Alan Dean Foster - Splinter of the Mind's Eye Review

In 1978, when I was still a junior high student caught up in the excitement over Star Wars, my then-best friend, Raul Fonseca, came up to me with a most astonishing revelation.

It was during home room, where Mr. Coats would take attendance and make sure we had all of our books and materials ready for our classes, so this was one of the few times during the school day when we could say "Hi" and chit-chat about stuff that interested us.

Most of the time we'd talk about pretty girls in school (I was extremely girl-crazy in 1978), Saturday Night Live and how the Miami Dolphins were faring.  But because Raul had been one of the guys who had most pushed me to see Star Wars and was almost a bigger fan than I was, we also discussed that movie in depth, with most of our talks centering on whether or not there would be a Star Wars: Part II.

On this particular morning, Raul (who was confined to a wheelchair because he had muscular dystrophy) looked like the cat who had swallowed the proverbial canary.

"Alex! Guess what!"

I looked quizzically at my friend and said, brightly, "What?"

"You know how 20th Century Fox says that there's gonna be a Star Wars II sometime by 1979?  Well, I've got the novel of it!"

"You've got to be kidding me," I replied. (Note: I probably didn't say kidding, but this is a family-oriented review site so I'll pretend I said it that way.)

"No, no! I'm seriously not kidding," Raul said. "I just got the book from the Science Fiction Book Club and it's called Splinter of the Mind's Eye."

"Splinter of the Mind's Eye?" I repeated dubiously.  "That doesn't sound like a very exciting title for a movie."

"Trust me, Alex. It's called Splinter of the Mind's Eye: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker and it's written by the guy who wrote the Star Trek Logs books."

Before I could question him further, the bell rang and off we went to our classes.  And for some odd quirk of teenage mentality, or probably because I had a crush on a leggy blonde cheerleader named Kelly Moore, the subject was not touched on till the novel came out in paperback several months earlier.

Oddly enough, when I read the novel I couldn't imagine Splinter of the Mind's Eye in Star Wars cinematic terms as hard as I tried.  True, it has Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa, R2-D2, C-3PO and Darth Vader from Star Wars (it had not yet been renamed to its present Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope identity), but it didn't include Han Solo and his Wookiee sidekick Chewbacca in the cast, nor did it have exciting space battles between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire.

 Stranded on a jungle planet, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia found themselves desperately racing Imperial Stormtroopers to claim a gem that had mysterious powers over the Force.

Luke Skywalker expected trouble when he volunteered to follow Princess Leia on her mission to Circarpous to enlist their Rebel underground in the battle against the Empire. But the farm boy from Tatooine hadn't counted on an unscheduled landing in the swamplands of Mimban...hadn't counted on any of the things they would find on that strange planet.

Hidden on this planet was the Kaiburr crystal, a mysterious gem that would give the one who possessed it such powers over the Force that he would be all but invincible. In the wrong hands, the crystal could be deadly. So Luke had to find this treasure and find it fast.

Accompanied by Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio-his two faithful droids-Luke and the Princess set out for the Temple of Pomojema...and a confrontation deep beneath the surface of an alien world with the most fearsome villain in the galaxy! - From the back cover blurb, Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Alan Dean Foster, the uncredited ghostwriter for Lucas' novelization of Star Wars, followed the further adventures of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Set shortly after the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the Death Star, the novel is an atmospheric, almost Indiana Jones-like story pitting Luke and Leia (accompanied by R2-D2 and C-3PO) against Imperial forces in a desperate race to find the mystical Kaiburr Crystal, a gem which has the ability to focus and enhance the power of the Force.

The plot is, as it turns out, based on a last-ditch low-budget film idea developed by George Lucas in case Star Wars didn't make enough money at the box office for a sequel along the lines of The Empire Strikes Back.

The story begins with its only set-in-space scene (a dogfight between the Rebels and Imperial starfighters having been written out of the unfinished script due to budget issues) as Luke's X-Wing and Leia's modified Y-Wing fighters are forced to crash land on the planet Mimban in the Circarpous Sector.

