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cyris_reads's review
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
jaredkwheeler's review
1.0
Star Wars Legends Project #319
Background: Queen of the Empire was written by [a:Paul Davids|20276453|Paul Davids|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Hollace Davids|30365|Hollace Davids|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and published in March of 1993. It is the fifth book in the Jedi Prince series. The Davids wrote the whole series.
Queen of the Empire begins just after Mission from Mount Yoda (my review), a year after the Battle of Endor (5 years after the battle of Yavin). The main characters are Ken the Jedi Prince, Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, Artoo, Threepio, and Chewie, plus the evil Trioculus, Zorba the Hutt, et al. The story takes place on Bespin, Dagobah, Chad, Tatooine, and Hologram Fun World.
Summary: Having rescued Triclops, the *true* son of Emperor Palpatine, from an Imperial prison and secured his promise to help them take down the Empire for good, the Alliance hits a snag when a new secret weapon malfunctions, sending Han and Leia racing away on an urgent mission. One thing leads to another, and a series of misadventures lands them in danger after danger, as many old enemies resurface to try and bring their evil plans to fruition.
Review: It probably doesn't make sense to say that a series like this, which never had any pretensions of even being tolerable or of average quality, has "jumped the shark," but that conveys something of the energy on display here. This is a "story" (it isn't a story, but I don't have a better word to describe this loosely connected series of occurrences) firing wildly and with total abandon in every possible direction, just trying to fill a pre-determined number of pages with enough words to be done. The "secret weapon" that I mentioned above is a deadly assassin droid who looks exactly like Princess Leia, and it immediately almost murders the scientist that developed it. So Han and Leia have to rush the scientist to his home planet, because the Alliance doesn't have adequate medical facilities for him, and then they almost die in a hurricane, which scares Han into convincing Leia to elope with him . . . at Hologram Fun World, which is now run by Lando, since he lost his Cloud City holdings to Zorba the Hutt 2 books ago. And things just spin out in ever more surreal directions from there.
Oh, and the hurricane . . . Right. That brings me to this book's random environmental concern. We'll let Han and Threepio take this one:
"It's because of the Lactils. They've got so many of those smelly milk-producing creatures on this planet, the situation is now totally out of control. [...] It may be good for Chad, from a business point of view, that they're now the dairy capital of the galaxy, but no one ever stopped to consider that Lactils exhale enormous quantities of methane gas. And too much methane is bad news for the upper atmosphere."
[...]
"Goodness," Threepio translated, "Artoo has made a startling calculation using advanced spectrographic analysis. He's concluded that so much methane gas has polluted the upper atmosphere, it's caused a terrible greenhouse effect on Chad. The planet is overheated, consequently warming up the seas and warm oceans give rise to violent hurricanes."
I don't even know what to say about that, so I'll just leave it there. And that's pretty much the whole extent of it for this book. I can't believe they're even phoning that aspect of this series in at this point.
And then there's this:
"Soon they would be at Hologram Fun World together. [...] There, they could live every fantasy they had ever had, from waterskiing off the edge of a thousand-foot waterfall, to surfboarding on a river of burning lava."
... Those are the first 2 fantasies that come to mind? Like, whose fantasies are those? Oh:
"Luke would love Hologram Fun World too," Han replied. "He's always wanted to go hoverskiing down the side of an exploding volcano."
He has??? When and how did this come up? What other sorts of attractions does this place have?
"They have a hologram flower grotto with flowers from every planet east of Endor and west of Tatooine."
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!?! An AI could outwrite these two idiots. Like, not even a modern one. Whatever they had in the early-'90s. A Markov chain generator. Anything.
“The moffs were holding a secret conference—a Mofference.”
*incoherent scream of despair* There's only one book left, but I don't know if I can do it. This series might just break me.
F
Background: Queen of the Empire was written by [a:Paul Davids|20276453|Paul Davids|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Hollace Davids|30365|Hollace Davids|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and published in March of 1993. It is the fifth book in the Jedi Prince series. The Davids wrote the whole series.
Queen of the Empire begins just after Mission from Mount Yoda (my review), a year after the Battle of Endor (5 years after the battle of Yavin). The main characters are Ken the Jedi Prince, Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, Artoo, Threepio, and Chewie, plus the evil Trioculus, Zorba the Hutt, et al. The story takes place on Bespin, Dagobah, Chad, Tatooine, and Hologram Fun World.
