Blackhole...

Okay, so I know I've talked about Matthew Stover like...I don't want to count...but I've talked about him a lot recently. To me, it's been justified and...yeah, that's all that really matters, eh?

I've been reading his fourth (and last) Star Wars book over the past few days. I'm about 100 pages into it and...I really don't know where to rank it right now, but dang. See, there's been something about the other EU novels I've read, and I think I pointed them out in an earlier post. There's that temptation to make the characters something that they're not: realistic. Which is interesting and kind of depressing to think about. Take Matt Stover's Shatterpoint, for instance. Do you think that a story as dark as Mace Windu's would ever make it into a Star Wars movie by George Lucas standards? Hell, no! No goddamn way!

That's not to say the story was bad; it wasn't. Shatterpoint is still one of my favorites. It has a dark story, fantastic characters, a great setting, and celebrates Joseph Conrad's premise from Heart of Darkness...as well as Apocalypse Now. But! and I feel bad saying this: Shatterpoint isn't quite Star Wars. In fact, very few Star Wars novels are actually...Star Wars. It's like Stover woke up one day and realized this and did something that I don't believe any of the Star Wars authors have done yet: make all that's new, old again.

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, if its trend of awesomeness continues, might become the BEST Star Wars book that I've ever read, surpassing even Stover's own entries to the EU. Because, simply put, this is Star Wars, through and through. For the first time, I could see all of the scenes playing out in my head as though it were one of the movies, and it comes complete with its own opening crawl to top it all off. I was freaking out all through work today, and I even took the book with me, because it felt as if I had left a Star Wars movie I had never seen before on pause like an idiot.

Not only does this book celebrate the movies, it also turns around and pokes fun at the EU. There are also little references abound. Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge? Every Star Wars fan should know why this is fucking ace.

I'm gonna stop myself right there before I get too far into it; I need something to include in an eventual review. But I just wanted to point out a few more things. Luke is Luke, Han is Han, Leia is Leia, and Chewie is Chewie. I say this because it's like Stover's novelized a long lost script to some kinda Episode VII. Everyone seems exactly how they were in the movies, which is an amazing accomplishment. Han made me laugh out loud a few times, at a book, a feat that has not been accomplished since Hitchhiker's Guide.

And so, here I am. It's 5 AM, and I should be sleeping, but all I want to do is read that goddamn book. And that, my friends, is a feeling that I very rarely get.

That I Gotta Read This Goddamn Book feeling...I'll think up a better term for it.

Additionally, I was just reading an interview with Stover off on this random ass blog. I wanted to punch this reviewer in the throat. Not only does he ask stupid fucking questions like:

Have you ever been offered, and/or considered, writing a trilogy in the SW universe, and/or maybe be an author in a multi-book series?

Jesus Christ. Traitor, anyone? Do you even know who you're interviewing?

In Traitor, did Jacen actually see a Force ghost Anakin Solo, or was it a manifestation of his mind or possibly Vergere?

Okay, so you remember Traitor now and decide to play stupid about one of the major plot points - and my favorite part of the book.

/shakes fist

All right, I should head to bed...possibly after reading just a couple more chapters.