Welcome to Top Shelf, a new recurring series I plan on running alongside Star Wars and Genre and my non-series pieces. The goal of Top Shelf is to curate the best of the Expanded Universe, the must-reads of the franchise.
New readers often approach the EU from the perspective of, “What are the main stories I have to read?” Given the way the EU builds upon itself in one ongoing story, it’s understandable to view things with an eye to the foundations on which the stories are built, the key points of the storyline. New-reader recommendations are often geared to the same purpose. I want instead to create a list of recommendations based on quality, answering the question, “What are the best stories?” This is a list that can appeal to new readers and EU veterans alike, as established readers may find that they’ve missed something that is “unimportant” but excellent. For those who know the stories already, Top Shelf can serve as an EU Hall of Fame recognizing favorites.
I want to start with the six-issue 2001 comic miniseries Jedi vs. Sith. Jedi vs. Sith is the story of the end of the New Sith Wars a thousand years before the films, in which the Sith were thought vanquished, but Darth Bane survived to refound the Sith in adherence to the Rule of Two. This is an “important” story, though somewhat obscure, but the galactic impact of the events isn’t what makes the story. Author Darko Macan, among the best writers to work in Star Wars comics, focuses on the experience of three children drafted into the war by the Jedi. Through their various journeys, Macan addresses what it means to be a Jedi, how one can fall to the dark side, and the cost of war.
Lord Farfalla and Lord Hoth argue
The child protagonists don’t mean that the story is childish; rather, it is deeply adult, depicting the most horrifying turn to the dark side in the entire EU. It also dares to examine Jedi ideals. After a thousand years of unrelenting war against the Sith, the Order is in a perilous state, mired in a dark age as Jedi who have known only war succumb to weariness and disillusion. These Jedi are heroes, but exhausted by battle, disappointed that heroism isn’t a storybook affair, and flawed. Their leaders, Lord Hoth and Lord Farfalla, clash over philosophy. These Jedi are deeply human. As they continue to fight the Sith despite it all, we understand that true heroism is all the greater under such harsh conditions, carried out by fallible people.
This challenge to idealism resonates in the storylines of the children. One is angry, one idealistic, one naive. One, after much hardship, comes to understand the heroism of these grubby, worn-down Jedi. Two are infuriated by the shabby reality. Two join the Sith. One rejects both groups. One suffers heartbreak and loss. These children, initiated into the adult world of compromise, flaws, and complexity, bring that process of maturation into the open for the reader and call into question our relationship with heroic stories while ultimately affirming their values.
This Bane is scary
Meanwhile, the Sith are presented with the same eye toward philosophical complexity. These Sith, heavily rewritten by Darth Bane: Path of Destruction into a more generic and boring form, are here vibrant and interesting. Darth Bane is presented as a grizzled veteran, returning from a betrayal by his fellow Sith to find them led by the madman Kaan. As Bane struggles to find a way past the Sith pattern of backstabbing, attempting to unite ambitious and short-sighted squabblers against their Jedi enemy, he realizes the value of the Rule of Two: Sith competition harnessed by a structure that restrains and channels strife toward the betterment of the Sith Order. This Bane is imposing and terrifying, a religious zealot who believes in the power of the undiluted dark side and seeks to find a way toward Sith cooperation in its service. In the end, he takes an apprentice — from among the children. The moment is chilling, heartbreaking, and perfectly captured.
The art of Ramón Bachs has come in for some criticism due to some of the fanciful designs associated with the foppish Farfalla, but in truth it is also an important component of the story. Bachs’s designs convey the grit of the war-torn period without becoming grim or dreary; the art is stylized and pops with energy. Bachs also hits just the right note of medieval-inspired looks for the militarized Jedi Knights entrenched in a historical, semi-feudal dark age. He makes the period distinct and historical-feeling without going overboard.
