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July 1, 2008
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 Anticipation. Its the blessing and the curse of licensed fandom, responsible for some pretty spectacular highs (the Lord of the Rings films), and some equally remarkable lows (The Phantom Menace). Michael Reaves' Jedi Twilight, arriving in bookstores this week, falls somewhere in the middle: certainly a cut above the depths that Star Wars sunk to in the late 1990s, but far short of the lofty summit achieved more recently by the likes of Batman Begins and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.
On the surface, Jedi Twilight would seem to be a sure fire winner, melding a noir-drenched aesthetic with a Blade Runner-eque plot, in addition to more traditional Star Wars fare such as space ships, smugglers, and Jedi Knights. And behind the wheel, one half of the author team that gave readers the terrific Death Star novel as well as the sublimely underrated Medstar Duology.
Herein lies part of the problem, as Reaves is clearly at a loss in terms of how to write a gripping Star Wars novel without partner-in-crime Steve Perry. Stylistically, he simply tries too hard, from his overuse of cheesy hard-boiled detective genre dialogue ("...there will be killing done this night"), to needless flexing of his vocabulary muscles (even I had to stop and look up susurrus and indecorousness). It feels like he's really struggling to make it all work, and the result is a novel that takes a bit of slogging to complete. Its not all bad, as his occasional moments of brilliance include a brutal attack on Jedi Master Even Piell, and numerous kaleidoscopic descriptions of Coruscant/Imperial Center, but unfortunately those moments are few and far between.
The story itself is painfully familiar: a maverick Jedi, on the lam from Vader and his death squads, is tasked with completing the last mission of a fallen master and uncovering a paternal secret along the way. Stop me if you've heard this one before. Reaves also tosses in some familiar faces from previous novels; there's down-on-his-luck Sullustan report Dhen Dhur (criminally under-used), wise-cracking, finger laser shooting protocol droid I-5 (from Reaves' Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter as well as the Medstar series), and Kaird, a Nediji Black Sun operative with the stones to cross Prince Xizor and the simple wish to leave the thuggish circle of death for his homeworld. All of these return appearances are most welcome, but unfortunately none of them can save a mediocre plot driven by a largely clichéd leading man.
Despite the stylistic blunders, the book still had a chance to end up being a good read, but this is torpedoed by the decision to feature a Jedi protagonist. Noir works best when the hero, or anti-hero, is actually in some real danger, tangled up with a femme fatale, and probably headed for a bad ending. Jax Pavan, despite the fact that he's technically in hiding post-Order 66, still exhibits all of the god mode traits of every other Star Wars Jedi, and the story suffers from a real lack of tension because of it.
Jedi are now so commonplace throughout the canon as to have become a cliché, and a tired one. What used to be one of the great mysteries of Star Wars, and an alluring red-herring ("I was once a Jedi Knight the same as your father") has now been exposed, poked, prodded, and milked dry for every last fan credit, and its just enough already. Yes, every casual fan and their dog wants to be a Jedi, twirl a lightsaber, and spout some Zen/Buddhist nonsense, but the reality is that they're a tired plot device in desperate need of relevance (particularly in a time period where they are supposedly few in number and hiding under proverbial rocks).
From the first moment you see the blankly heroic Jax Pavan (who exhibits about as much life as that cardboard Mark Hamill stand-up in your basement), his Force powers absolutely destroy any credibility he might have had as a true noir protagonist. He faces down a pair of underworld thugs at blasterpoint and casually rips the guns from their hands, while standing twenty feet away, doing his best 'we would be honored if you would join us' impersonation. While its cool on some level, its not exactly what you want to see from a hard-boiled fugitive who is supposedly hiding from the Jedi extermination squads (yet has no qualms about pulling this trick in broad daylight, and in front of security cameras).
 Reaves goes on to invent an outcast Jedi group known for their fondness of blasters and their reluctance to use the Force at all, and, though one of them is a curvy female twi'lek, you're nonetheless left with a feeling of been there, done that, ad nauseam.
The good news in all this is that Reaves has a couple of more books to get it right, as the Coruscant Nights series is a three book affair (of which Jedi Twilight is the first part). What could be further bad news is the fact that the book has been languishing on the Lucas shelves since April of 2007 and has only now been released to the public. What this means is anyone's guess, and, though I'm sure the PR folks would spin the long wait as a result of a crowded novel release schedule, its also very possible that the delay was due to a lack of confidence in the finished product.
Whatever the reasons, Jedi Twilight is ultimately one of those books that didn't quite live up to its potential. Given that it flew relatively under the radar as far as Star Wars books go, that's not necessarily a bad thing, as the final two books can only improve, and the lack of marketing fanfare creates little expectation outside of the hardcore wishes of your humble reviewer. It says here that Reaves needs to revisit what was great about his collaborations with co-author Steve Perry, and recapture that magic for the Star Wars franchise's first foray into the world of the detective noir. A little less thesaurus and a little more differentiation between Jax Pavan and Luke Skywalker/Corran Horn/etc will go a long way.
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