Thursday, May 15, 2008

Non-Oprah Book Club: Splinter of the Mind's Eye



OK, this book isn't anyone's idea of high literature, but it was one of my favorites growing up. Truth be told, I haven't read it since probably junior high, and my tastes have matured since then (maybe) so re-reading it today would most likely prove it to be disappointing.

Star Wars was the center of my childhood. My grandparents took me to the first movie in 1977 when I was almost four years old - it's the first movie I remember seeing in the theater; I had just about every toy Kenner produced; I've seen each of the original three movies at least 200 times each... and my childhood pretty much died when The Phantom Menace was released. But since the Star Wars universe was a major part of my life when I was a kid, I grabbed hold of anything related to the movies, included Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster.

The book is a sequel of sorts to the first Star Wars movie (god help me, I will never ever be so moronic as to refer to the first movie as A New Hope). And if you read it (or find a used copy of it somewhere and read it now) you realized that it was conceived and written before Empire and Jedi were even considered. Or, if it wasn't, then George Lucas has some major problems. You see, the creepiest thing about the book is the sexual tension between Luke and Leia. Yeah, that's right - and Lucas has said that he's always had the whole story mapped out, including the whole brother and sister thing. So, if they had done it, their kids would have the power of the Force and an extra chromosome. When you think about it, that would be pretty cool - a powerful Jedi with retard strength. But then again, you'd have this touched child running around Hoth doing face plants in the snow and screaming, "Ice Cream! Ice Cream!" Or walking around the sand dunes of Tatooine telling everyone, "I went poo poo like a kitty."

Anyway, I really liked the book when I was a kid, so I thought I'd mention it here.

6 comments:

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

Imagine getting them to repair all those units on the south ridge by mid-day with only a couple of pudding cups as payment.

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

That was a terrible fucking thing to say. I ought to be ashamed of myself.

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

pyI actually have fond memories of that book. It came out when I was 11 or 12, and I bought it off a spinner of paperbacks at the grocery store. I recently read somewhere that Foster also ghost-wrote the novelization of STAR WARS.

I hate the prequels and the "special edition" versions too. Tonia bought me the DVDs that have the original theatrical versions of STAR WARS and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. I try to pretend that RETURN OF THE JEDI doesn't exist in any form.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Thanks. Steve. You're a mensch. Patti

Randy Johnson said...

I have to agree With PSB. The last good Star Wars film was The Empire Strikes Back. I read Splinter Of The Mind's Eye when it first came out. I never bought Lucas' claim that the whole thing was laid out from the beginning.

pattinase (abbott) said...

You've been tagged for a meme. Sorry. See http://pattinase@blogspot.com/