Jedi vs. Sith is a thoughtful, mature comic with something to say about the nature of heroism and intelligent, unique portrayals of the Jedi and Sith. Its storytelling is masterful and gripping. The end result is a beautiful, haunting instance of real literature under the Star Wars brand, one of the best stories in the EU and one that definitely deserves its place here. If you haven’t read it, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Space explorers from The Essential Atlas — who just so happen to be real life’s greatest Star Wars space explorers, Jason Fry and Daniel Wallace
Exploration stories are a staple subgenre of pulp adventure. These are tales centered on heroes who venture to strange, usually untamed lands and their encounters with nature and other peoples. The genre is characterized by the use of unknown or ancient civilizations and man-against-nature themes that lead to frequent use of natural threats like avalanches, quicksand, floods, sandstorms, and dangerous wildlife. Some stories, like H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain novels, feature intrepid explorers who make careers of penetrating the wild unknown. Others, like Robinson Crusoe, star ordinary individuals thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Some are active stories of expeditions for exploratory or scientific purposes (Journey to the Center of the Earth), sometimes emphasizing the discovery of lost civilizations (The Lost World), the exploration of ruins (At the Mountains of Madness), and/or treasure-hunting (The Mummy). Some follow the Robinson Crusoe pattern — the Robinsonade subgenre — of emphasizing the struggle for survival in and mastery of wild nature. The uniting element is the protagonist (or in the case of ensemble-focused stories like The Swiss Family Robinson or The Mysterious Island, protagonists) discovering something or encountering the unknown in a foreign environment.
Don’t judge a book by its cover — unless it has a rampaging elephant on it, in which case, pick that shit up. You just got promised ADVENTURE.
The genre became most prominent in the Victorian era, when Europeans were spreading across the globe, discovering new (to them) civilizations, ruins, lands, and species. This colonial past has sparked some criticism of exploration stories as racist. They have tended to focus on white heroes expanding colonial influence, and both due to the racial attitudes of the time and the pulp imperatives toward action, often portrayed natives unflatteringly as dangerous savages whom the white hero must subdue or naive primitives whom the white man must lead and civilize. Even a modern exploration story that avoids the colonial narrative, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, comes in for accusations of racism due to its use of a native cult as antagonists. Many modern takes on the exploration genre continue to be produced, however, and are particularly prominent in video games, with top titles like Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and BioShock fitting into the genre.
Science fiction settings, however, have been able to provide a somewhat safer venue to use the exciting action tropes of the genre with less real-world baggage. Space adventures to uncharted planets are common to pulp science fiction, and Star Trek is practically built on the exploration story. It is less known due to the relative obscurity of the material, but exploration stories are well-represented within the Star Wars Expanded Universe, too.
Early EU featured a lot of crashes on untamed worlds. This sort of thing was the result.
The first EU novel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, featured Luke and Leia crashing on a swamp world with a single colonial mining outpost. Stranded, they journeyed across and even underneath its surface, facing Imperial authorities, deadly terrain, spectacular wildlife, and tribal natives in a quest for a gem hidden in an ancient temple. Setpieces featured a giant mud-burrowing worm attack, a journey across an underground lake, and a cave-dwelling civilization of aliens — it was pure exploration pulp. Other early EU was replete with similar stories. Our heroes frequently crash-landed on strange worlds throughout the various seventies and eighties comics, or found themselves exploring remote planets in search of new bases or allies. They found a supercomputer protecting the ruins of a lost civilization, a smuggler hideout, a magical siren, and a monster guarding an ancient city. Han Solo and the Lost Legacy featured Han and Chewie’s quest for the lost treasure of Xim the Despot on a backwater world that featured water monster fights, a lost cult, and ancient vaults. The Lando Calrissian Adventures, oddly so given Lando’s profile, focused on Lando as an adventurer pulled into exploration, discovering the secrets of an ancient civilization within their bizarre ruins in Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu and protecting a newly-discovered species of spacegoing manta rays from exploitation in Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka.
The RPGs have also tended to be good about including exploration elements
The concentration on exploration stories has declined since those early days, but they have not died out entirely. Lando again got an exploration plot in The Black Fleet Crisis, examining a starship that served as an artifact of an extinct species. The Hand of Thrawn Duology sent Luke and Mara into the Unknown Regions to explore Thrawn’s secret fortress, and they returned there for an expedition into the wreckage of Outbound Flight in Survivor’s Quest. Han, Leia, and a Murderer’s Row of supporting characters ventured into strange new ruins within Kessel in my favorite subplot of Fate of the Jedi: Outcast. Empire sent the Rebel heroes to wilderness planets a few times, and added the castaway clone Abel to the cast. John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith short stories and comic have fruitfully explored the concept of a castaway group mastering and exploring its new, isolated home. Lesser elements from the genre can be found in the treasure hunt for the Katana fleet, Luke and Mara’s trek across Myrkr, Han’s sojourn into Kessel’s mysterious spice mines during his imprisonment there, and the need to find and understand the ancient repulsor technology of The Corellian Trilogy, among many examples. The exploration element definitely has not disappeared from the franchise’s radar.