Summary: Having rescued Triclops, the *true* son of Emperor Palpatine, from an Imperial prison and secured his promise to help them take down the Empire for good, the Alliance hits a snag when a new secret weapon malfunctions, sending Han and Leia racing away on an urgent mission. One thing leads to another, and a series of misadventures lands them in danger after danger, as many old enemies resurface to try and bring their evil plans to fruition.
Review: It probably doesn't make sense to say that a series like this, which never had any pretensions of even being tolerable or of average quality, has "jumped the shark," but that conveys something of the energy on display here. This is a "story" (it isn't a story, but I don't have a better word to describe this loosely connected series of occurrences) firing wildly and with total abandon in every possible direction, just trying to fill a pre-determined number of pages with enough words to be done. The "secret weapon" that I mentioned above is a deadly assassin droid who looks exactly like Princess Leia, and it immediately almost murders the scientist that developed it. So Han and Leia have to rush the scientist to his home planet, because the Alliance doesn't have adequate medical facilities for him, and then they almost die in a hurricane, which scares Han into convincing Leia to elope with him . . . at Hologram Fun World, which is now run by Lando, since he lost his Cloud City holdings to Zorba the Hutt 2 books ago. And things just spin out in ever more surreal directions from there.
Oh, and the hurricane . . . Right. That brings me to this book's random environmental concern. We'll let Han and Threepio take this one:
"It's because of the Lactils. They've got so many of those smelly milk-producing creatures on this planet, the situation is now totally out of control. [...] It may be good for Chad, from a business point of view, that they're now the dairy capital of the galaxy, but no one ever stopped to consider that Lactils exhale enormous quantities of methane gas. And too much methane is bad news for the upper atmosphere."
[...]
"Goodness," Threepio translated, "Artoo has made a startling calculation using advanced spectrographic analysis. He's concluded that so much methane gas has polluted the upper atmosphere, it's caused a terrible greenhouse effect on Chad. The planet is overheated, consequently warming up the seas and warm oceans give rise to violent hurricanes."
I don't even know what to say about that, so I'll just leave it there. And that's pretty much the whole extent of it for this book. I can't believe they're even phoning that aspect of this series in at this point.
And then there's this:
"Soon they would be at Hologram Fun World together. [...] There, they could live every fantasy they had ever had, from waterskiing off the edge of a thousand-foot waterfall, to surfboarding on a river of burning lava."
... Those are the first 2 fantasies that come to mind? Like, whose fantasies are those? Oh:
"Luke would love Hologram Fun World too," Han replied. "He's always wanted to go hoverskiing down the side of an exploding volcano."
He has??? When and how did this come up? What other sorts of attractions does this place have?
"They have a hologram flower grotto with flowers from every planet east of Endor and west of Tatooine."
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!?! An AI could outwrite these two idiots. Like, not even a modern one. Whatever they had in the early-'90s. A Markov chain generator. Anything.
“The moffs were holding a secret conference—a Mofference.”
*incoherent scream of despair* There's only one book left, but I don't know if I can do it. This series might just break me.
F
jediprincess's review
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Another silly fun children’s book!
verkisto's review
1.0
I have to give this series a point of credit: They bring up environmental concerns in every book. On the other hand, they write out the sound effects and Artoo's beeps and whistles, so the books read like watching an old episode of "Batman".
The authors tied the series in with the Galaxy of Fear books, which is about what I would expect. They also place 1,138 THX speakers in a theme park, and call a conference of grand moffs a "mofference".
A MOFFERENCE.
This is indefensible, even for a juvenile book.
The authors tied the series in with the Galaxy of Fear books, which is about what I would expect. They also place 1,138 THX speakers in a theme park, and call a conference of grand moffs a "mofference".
A MOFFERENCE.
This is indefensible, even for a juvenile book.
octavia_cade's review
1.0
There is no force on Earth that could ever get me to believe that Princess Leia would agree to elope to Hologram Fun World. That in itself is enough to merit the one star rating, as this series reverts to type... that type being perhaps the dumbest children's series I have ever read. Only one more of these terrible books to go, thank goodness, then I can get on to the rest of the tie-in novels.
I note, in an aside, that the authors themselves have become so bored with their twelve year old Jedi Prince Ken that he hardly appears in this volume. Maybe he fell into the Sarlacc. He can take this version of Leia with him. It would only be an improvement.
I note, in an aside, that the authors themselves have become so bored with their twelve year old Jedi Prince Ken that he hardly appears in this volume. Maybe he fell into the Sarlacc. He can take this version of Leia with him. It would only be an improvement.
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