Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster

[ancient]

With the news of STXI getting novelized by Alan Dean Foster, I am reminded of this old Star Wars novel he wrote, which I have a copy of. I'm not a big EU fan, but I do have this book and the novelization of the OT.

The version I have is from Del Rey books, copyright 1978. Now, this book is really fuckin odd, and I'm not just talking about the story. The really weird thing about this book is...drum roll...

The words "STAR WARS" do not appear anywhere on the cover. Or the back cover. What kind of freaky tie-in logic is that? As a matter of fact, the Star Wars logo doesn't appear anywhere in the entire book. The words "Star Wars" only appear once - on the copyright notice. Can someone explain this to me?

There is a notice on the front saying how it's based on characters created by GL. The front cover doesn't even feature any obvious SW imagry. Ok, Darth Vader is on it, but he's fairly indistinct and standing in shadow. There are two other people on the cover, who I think are supposed to be Luke and Leia, but their backs are turned toward us and they both have mullet hair and the same clothes so I can't really tell which is which. Ok, one of them looks slightly blonde, so that must be Luke, even though it's the darker haired one who is reaching for the lightsaber on the ground...

Splinter of the Mind's Eye. It's a Star Wars novel...that hopes you won't notice it's a Star Wars novel.

 

[OmahaStar]

Egads, I remember that book. I read it when I was in elementary school, and it was so bad, even then, I've never been able to read a Star Wars book since. Excuse me while I go vomit at the thought of that book still being in print.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I had it. I had the hardcover

I might have tossed it last spring during my move. who knows?

 

[Trippy]

I have a copy knocking around here somewhere...I remember liking it though! (hey, I was 10/11 when it was published!)

 

[Klaus]

I should have it in the collection somewhere... the only thing I remember was the idea of dialing the lightsaber beam down to a pencil-thickness to cut a lock, which I thought was a cool idea. Honestly can't recall another thing about it lol.

 

[Rabittooth]

I read this back in the day. I think there may be a little inadvertent incestuous behavior in there between the twins.


-Rabittooth

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'm pretty sure I have this book. Never read it, though (I think I planned to read it at some point, though).

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I remember that Leia actually has a saber fight with Vader!!! Of course she doesn't win, and actually she gets wounded pretty badly, but, shockingly,. she doesn't lose any of her limbs

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

This could have been the second film, if the first hadn't cleaned up at the box office.

 

[ancient]

I had it. I had the hardcover

I might have tossed it last spring during my move. who knows?

That's the cover I was talking about. Except mine is a lot darker. I don't know if that's because of age, or if you changed the contrast but on my book Luke & Leia are almost entirely black with most of the details obsured or harder to see.

Oh yeah, and the title is white, not red. And there's a black bar behind the white text on top.

If you haven't read it, I don't recall much so I could be mistaken, but I think only Luke, Vader, Leia, and the droids are in this book. No Han or anyone else. And it all takes place in a jungle, there's little in the way of space travel involved.

 

[ArgentomaximusI]

Apparentally "Splinter" based on ideas by Lucas for a low-budget SW sequel had SW not been sucessful.


"Splinter" was adapted into a comic series in the 90s by Dark Horse, which ahd some decent art. Story still stunk though.

Alan Dean Foster late wrote the prequel novel Approaching Storm, which told the not-so-thriling tale of the "Border dispute on Ansion" mentioned by Mace in the film.

Overall, Alan Dean Foster might be a good SF writer but he's not so great at writing Star Wars (Except for his novelization of ANH).

 

[Alpha_Geek]

I rather liked the idea of a Yuzzem(sp?) swinging a droid around by the leg to bash Imperials with. IIRC, the droid and the troopers were coming apart at about the same rate.

AG

 

[Gojirob]

The proto-novel is always a bit off from where the series will go. In ST, TOS's first post-TMP novel was almost softcore in places, TNG's still was using an unused plot device concerning Riker not wanting Data around, and I think Voy's had somehow bypassed even the early-on Maquis tensions and gone right to S3, in terms of how everyone got on.

My take is, between counting money, drinking in praise and writing notes for TESB, Lucas heard someone say something about a novel, went 'Oh Yeah. Cool' and thought nothing of it. Then, after the Holiday Special went bad, he started taking a look at all this ancillary stuff. An early SW Marvel book told a Kenobi story that had him completely on his own, no master, no padawan, or padawan's padawan. It could have happened, yet I remember not seeing any more like it that I can recall.

 

[Basill]

An early SW Marvel book told a Kenobi story that had him completely on his own, no master, no padawan, or padawan's padawan. It could have happened, yet I remember not seeing any more like it that I can recall.

Oh, I think I had that one. (might still have it) It has the Millennium Falcon coming out of a scuffle with Tie Fighters, and then Leia telling a story about Obi-Wan around or before the Clone Wars.