The mysterious planet Lehon, from Knights of the Old Republic
It could be better exploited, however. Most of the stories have had their exploration elements as one subplot of galactic-scale tales, limiting their page time and thus the ability to get into the meat of the genre. Knights of the Old Republic used a classic exploration hook, the archaeological quest, as the basis of its story framework but buried the concept under a focus on yet another galactic clash and role-playing game mechanics. It was a notionally exploratory story that wasn’t really about the exploration. The days of stories built around uncharted planets and quests for ancient treasures are mostly in the past. Yet now, they would make a better change of pace than ever.
The incredible difficulty of challenging a fully-powered Luke Skywalker has helped drive the tendency toward overpowered villains in epic galactic conflicts. Yet why not challenge Luke with something that couldn’t simply be solved with a lightsaber: a crash-landing on a remote world filled with hostile flora and fauna? Surviving in the wilderness without supplies, battling predators, rockslides, poisonous plants, sandstorms, and floods would provide a legitimate challenge that doesn’t require yet another galaxy-distorting megathreat, and would be fresh and unique to boot.
Xenoarchaeologist Corellia Antilles
That’s not the only application; there are several established facets of the universe that would readily lend themselves to exploration stories if they were only exploited. Jag Fel has an established period as a castaway that could make for a neat survival novel. The Unknown Regions and their many dangers were introduced long ago, dangling the prospect of their future exploration; that promise has yet to be directly taken up by a story built around Unknown Regions exploration. We know that trailblazing explorers were key to galactic expansion throughout the Republic’s long history, but have no real stories built around that aspect of history, other than the use of the Daragons to spark the galactic-war storyline of the Great Hyperspace War. Star Wars already has its answer to Indiana Jones, Corellia Antilles, and her archaeological expeditions could be a perfect hook for classic exploration adventures and a potential window into galactic history. The role-playing game material has made much of the existence of scouts, figures who explore the galaxy and trek across harsh terrain for all kinds of purposes, hailing from the fringe or the government. Their nomadic existence, adventuresome work, and obvious utility to storytelling would seem to make them naturals for inclusion in Star Wars stories, but we have yet to see much of them — one reason I was so disappointed to see Dathomir outback scout Dyon Stadd killed off in Fate of the Jedi rather than made a regular part of the cast.
That’s what I’m talking about
Exploration is an important part of Star Wars’ history, both in- and out-of-universe. It is not only an integral part of Star Wars’ fabric, but a fantastic element to add a change of pace to EU storytelling. In its emphasis on themes of encounter with and discovery of the unknown, it complements central Star Wars themes of encounter with the mystic, knowledge, and self-discovery. The exploration story deserves the attention and consideration of Star Wars creators.
When you get right down to it, these guys are all pretty samey, aren’t they?
In the process of writing about the supporting-character situation of the Expanded Universe, a few thoughts occurred to me about the pernicious effect of prequel-style Jedi characters — specifically, the way that Jedi-from-birth recruitment, and its corresponding tendency to identify Jedi purely as Jedi, limited opportunities to define Jedi as unique characters. Nanci’s excellent article on Tosche Station soon afterward hit that same point as part of a larger critique of the prequelization of the Jedi, so I decided I could let the topic sit briefly before I returned to it. Now, I think, is the time to revisit the topic in depth.
A diverse Jedi Order
Before the prequels established that the Jedi of their time were taken from their families in infancy and trained in seclusion from the galaxy, the Expanded Universe ran with the idea that most Jedi were trained as adults or youths. Furthermore, given Luke’s example as a farmer-turned-freedom-fighter-and-fighter-pilot, the EU did not take the calling to be a Jedi as an exclusive vocation, a full-time occupation for monks dwelling in a Temple away from society.
The result of this was an incredibly diverse Jedi Order. The first Jedi candidates were adults who had escaped identification as Force-sensitive; by necessity this meant that they had already developed identities independent of the Jedi. Corran Horn was a police detective who became a fighter pilot and married a smuggler. Kyle Katarn was a farmboy who signed up to be a stormtrooper, but defected after the Empire killed his father and became a Rebel mercenary and commando. Tionne was an avid historian and musician with an interest in the Jedi. Kam Solusar was an Imperial Dark Jedi redeemed by Luke. Kyp Durron was a child political prisoner put to work as a spice miner. Mara Jade was an Imperial spy and assassin who served the Emperor personally before becoming second-in-command of a smuggling and information-brokering cartel, then a merchant captain. Streen was a hermit who loved birds. Gantoris was a leader of his remote, hardscrabble people. Cray Mingla and Nichos Marr were accomplished scientists and engineers. Dorsk 81 worked a nine-to-five job in a cloning center. Cilghal was an ambassador. Leia was a princess and senator who became a freedom fighter and diplomat, then political leader of the galaxy while raising a family.
