Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster (Book Review)

Preface: There’s a lot of hate for Disney Star Wars online. For me, it’s not so much hate as disappointment.

I grew up with Star Wars. One of my earliest memories is watching Star Wars in an actual theater—we mostly watched new movies at the local drive-in where I grew up. Only the TIE fighter dogfights and the lightsaber remain, but, hey! I was only five or six years old. Into my teens, there remained a plethora of toys for Star Wars, but little material compared to the bookcase of Star Trek novels I encountered in my local mall Waldenbooks. I voraciously devoured Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy when it came out (not that one, this one). It kindled my enjoyment and wonder. I watched the prequels alongside many of the Millennials, sympathizing with much how they would enjoy these characters as I had with my own toys and self-made stories. The Force Awakens, while derivative, sparked insane fandom speculation even among my friends. I was interested in Rey and her origins—my favorite theory was that she was a love child of Obi-Wan and Satine Kryze. How crazy that would be as a subplot beneath The Mandalorian? But since The Last Jedi, Star Wars has been a long series of disappointments amidst a few bright sparks. After an anticipation of Ahsoka (and subsequent rewatch to understand what was so wrong—who writes a 10,000 word treatment of a different and better version of a show? Me, apparently), the flame of excitement and wonder gutters, soon to be just a wisp. I fear this deep disappointment.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
— Yoda/Lucas, Star Wars The Phantom Menace

Instead of anger, I feel disappointment, and disappointment leads to apathy. Yet I resist the apathy about a cherished treasure. I’m no longer interested in recent Lucasfilm streaming content, but what to do? In resisting this apathy, I’ve stumbled across the Expanded Universe (re-titled Legends to remove their canonical placement post-acquisition), which exploded after Zahn’s work. I’ve read some of Legends in the past, but I a recent read of Dark Horse’s Star Wars: Dark Empire by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy fanned the flames enough for me to realize that there’s a lot more out there than just lackluster streaming product. Strap in, because we’re going back to the beginning and reading all the Star Wars novels (except novelizations—I find them lackluster) in publication order. First drop out of hyperspace: Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye.

Cover by Ralph McQuarrie (image courtesy of Wookiepedia)

While in the development of Star Wars, Lucas reached out to Del Rey to contract someone to turn his script into a novelization. Alan Dean Foster, a writer who had been published since 1971, already had some experience writing novelizations, including Dark Star and a series of novels based on Star Trek: The Animated Series, which became the Star Trek Logs series. From a short list of authors, Foster was chosen and met with Lucas. With little to go on but the script and production material, Foster churned out Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker in about 4-6 weeks (something that became a penchant long before the Amazon Kindle sparked the indie publishing era). Ballantine Books published it in November 1976, six months before Star Wars hit the theaters. Without the movie, the novel had little interest and faded into relative obscurity, but what Lucas also wanted from Foster was a sequel novel if the movie became a modest success. That would become Splinter of the Mind’s Eye.

Del Rey books published this novel in March 1978. I’ve read some Alan Dean Foster in the past (Icerigger being one of them, and what got him on the list from one of Star Wars’ producers). As this takes place after Star Wars (retroactively re-titled A New Hope) and before Empire Strikes Back, it was intended as a lower budget novel, reusing production units and constraining locations as much as reasonable. The cover is a beautiful piece of work by the late-great Star Wars conceptual artist, Ralph McQuarrie. He cleverly kept Luke and Leia’s face hidden, as Lucas had yet to contract their likenesses.

Splinter follows Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa post-Death Star, heading to a critical Rebel Alliance meeting on Circarpous IV with C3PO and R2D2, when Leia’s Y-Wing suffers a mechanical failure en route and must land on Circarpous V, a fog-shrouded jungle planet with terrible atmospherics. Luke follows her down in his X-Wing, and these bad atmospherics damage their instrumentation and they crash land. Per Wikipedia, there was a dogfight written in by Foster, but it was removed from the story (perhaps to rein in the sequel budget or it had already been done in ANH). Its removal makes for an abrupt introduction, as it’s hard to believe Leia would a. travel in a Y-Wing of her own accord and without an entourage and b. that it would be a defective ship.

Since Harrison Ford had not yet contracted for a sequel, Han and Chewbacca as well as the attractive tension between the three leads are missing, leaving just the tension between the moisture-farm-hick-turned-rebel-pilot Luke and the princess/former senator/rebel leader Leia. It’s a light story, without a lot of depth and Foster makes a few amplifications of Star Wars lore here. Luke is growing in Rebel deeds and Leia is growing in political power (as this story takes places before the events of ESB). As this is maybe a year or less after ANH, the torture suffered by Leia at Vader’s hands is still fresh in her mind, giving her a trauma unexplored in the films. The kyber crystals (spelled Kaiburr in the novel) are present and they either resonate or touch the Force (or the Dark Side, it’s not truly clear). These didn’t exist in Lucas’ script, but Foster needed a sort of MacGuffin that has since become an integral part of Star Wars. Luke also senses Vader’s presence (as Vader did of Obi-Wan) and is certain the once Jedi can sense and follow him, endangering Leia and their goal. Luke actually battles Vader here in an almost comical Ewok style battle, but with more blasters, and Leia faces her own trauma.

There are plenty of hints even at what would become ESB. Circarpous V is a jungle planet, full of wildlife, extreme dangers, and yet a mysterious temple that hints at deep connections to the Force. The battle between Vader and Skywalker is more mechanical here, not personal, but it exists. As I mentioned above, the Jedi sense between Luke and Vader is seen here and in Return of the Jedi, as well as the sense of mission endangerment Luke feels in that film. One interesting take that was not kept in Star Wars canon was Luke’s ability to adjust the length and width of the lightsaber blade, turning it into something of a multi-purpose tool.

Luke on Dagobah concept art by Ralph McQuarrie (image courtesy of various site sources)

The novel lacks in several areas. Foster’s visual cinematic writing style coupled with the foggy planet and dark caves feels sparse instead of expansive. While the characters of Luke and Leia are fleshed out more than the film, this is also superficial. New characters do have interesting aspects, though the character Halla was more bumbling old woman than mentor to Luke, and the Imperial Captain-Supervisor Gremmel, too, lacked any Empire menace. Darth Vader was uncharacteristically written, but one must remember that this was Vader of ANH, and not Vader of the entire Star Wars universe. Later twists were fabricated later in the movie-making process by Lucas, so it would be two years still before we would even find out that Vader and Luke were father and son. Splinter’s lukewarm plot and the absence of Solo underpin the story’s spine. Although we don’t see the three principals together until the second half of ANH, they make up the core cast for the entire franchise until their destruction in the Sequel Trilogy. After reading Splinter, I no sense sense of profoundness and nothing stuck with me after the novel (it is a pulp work, but I still mine for gems). Foster’s craft is fine—he doesn’t use much shorthand and constructs a plot that glides, but doesn’t leave an impression with the reader. As he’s written other novels that explore other aspects of the Star Wars universe, I look toward to Foster’s growth over the decades.

PostScript: While Alan Dean Foster penned several Legends novels, including the novelization of The Force Awakens, he ran into legal issues with Disney because of the non-payment of royalties. With SFWA’s legal help, this was resolved for Foster and writers previously contracted under Lucasfilm prior to Disney’s acquisition in 2014. If you’re interested in Alan Dean Foster’s work, including his original stories, you can check out his 50 year bibliography of over 100 works.

May the Force be with you.

Ken Britzreading, goodreads, book review, books, star warsComment