Vector Prime Review

Vector Prime by R. A. Salvatore
A review by Neil Richard

Overall Rating = 5 out of 5

By far the best Star Wars book I’ve read (and I’ve read at least 200 so far).  To me, Vector Prime is a different generation of books for Star Wars readers.  Prior to VP, the typical reader would have some Zahn, Anderson, or Stackpole on their shelf.  All great writers, all great stories.

But something was lacking.  Something was missing.  Reality.

I know, sounds dumb, after all, it is a science fiction book, right?  But reality was missing from the books.  All of the books.  We could relate to the characters and follow them along on their grand adventure.  Something would go wrong, the bad guys would get the upper hand, then the hero (or heroes) would come to save the day.  In the end, nobody got hurt (at least nothing too bad) and everyone lived happily ever after.

Then came the new kid on the block.  Salvatore had been around a few years when VP came out in 1999.  He’d written several books in his Drizzt series and was now taking another step into the sci-fi genre (he’d written Echoes of the Fourth Magic, which might be considered sci-fi instead of fantasy).  So here’s a national best seller penning the first book in a 20 book arc that’s chronologically well after the existing Star Wars books.  It includes the main characters from the classic trilogy (Luke, Leia, and Han) and the next Jedi generation (including Han and Leia’s kids).  And Lucasfilm dropped the bomb.  A main character was going to die.  Chewbacca.  Salvatore didn’t much like that, but was too late to back out.

Thus Bob became the whipping boy for Star Wars fans across the globe.  He became the guy that killed Chewie.  I think now, these years later, some fans have gotten over the shock and can now see the reality of Lucasfilm dictating what was and was not written.  So yeah, Bob wrote it, but the idea didn’t start with him.

And the death of Chewie is the dawning of the realization that the new enemy to the galaxy isn’t weak.  They’re strong and often underestimated.  They abhor technology and use biological items exclusively.  Space fighters?  Living creatures.  Housing?  The empty shell of a once living creature.  The ability to crash a moon onto a planet killing Chewie?  A living creature.  Very ingenious, very creative.  And completely different than any previous Star Wars novel.

With the biologically prone aliens and the death of Chewie, so dawned the birth of a new generation of Star Wars novels.

Neil@TK42ONE.com
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