An ambassador, a cop, a commando, a fighter pilot, an assassin, and a hunter walk into a Jedi Academy . . .
These Jedi were a collection of people with different skill sets and life experiences. They had families, friends, and lives outside the Jedi Order. This Jedi Order of spies, commandos, scientists, fighter jocks, cops, businesswomen, diplomats, smugglers, and farmers was bursting not only with background detail, but different competencies that informed the characters’ story roles and the personalities they brought to the table. Rather than being defined by their status as Jedi, they had independent existence that ensured they were fully-formed characters.
This continued even with those generations of Jedi who trained as youths. Because they were not separated from their families before they could walk, individuals were still able to develop outside the Jedi Order and gained unique backgrounds. Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin had famous parents and a set of adventures under their belts before they were even old enough to start attending the Academy. Anakin and Jaina shared an aptitude for mechanics, while Jacen preferred animals and jokes. Jaina was a talented pilot who was friends with Zekk — an orphan scavenger who became a Jedi trainee himself. At the Academy, they met Tenel Ka Djo, an outdoorsy princess; Raynar Thul, slightly pompous heir to a merchant house; Lowbacca, Chewbacca’s nephew with his own immediate family who played into the story; Tahiri, raised by a tribe of Sand People; and Lusa, a former Imperial captive who became ensnared by an extremist group before joining the Jedi.
Furthermore, these rounded characters were not required to act identically. Full-time Jedi weren’t required; Jedi could live on their own and hold down different jobs while being Jedi, just as Luke had been a fighter pilot commanding a squadron in the Rebel military at the same time he had become a Jedi Knight. Leia was a Jedi and the president of the New Republic simultaneously. Kyle Katarn learned to be a Jedi, then returned to fighting the Empire in a commando unit. Jaina Solo joined Rogue Squadron during the Yuuzhan Vong War while still serving as Mara’s apprentice. Cilghal became a senator after graduating from the Jedi Praxeum. Keyan Farlander continued serving in the military, rising to become a general. Corran Horn kept flying with Rogue Squadron until he retired, and rejoined the military during the Yuuzhan Vong War. Kyp Durron put together an independent pirate-hunting squadron. Danni Quee continued her scientific endeavors while training with the Jedi. Some Jedi remained single, while others married and started families. Students and teachers lived at the Jedi Academy, but graduate Jedi Knights roamed the galaxy.
The influence of the prequel Jedi
These Jedi, so diverse in lifestyle, background, and characterization, stand in sharp contrast to the Jedi of the prequel model. By having its Jedi trained from birth inside a rigid Jedi Order, the prequel model eliminates so much of this potential diversity. There are no cop Jedi, no fighter jock Jedi, no scientist Jedi, no politician Jedi, no business Jedi. There are no Jedi with families. No Jedi serving in the Senate, in a fighter squadron, in the laboratory. Jedi may train in a few specialties, but this doesn’t replace the experience of being in one of those roles in a Jedi-independent context, surrounded by Forceless colleagues, defining oneself through a career. Instead, all Jedi have the same monotonous background: Jedi raised inside the Jedi Temple by other Jedi raised inside the Jedi Temple, going on Jedi missions with other Jedi who go on Jedi missions. The option for a character like Saba Sebatyne, whose upbringing within Barabel culture has left her with an incredibly distinctive and unique personality, simply isn’t there.
It is not impossible to develop individual characterization in this situation. A sharp writer like John Ostrander can do a great deal to set Jedi characters apart with strong personalities and genuinely unique story roles. But most prequel Jedi, even the better-characterized ones, are not quite as distinctive as Ostrander’s. Qui-Gon is distinct from Obi-Wan in outlook and attitude — but he is not nearly as different as he could be. Given twelve Jedi at once in the form of the Jedi Council, creators did an admirable job of trying to develop some sense of distinction in personality and specialization — but they couldn’t escape the fact that they are stuck doing variations on the same basic template. You could switch out Eeth Koth, Saesee Tiin, Kit Fisto, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Adi Gallia in most stories and not notice any difference at all. The restrictions on storytelling potential are real and significantly limiting.