The art was very stylized, and I can remember not caring for it as a kid, though I tend to appreciate stuff like that more now.

 

[Stevil2001]

The words "STAR WARS" do not appear anywhere on the cover. Or the back cover. What kind of freaky tie-in logic is that? As a matter of fact, the Star Wars logo doesn't appear anywhere in the entire book. The words "Star Wars" only appear once - on the copyright notice. Can someone explain this to me?

Well, in 1978 there wasn't a series called "Star Wars", was there? Star Wars was one specific movie. This was a sequel to it. The series identification seems to be the "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker", which was also the subtitle of the novelization of the first movie.

 

[Christopher]

Steve said just what I was going to say. At the time, there was no franchise named Star Wars, just a single film. Lucas hadn't yet settled on the "Episode" subtitle scheme (the "Episode IV: A New Hope" subtitle wasn't added until its re-release a few years later). For all anyone knew at the time, if there were a film sequel, it might have had a different name altogether.

Besides, the approach of putting the franchise logo on the covers of tie-in novels hadn't really happened yet. Star Trek novels didn't begin putting the ST logo on the cover until late 1987. Prior to that, the books would just say "The (adjective) New STAR TREK Novel" or words to that effect in smaller print somewhere on the cover. The goal was probably to make them look more like original SF novels and thus give them more of an air of legitimacy.

The front cover doesn't even feature any obvious SW imagry. Ok, Darth Vader is on it, but he's fairly indistinct and standing in shadow.

Vader's mask seems quite distinct to me, and the female character clearly has Leia's trademark hair buns. Both of those were probably at least as iconic and recognizable to late-'70s audiences as the name Star Wars itself.

An early SW Marvel book told a Kenobi story that had him completely on his own, no master, no padawan, or padawan's padawan. It could have happened, yet I remember not seeing any more like it that I can recall.

The term "padawan" wasn't invented until The Phantom Menace. All Marvel had to go on at the time was that Obi-Wan Kenobi had been a general in something called the Clone Wars; anything beyond that hadn't yet been defined by Lucas and wouldn't be for a couple of decades.

 

[ancient]

Steve said just what I was going to say. At the time, there was no franchise named Star Wars, just a single film. Lucas hadn't yet settled on the "Episode" subtitle scheme (the "Episode IV: A New Hope" subtitle wasn't added until its re-release a few years later). For all anyone knew at the time, if there were a film sequel, it might have had a different name altogether.

Besides, the approach of putting the franchise logo on the covers of tie-in novels hadn't really happened yet. Star Trek novels didn't begin putting the ST logo on the cover until late 1987. Prior to that, the books would just say "The (adjective) New STAR TREK Novel" or words to that effect in smaller print somewhere on the cover. The goal was probably to make them look more like original SF novels and thus give them more of an air of legitimacy.

My old Bantam Trek books still have Star Trek on the cover though. It just seems that it should've said "Based on Star Wars" it just seems strange by today's standard. I see some versions on Amazon that must be newer editions where they wrapped the logo around the title.

The front cover doesn't even feature any obvious SW imagry. Ok, Darth Vader is on it, but he's fairly indistinct and standing in shadow.

Vader's mask seems quite distinct to me, and the female character clearly has Leia's trademark hair buns. Both of those were probably at least as iconic and recognizable to late-'70s audiences as the name Star Wars itself.

As I said, the version I have is quite dark. Vader just looks like a hooded person with a cape standing in shadow. You have to look closely to see the outline of his helmet's face.

In my version, I couldn't even tell that Luke is supposed to be trapped under that rock, it's all in shadow, so it just looks like he's kneeling and fell backwards. Leia's buns (hehe) do not stick out noticeably in the darker version. So actually the brighter contrast is cool to see.

 

[ancient]

My cover looks more like this:


Except with the white title and black on top, like I said.

This must be pretty early in Alan's career, there is a list of his other work on the inside of the book, Star Trek Log 1-10, and ten other books.

 

[Lt. Trull]

I had it. I had the hardcover

I might have tossed it last spring during my move. who knows?

OMG... I remember that book too... I to believe that is the last star wars book too of thousands of science fiction / fantasy I've read since then....

 

[I am not Spock]

Yes, I remember this book.

I think, as some others have said, Lucas hadn't decided on the 'Star Wars: Episode...' system yet. It's kind of like the Bond franchise in that James Bond's adventures never include his name in the title.

I wish he had done that, actually. The series would have been known collectively as 'The Adventures Of Luke Skywalker'. Although that doesn't quite roll off the tongue like Star Wars does.

Indiana Jones would have suited this system though.

The films would have been called, simply:

Raiders of The Lost Ark
The Temple Of Doom
The Last Crusade
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

None of this 'Indiana Jones and the...' malarkey, thanks!