The planet is mostly jungle, but it's the site of an Imperial mining outpost commanded by Captain-Supervisor Grammel, a ruthless and ambitious officer who oversees both the sometimes unruly miners and the Imperial stormtrooper garrison assigned to protect the Empire's facility.

Luke and Leia, who were on a diplomatic mission to a nearby planet in the same system before their ships crashed in the jungle, are stranded on Mimban along with R2-D2 and C-3PO on an Imperial controlled world.  This, of course, is bad enough, but if they can't get off-planet and on their way to Circarpous IV, the system's Rebel-leaning resistance movement won't join the Rebellion against the Empire.

Luke leads Leia and the droids toward one of the towns on Mimban, hoping that a beacon he detected before his X-Wing crashed will indicate the presence of a spaceport from which they can leave the planet.  But his hopes are dashed when it turns out to be an Imperial-run mining town and its secret and environmentally-damaging facilities.

Because Luke and Leia are both wanted by the Empire for their roles in the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the Death Star, they steal miners' outfits and try to blend in with the real miners, but they're soon neck-deep in trouble when the rough-and-tough denizens working for Grammel give Luke and Leia a less-than-friendly welcome.

Not only that, but the only friend the Rebels have on Mimban is Halla, an old woman who claims to be a Force-sensitive "Master."  To back her claim, she tells Luke she senses his nascent Jedi abilities and - more importantly - shows him a most unusual item: a sliver from the Kaiburr Crystal, a gem which can amplify the powers of the Force.

In exchange for Luke and Leia's assistance in finding the entire Kaiburr Crystal, Halla promises to help them find a way off Mimban.

But Grammel and the Imperial authorities are aware that this odd-met group is up to something, and he wants to discover who the two newcomers are and why they're interested in the mysterious crystal. 

My Viewpoint: Although Splinter of the Mind's Eye is more character-driven than action-oriented (space battle fans will be disappointed), the novel is true to its heritage and has its share of cliffhanger situations, a new cast of rogues, outlaws, aliens, and villains (Captain-Supervisor Grammel is one of the vilest servants of the Emperor). There is even a climactic lightsaber duel between the very untrained Luke and the evil Lord Darth Vader.

Foster's familiarity with Lucas' characters and situations helps keep this otherwise planetbound story interesting and lively. Although Han and Chewbacca are absent from Splinter (Luke only makes a passing reference to the Corellian when he asks Leia what Governor Tarkin had done to her before her rescue from the Death Star), Luke and Leia's characters get a chance to shine on stage.

Luke is still a bit of a farmboy-turned-Alliance pilot with latent Jedi powers here, and the Princess is still as fast with her biting wit as she is with a blaster. Foster also emphasizes Luke's conflicting feelings toward Leia...he loves her, but knows (or suspects) he has to protect her at all costs, even from himself. (If this sounds weird, keep in mind that in 1978 nobody knew that Luke and Leia were twins!)

The problem with fitting Splinter of the Mind's Eye into the canon story doesn't lie so much in the characterizations or the unwitting flirtation with taboo between Luke and Leia; remember, in 1978 Foster was not aware of Lucas' intentions for the would-be Jedi and the Princess.

 No, to me the problem is that the first mano-a-mano encounter between Luke and Vader takes place in this novel, yet no other Star Wars book (with the exception of references such as The Star Wars Encyclopedia) has a reference to it in passing. It's almost as if the Force itself had wiped the whole episode from both Vader and Luke's minds.

Readers of Laurent Bouzerau's  Star Wars Trilogy: The Annotated Screenplays will recognize that Foster's plot is actually based on a discarded plot for what would become A New Hope. Part of the original story revolved around the quest for "a Kyber Crystal" -- a gem that a Force-user could utilize to enhance his or her powers; Luke was supposed to have used this "Kyber Crystal" to help him make that "one-in-a-million" shot to destroy the Death Star.

As for the movie version that never was, only the basic storyline was sketeched out.  It borrowed heavily from the "Kyber Crystal" stuff taken out of A New Hope and its scope - as the novel clearly shows - would have been very narrow since Harrison Ford was not signed on as Han Solo and the action confined to just one planet.