One of these Jedi Councils is visually diverse. The other is diverse in character.
The prequel Jedi Council of twelve prequel Jedi — one of whom is a little more aggressive than the others, one of whom hasn’t taken an apprentice and is a great pilot, one of whom knows Chancellor Valorum, etc. — is a significant change from the Jedi Council of the New Jedi Order — a married couple consisting of a sweet-natured farmboy fighter pilot and a harsh-but-loving reformed assassin/spy/smuggler, a hard-bitten veteran commando with a history of struggling with the dark side, an intensely practical detective/Starfighter Command colonel married to a smuggler, a reformed Dark Jedi and his musician wife, a bachelor ex-slave miner who committed genocide in a vendetta over his family, a gentle healer with a political background, etc. Mike Cooper will point out that the prequel Council is much more visually diverse, but it is the New Jedi Order Council that is vastly more diverse in character.
This distinction is especially clear in the creation of brand-new Jedi protagonists. Jedi created outside the prequel context during the New Jedi Order still had distinctive characteristics. Kenth Hamner was an ex-fighter pilot and current military liaison, which informed his by-the-book, law-and-order personality and his administrative, diplomatic, and leadership expertise. Saba Sebatyne was raised in Barabel culture, giving her a distinctly alien personality and the mindset of a hunter. Wurth Skidder had no particularly unique background, but was infused with a headstrong, cocky personality and a particular agenda to take the fight to the enemy. Ganner Rhysode was an arrogant, narcissistic Jedi who saw himself as a naturally superior hero before he got his ego under control.
Ben Skywalker’s time in the Galactic Alliance Guard gave him military and police training and time with non-Force-sensitives, helping set him apart from his generic fellow Jedi in characterization and skills.
Post-NJO, when the prequelization of the Jedi took hold? Quick, tell me the difference between Valin Horn, Jysella Horn, Natua Wan, Kolir Hu’lya, Seff Hellin, Doran Tainer, and Thann Mithric? If you answered, “I don’t know,” you’re correct! All are born Jedi who have never done anything other than hang around the Temple and go on Jedi missions, which Troy Denning increasingly further genericized as purely commando strikes and StealthX fighter operations, in which all Jedi are blandly and uniformly competent.
Other prequel-influenced stories like Scourge, Fatal Alliance, Dark Times, Red Harvest, and Crosscurrent have struggled to make their Jedi protagonists stand out as characters. Their creativity seems crippled by adherence to the generic career-Jedi norm. Even the efforts to subvert that norm have been so hemmed in by uniformity as to spawn a new trope — the plucky-but-underpowered young female Jedi trainee who lacks confidence and worries about washing out. See Darsha Assant, Etain Tur-Mukan, and Scout.
In conclusion
The painful truth is that the Jedi-from-birth template, especially as exacerbated by Troy Denning’s tendency to run roughshod over any distinctions in Jedi roles in favor of making them interchangeable commando-pilots, produces cookie-cutter Jedi characters. They have the same life experiences and the same basic outlook. Their options for character definition are restricted by the removal of so many tools for diversification from the author’s toolbox, and the uniformity of the pattern discourages further innovation in all but the most creative authors. The unchecked spread of the Jedi-from-birth prequel model across the timeline and into authors’ heads must stop. It’s time for authors to return to diversity in background and role for Jedi characters. Their characters and stories will be so much richer when they do.
When I say “spy,” you think of this guy. Well, one of these guys. Or maybe all of these guys. But you think about them.
“Spy fiction” may conjure images of the Cold War, but the genre was already well-established beforehand and has remained incredibly popular long after the collapse of the Soviet Union, permeating film, literature, and television. It’s true that spy fiction blossomed as espionage took center stage in the Cold War, but it was born decades earlier in the balance-of-power struggles of the European great powers, matured in the World Wars, and continues in prominence with the centrality of the intelligence community to the War on Terror. Stories of spies, assassins, saboteurs, analysts, and secret agents have played an important role in our entertainment for a long time, and it is worth considering how they could apply to Star Wars.
From the globetrotting adventure of the James Bond films to the brooding gravity of John le Carré’s novels, spy fiction comes in many forms. The wildly different tones of such major spy TV series of the last decade as Alias, 24, and The Americans attest to the diversity of stories in the genre. Protagonists can be super-competent killers like Jason Bourne or mild-mannered bureaucrats like George Smiley. What unites the stories is their focus on the complex and dangerous world of espionage and its many storytelling opportunities.
