Before the Storm by Michael P. Kube-McDowell (1998, Paperback)

Star Wars: Before the Storm

Before the Storm is the first book of a three book arch called the
Black Fleet Crisis. This book was released in softcover format in
April of 1996 be Bantam Spectra books. The book, and series, is
written by Michael P Kube-McDowell.

The book moves too slowly and is simply too inconsistent.

Luke Skywalker runs off to become a hermit at Darth Vader's old retreat rejecting his Academy, his family and pretty much everything else. Only a mysterious woman who is able to enter his stronghold induces Luke to leave with promises about his lost mother. The idea that Luke would abandon the academy is insane. He fought so hard
to get this established, to just drop it. Well. :P The whole idea about finding
his mother's home world was not thought out. This book was released in 1996, 3 years
before Phantom Menace. I'm sure that Lucas had already decided much of the background
story of Padme. So Lucas should not have let this storyline develop. It does not
provide any continuity for the book, and makes the series look bad.


Leia is shown much more as the Chief of State, an idea that did have merit, while Han Solo is shown more as the family man. The problem is, is that the story moves so slowly. The characterizations are weak: Princess Leia, the people's leader refuses to learn the names of her bodyguards preferring to ignore their existence. That is totally contrary to Princess Leia. However, some of the actual senatorial scenes are
interesting. Nice to see politics portrayed in this manner.

Han Solo is done all right but that is because he really has nothing to do. It also
does not help that he is captured.

The Lando adventure has possibilities but it too drops by the wayside due to just too much non-sensical writing.

As a die hard Star Wars fan I even found this book hard to read. The most interesting thing to me was the fact that the New Republic was not going to go off and fight the Empire, yet again.

2/5

Latsyrhc
Tamarack Collectibles.