I suppose you should know this now; as well as loving the series Doctor Who, I am also a huge fan of Star Wars. I was 6 years old when the first of the movies came out in 1977 and my imagination was set on fire after meeting all those rich characters and seeing all those new worlds. Doctor Who came along not long after that - mere weeks - and I was truly off down my own private path towards science fiction fandom. There is no way to confine a good idea to merely one medium and both series have now evolved beyond their roots, their relative universes expanded and opened up to other ideas and other voices. Doctor Who has actually beaten Star Wars on that front, conquering stage, print, comics, audio drama, webcast, big screen, animation and making a return to its orginal televised format, but Star Wars has enjoyed its own huge successes with a second trilogy of films, a massive marketing campaign that had raked in millions, and its ever growing series of novels telling the stories that take place after the movies, and in some cases, the stories that take place between.
Allegiance is set in the short term following the destruction of the Death Star in A New Hope, the series' debut episode (although actually the fourth chapter in the six films). Princess Leia Organa and the Rebel Alliance are trying to ride the momentum of their movement's victory over the Galactic Empire, dragging Jedi-to-be Luke Skywalker and the reluctant Han Solo along in the wake. Emperor Palpatine seeks to crush the Rebellion and deploys his henchman Darth Vader to do his bidding, but also present in this cast is the Emperor's other agent: a Force-trained girl named Mara Jade, who bears the title of Emperor's Hand. Thrown into this tapestry of characters are five Imperial stormtroopers who have broken ranks, sickened at a massacre they witnesses where innocent civilians are shot down in cold blood on the planet Teardrop. These threads are all wound together by author Timothy Zahn as only this man can do, bringing our regular series protagonists within meters of their future advarsaries and allies without violating any of the continuity of the movies. Emperor's Hand Mara Jade is a character he created himself for his novel trilogy Heir to the Empire, which is set in the post-Return of the Jedi era of the series; originally he showed us a Mara who was out for revenge against Luke Skywalker for the death of the Emperor, but here we see a younger woman dedicated to serve the Empire, but not an actual Sith agent. In keeping with established Star Wars lore, there are never more than two Sith Lords at the helm, but with Mara as a peripheral character with her own set of Force abilities - and in much later years she would become a full fledged member of the New Jedi Order - the way was opened for other agents of darkness to come forward in other works, most notably the chilling Assaij Ventress of the Clone Wars miniseries.
It is also important to note that Timothy Zahn was actually the first author to write a new Star Wars novel and bring the series back into its first phase of its resurgence with Heir to the Empire. His foray into this realm was officially blessed by George Lucas, who steadfastly refused to give any information away about the real backstory to the series as there were new movies coming up, but also the caution was there not to go too nuts as Lucas was not going to alter his ideas based on what other people tried to add to the mythology. Zahn only really messed up once on that occasion by playing around with the nature of the clones from the Clone Wars, by stating that they had been born out of Spaatri cloning devices when really they were created by the cloners of Kamino. Here, Zahn's disillusioned stormtroopers are not clones at all but are proper recruits from within the Empire; the clones are still very much on the go keeping the stormtrooper ranks full but they are pressed into the service of the 501st legion at the command of Darth Vader.
With the main characters we all know in play here, I almost got the feeling that they were only serving as guest stars with Mara and the deserter stormtroopers as the real characters of the story. And rightfully so; the title is, after all, Allegiance, and here we have two tests of it: the stormtroopers who leave their own ship yet still adhere to their oath to protect the Empire and its citizens, and Mara Jade's unwavering allegiance to Emperor Palpatine, even though she is nowhere near as evil as he is. It's hard to remember than in effect these are the bad guys being painted in a more sympathetic light; Mara's only real redemption comes from the fact that readers of the series know what she will become, despite the fact that she's in the service of evil at this point. With these stories to tell, and our regular protagonists unable to really be advanced - there's no way anything could really be done with Han and Leia's relationship at this point, nor with Luke's fledgeling Jedi abilities - Zahn goes ones step further to eliminate any additional narrative and never once uses the famous droid duo of R2D2 and C3P0. And they're not really missed, despite the assertation by George Lucas that the whole six movie epic is actually told through the narration of those very same characters. It's a bold step to just ditch two iconic members of the ensemble cast, but then again, if they can't actually contribute anything to the story, then why clutter the frame with them?
So I liked it. I've not actually read a Star Wars novel since around 1999, when the sudden frenzy of media attention towards the next - and chonologically first - movie, The Phantom Menace, made the world just a bit too crowded with the hype (even though I still bought all the toys and went to see the movies repeatedly). But last week at World's Biggest Bookstore I decided to take the plunge and go back to this special universe with this novel - and I got the hardcover edition because those always look so much better on the shelf, even if they do cost over $30. There's more of them out there - years' worth, really - and with Doctor Who about to take a bit of a break after the 2008 series (you can read about that in my other blog) why not play some catch up with old familiar friends? And hey, they're not even on Facebook.
That is all.
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