The Star Wars films have taken advantage of some of those opportunities and contained some espionage elements. A New Hope‘s plot was driven by a set of stolen blueprints to an enemy weapon system. In Return of the Jedi, spies discovered the existence of the second Death Star, only for that information to be revealed as the result of a wartime intelligence effort by the Empire designed to bait the Rebellion into a trap. Attack of the Clones featured political assassination attempts which led Obi-Wan to investigate their source, discover a secret clone army, and learn the war plans of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
Many Bothans died to bring you this storyline
The films did not make espionage a significant theme, however; the real intelligence efforts in the original trilogy happened almost entirely offscreen. There were no spy or secret agent characters. Consequently, spy stories have not gotten a great deal of attention in the Expanded Universe. Main characters occasionally go on secret missions or must unmask a spy, but these are usually cast as general adventures.
Espionage is most often one element of a larger story. Timothy Zahn’s novels, with their focus on the importance of information, did more to incorporate espionage elements than most others. Thrawn’s Delta Source and the New Republic’s consequent counterintelligence effort; Thrawn’s black ops against Leia, Ackbar, and Mara Jade; the missions to obtain information about Thrawn and the Katana fleet; Wedge, Corran, and Moranda Savich’s counterintelligence operation on Bothawui; and the various efforts to obtain the Caamas Document all reflected spy fiction elements.
The most prominent intelligence-oriented stories for a long time were those of the Wraith Squadron novels, but they mixed intelligence work with battlefield action sequences, resulting in more of a genre hybrid. The recent X-wing: Mercy Kill moved the Wraiths more fully in the direction of intelligence operations, but most straight spy stories have been of lesser prominence. A pair of short stories Aaron Allston wrote for Insider featured Old Republic intelligence officer Joram Kithe during the Clone Wars, but the tales are not well-known. More famous during the Clone Wars is the storyline of Quinlan Vos, a Jedi working undercover as a mole inside Dooku’s circle of Dark Jedi.
Agent of the Empire: James Bond meets Star Wars
It took approximately thirty-five years for the arrival of the first prominent story marketing itself specifically as Star Wars spy fiction: the Agent of the Empire comic series, starring James Bond pastiche Jahan Cross. The comic only made it through two arcs before it was canceled, but the adventures of its secret agent protagonist perfectly captured the Bond spirit.
I believe that there is room for a great deal more spy fiction within the Expanded Universe, however. Espionage scenarios are well-suited to adding variety to wartime stories. Rather than yet another story where Luke, Han, and Leia battle the Empire, stories in which they work to convince an Imperial to defect or turn double agent, work with a local cell of Rebels to identify a mole, or engage in an elaborate scheme to feed the Empire false intelligence could provide strong hooks for fresh stories. Likewise, there have been more than enough stories of Obi-Wan and Anakin chopping up battle droids and dueling Ventress; I would like to see a few more in which they go undercover or focus on intelligence-gathering or sabotage behind enemy lines rather than attacking.
Spy fiction also presents an excellent mode for stories outside the galactic war context. Intelligence operations are well suited to providing tension and action in a smaller-scale peacetime context. When big battles are not available, infiltration, covert operations, and counterintelligence give the heroes avenues for action and offer Jedi unique challenges they cannot overcome via brute-force application of the Force. Ferreting out Sith operatives from the Lost Tribe could provide Jaina and Ben something to do without another galactic crisis, while prequel-era stories might call upon Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to infiltrate a gang of smugglers or terrorists and gather information on their operations.
There is also the potential of adding spies as characters. Luke, Han, Leia, Obi-Wan, Jaina, and the other main protagonists cannot function purely as spies, though they can sometimes play a spy role. Characters who function purely within the intelligence community, however, can bring greater presence of spy elements into the Expanded Universe. Whether it be as supporting characters — an intelligence service chief who provides the heroes with information, Wraiths or other agents who work alongside the heroes on missions or hold down spy plotlines within mainline books and comics — or as main characters in their own side stories, intelligence personnel and others in spy roles could provide storytelling diversity to the universe.
