is boring. I understand that this is in the eye of the beholder, but this beholder was weary of the novel midway through. Han and Chewie are just running around not accomplishing anything. Leia is a captive for a while until she isn't. Luke goes sort of undercover looking for Callista until he realizes Leia is in trouble and none of it amounts to anything. All these pages spent describing stuff and I'd swear that nothing actually happens. The ending of the book with the extra "twist" comes completely out of left field and whether this is setting something up for a future volume or not, it was so random to be absurd.

So. Skip this one.

-Joe Sherry

This book is .... I am literally at a loss for words. It's long and awful.

Planet of Twilight was the creepiest books I ever read. I found myself flipping to parts with Han or Leia. I don't really know how it ends because I gave up once I read about those disgusting 'drochs'. The plot was a mess, the characters seemed to have lost their personalities (poor, poor Han!), and when Callista (who I can't stand from Children of the Jedi) showed up, I couldn't stand it anymore. I know Lucasfilm has to approve Star Wars books before they're published. All I can say is that somebody let this one slip by them.

I would like to take this opportunity to ask a favor of the more worthy Star Wars authors, like Timothy Zahn or Kevin J. Anderson. Please write a Star Wars novel and KILL CALLISTA in it!!!!! This character is completely worthless, just like the rest of Hambly's two books.

Planet of the Twilight is the third book in the so-called Callista Trilogy, and the second Star Wars book by author Barbara Hambly. It is the best of the Trilogy. Hambly's previous work Children of the Jedi was repetative, convoluted and boring. While her writing and plot still tend to be convoluted and Han Solo plays a very minor role (in the great scheme of things), Hambly brings a fresh idea to the Star Wars universe: that of an inter-galactic plague. The whole Droch/Black Seed plague idea was really inspired. In many ways this is the horror story of the Star Wars universe, very different from the previous five books which featured super-weapons like the sun-crusher, Death Star prototype, Eye of Palpatine and Darksaber. Disease is a different type of weapon and the only credible way for Chief of State Leia to be kidnapped with all her bodyguards etc around is to have them die of the plague. The story revolves around Luke and Leia with special emphasis on Leia. It was nice to see her in a credible fighting role, and to see her powers expand. Luke is still looking for Callista, but he seems to have gained back a measure of common sense and competence. Their were two other really great things in this book: 1) the relative absence of Callista, 2) the writing away of Admiral Daala. I never liked Callista, i thought she was a useless character and really had no business being in the Star Wars universe. Everything about her rubbed me the wrong way. As for Admiral Daala it was good to see the most inept Imperial commander ever be written out never to bother the reader again. She just fades away never to return (I hope). Having read pretty much every Star Wars book in existance from the X-Wing books, the 5 Zahn books, the Corellian Trilogy, the Black Fleet Trilogy, the Jedi Academy Trilogy, the Prequal era books, the New Jedi Order and pretty ,uch everything else, the Callsita Trilogy is one of the weakest written. PLanet of the Twilight is the best of that trilogy, but it is not one of the best Star Wars books. The plot ideas are interesting, but simply put, I think Hambly has a poor writing style and she simply does not write a very exceptional Star Wars tale. I do recommend PLanet of the Twilight to any Star Wars fan, but remember there are many, many better books out there.

I would rather sh-- a double-bladed lightsaber than read this book again. BH uses sorry exuses to push the Force out of her books (ex.1 <Luke: "My leg . . . oh no I can't concetrate ex. 2 <Luke: "Oh no . . . the drochs, I can't concentrate.) Anyone noticing a pattern? This is the ultimate example of wishful Star Trek thinking at its worst.

This is perhaps the worst of the Star Wars books. It does have a good plot, yet it could have been shortened significantly with less detail in unnecessary delict or insignificant parts of the story line.

Don't waste your money on this book. If Amazon.com gave reviewers the option to give zero stars, I would have taken it.

There are several things wrong with this book.

First, the characters do not read like the Star Wars characters we know and love. Luke is a whiny and immature boy looking for what he thinks is love without really knowing why. While reading a Timothy Zahn novel, one can easily hear the characters saying the words he writes in their heads because they SOUND like the characters. Barbara Hambly's writing is wildly out of character for most of the characters with MAYBE the sole exception of Leia. However, I do not buy for one second that Leia would actually accept ANYONE calling her "Her Excellency", except maybe as a mock-nickname from Han.

Second, the novel is poorly paced and difficult to read. Reading Star Wars books is not supposed to be reading Shakespeare. They are supposed to be fun and an escape into an exciting world of action and intrigue. Instead, Hambly writes more like James Joyce's stream of consciousness, where one is trying to figure out where a character IS from one paragraph to the next.

Third, there were so many names and poorly explained events that the novel was hard to follow. With the exception of Liegeus, I didn't care what happened to anyone, especially Callista. So who the heck was Seti Ashgard? What was his goal in undermining the New Republic?

This was the first novel in a long time, and certainly the first Star Wars novel ever, that I wanted to put down midway through just because it was so poorly written.