False Branding

It was about this time last year that I talked about Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novel, Outbound Flight. I remarked that Zahn was one of the few writers that seemed to be able to transcend the limitations of licensed fiction, a pretty good writer without even having to qualify it with a statement like "for a writer of Star Wars books." But I also noted that Outbound Flight was his weakest Star Wars novel to date.

Unfortunately, that was until now. His newest book, Allegiance, is set in between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. And the problem is, it's barely a Star Wars novel. The story is primarily concerned with a group of stormtroopers who desert from their unit after experiencing an Imperial atrocity firsthand. Along the way, they sort of bump into Luke, Han, and Leia for a few pages. Alright, so I'm exaggerating their lack of involvement in the story a bit, but their role is incredibly minimized.

As a general piece of fiction, it's not really a "bad" book, though it is a bit short and shallow. The story of the deserters' disillusionment from the military doesn't carry much emotional weight, because the characters aren't particularly fleshed out. It's like Zahn knows on some level that he really shouldn't spend much time with these strangers, since it's supposed to be a Star Wars novel, and yet the plot revolves around them so much that not fleshing them out as characters keeps you from ever really investing in the book.

So without enough focus on the principle Star Wars characters to read well as a "Star Wars book," yet also not a strong enough tale to carry a stand-alone science fiction tale, the book is just a short little distraction that doesn't amount to much. Really short, actually, when compared to Zahn's past books.

I don't mind that Timothy Zahn wants to write something different. (I've actually read some of his original work, and enjoyed it.) But he really can't do that under the "Star Wars" banner. That's not what people are paying for in that instance.

But it's still better than any of the prequel movies.