Mara Jade, the most famous secret agent in Star Wars
I am especially intrigued by the possibilities of spies as leading characters. Jahan Cross’s adventures were incredibly fun and fresh, marrying diplomatic intrigue with assassination, undercover work, and pulpy action setpieces. More of that sort of secret agent storytelling would be refreshing; with luck, Mercy Kill will spawn more Wraith novels. A member of the Bothan Spynet could provide limitless opportunities for spy storytelling as a lead character. A taut tale of a Rebel cell operating in secret, trying to avoid the Empire’s counterintelligence agents, would be a change of pace. The ambiguity of the Clone Wars, in which a Republic sliding from decadence to tyranny battled an outwardly idealistic but secretly corrupt Separatist movement, could be perfectly captured by a novel or three about disillusioned, morally compromised spies. The post-New Jedi Order period, desperately in need of non-Jedi supporting characters, could catapult the Zel twins into greater prominence by giving them a spy novel — something Blood Oath may have done if it hadn’t been canceled. Mara Jade could be well served by a book or comic series set during her time as the Emperor’s Hand that isn’t weighted down by additional leads, and her name recognition would give such an effort a better chance of success.
In a franchise that could always use more variety in stories and protagonists, spy fiction offers an easy avenue to expand options with a genre the public loves. Tales of assassination, sabotage, informants, secrets, and double agents are a longstanding element of our entertainment and mesh perfectly with the adventurous, action-packed universe of Star Wars. I am tremendously disappointed by the premature end of Agent of the Empire, but I hope to see more spy stories from the Expanded Universe in the future.
This Valentine’s Day special is about as blatantly romantic as Star Wars gets
To bring up romance as a genre may summon visions of trite romantic comedies and Harlequin novels with names like The Italian Billionaire’s Pregnant Bride and Reluctant Mistress, Blackmailed Wife. Yet romance has a long and distinguished history. Whether it be the chivalric romances of medieval bards, the theatrical comedies of Shakespeare, the novels of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, or classic film romances like Casablanca, stories focusing on romantic relationships have been central to literature and drama throughout time.
Love is a powerful emotion, fundamental to the human experience, and it is no surprise that so many writers have tapped its potency to enrich their stories. Romance as an element stretches well beyond genre walls, and has its presence in nearly every story. Therefore, for this Star Wars and Genre entry, both romance as a genre — stories that focus closely on one or more romantic relationships — and as an element added to other stories will be an important part of the analysis.
In an action-adventure franchise, it is true that room for pure romances realistically would be limited. A distinctively genre novel focused purely on romance, in the manner that Death Troopers and Red Harvest were distinctively “Star Wars does horror” novels, would be possible but would be unlikely to become a model for frequent storytelling. Valentine’s Day tie-ins like the one-shot comic A Valentine Story and the honeymoon short stories Judge’s Call and Corphelion Interlude demonstrate that publishers are willing to put out explicitly romantic material when there is little commercial risk, but publishers tend not to see the market for pure romance stories and space adventures overlapping. This perception is probably not accurate, as the proliferation of romantic fan fiction suggests that the market is real but thoroughly underserved by official outlets, but it seems unlikely that publishers would seek to go “pure romance” as more than an occasional stunt when it is easier, and friendlier to the franchise’s overall image, to integrate romance into traditional adventure tales.
Soontir and Syal Fel’s honeymoon
Publishers are not wholly resistant to romance, however. Important and marketable central-character marriages spawned Union and The Courtship of Princess Leia, and an outcry for more focus on main-character relationships generated the dual Han-and-Leia and Luke-and-Mara novels Tatooine Ghost and Survivor’s Quest, respectively. Combined with the recent trend toward genre experimentation, there may well be a “Star Wars does romance” novel in the future. I have always thought that the relationship of Soontir Fel and Syal Antilles would make an ideal romance story: young runaway becomes one of the galaxy’s biggest movie stars, finds a handsome country boy from home in the middle of the Imperial court (who just happens to be an ace fighter pilot and, later, a baron), falls in love, overcomes her angst over her secret identity as the sister of his outlaw fighter-pilot rival to marry him, and lives happily ever after. There is rich emotional material there to explore in Syal’s feelings, and a satisfying arc to their story. It is easy to see how a novel could tap into that and be both compelling romance and identifiably Star Wars story. An attempt at a romance novel might shoot for more recognizable characters — Han and Leia or Luke and Mara would be the most likely targets, followed by Anakin and Padmé — or seek to tap into an “event” in the manner of Union, such as Jaina and Jag’s recent marriage or setting Ben up with his future wife, but the potential for that kind of relationship-centric novel is there.
Indy and Marion: Just part of the story
More likely, however, is material that does not focus on a relationship in such depth, but incorporates romance into an adventure story. This is the most common way we see romance in entertainment — whether it be Bogart and Bacall’s characters coming together in the middle of The Big Sleep‘s noir mystery,the love triangle in The Departed, or Indiana Jones flirting with Marion Ravenwood, romance is often a component of a larger story. Both trilogies had their own romance component, and many stories since have incorporated both the romances seen in the films and new relationships between original characters.
These romances are easy to stage; traditionally, two characters meet during the course of whatever action is occurring and fall in love. Wartime compatriots, Jedi on a mission or in training together, a smuggler rescuing a princess or picking up a passenger — the variations are endless, but the setup simple. Writers may want to look into methods of variation in romantic stories — imagine a story in the vein of a medieval romantic epic, about a Jedi Knight whose boyfriend is captured by pirates whom she must chase across the galaxy. Her thoughts about him could drive flashbacks to the earlier days of their relationship, while her commitment to him might be tested by the stress of her quest or a handsome warship captain aiding her search.
“So you’re the main character, right? Do me!”
The greatest challenge facing Star Wars romances, though, is not lack of variety in format; it is shallowness. Too many stories treat romance superficially rather than placing it as an integral component of the story and digging into it. Too often, the common convention of the lead character’s romantic interest is treated so routinely as to be almost perfunctory. Call it Bond romance — as seen in so many Bond movies, it’s taken as sufficient to justify a romance that the male lead be handsome, the female lead be beautiful, and they be in the same story. Little thought is given to making the relationship itself compelling, realistic, or genuinely romantic in the sense that it would evoke romantic feelings in the audience. Luke, for example, had a long string of brief romances due to the women who kept falling for him, but most of them were not particularly well-developed relationships. No one is going to remember the depth of his feelings for Tanith Shire, and Protagonist A finding Pretty Lady B attractive won’t keep genuine romance alive in the Expanded Universe.
It is the deep, strongly developed, lasting romances that readers remember and that genuinely add to the story, transcending the trope of the love interest or damsel in distress. It is these sorts of relationships that writers and editors should be looking to focus on more.
Wedge and Iella
The X-wing series offers a solid model for romantic subplotting. The series created multiple relationships of different natures, treated female characters as important and fully developed them rather than pigeonholing them as love interests, used the relationships to raise issues relevant to the narrative, explored the emotions and attitudes of the characters, and delved into the functioning of the relationships rather than treating them superficially. The relationships were treated as an important part of the whole. Corran’s love for Mirax was part of who he was, and he devoted considerable thought and self-reflection to it. Gavin and Asyr’s interspecies relationship reflected the difficulties of bridging differences within a couple, inspired resistance from Borsk Fey’lya, and affected the decisions they made about their lives. Tyria Sarkin and Kell Tainer’s love exposed the shallowness of so many fictional romances when Tyria rejected Kell’s initial superficial infatuation and waited for his feelings to blossom into a genuine and intimate person-to-person connection. Wedge and Iella’s long flirtation was often interrupted by life events, culminating in an extremely cathartic scene in which they finally spoke openly about their feelings and the hurt they had caused each other before Wedge worked up the courage to reject excuses and overcome that pain. The result of this serious and thorough treatment of romance and emotional depth was a slate of strong romances that moved readers to invest in them and remained an important part of the Expanded Universe.
Many stories end with the blossoming of a romance, but in an ongoing franchise like Star Wars, romance cannot simply end at the altar. Keeping the romantic element alive beyond the courtship can be a challenge, but the Expanded Universe should make an effort to continue the romances of its main couples. Relationship storylines can get at emotions and romantic feelings even after the first blush. The New Jedi Order did a reasonable job of keeping romance alive in its main couples by giving each of its married couples relationship storylines. Luke and Mara came together to battle Mara’s illness, helping put their marriage front and center, then conceived, bore, and began raising a son, moving their marriage into a new phase. Han and Leia’s relationship was strained by Han’s grief over Chewbacca’s death, allowing for exploration of difficulty in a relationship and for their reconciliation and bonding, especially as they then shared the burden of their son’s untimely death and came out with their marriage stronger than ever. The couples got plotlines that emphasized them as couples and brought their feelings for each other to the fore.
From Han and Leia, through Anakin and Tahiri, down to Revan and Bastila, romance has been an important component of Star Wars stories. It deserves fair, full, and thoughtful treatment as a major element of the universe, and creators looking to expand the boundaries of Star Wars’ “genre” offerings could do much worse than attempting a Star Wars romance novel. They might be surprised at how many fans would respond.
