Dark Force Rising

Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn (⅘)

The second entry in Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy, Dark Force Rising, opens up shortly after the events of the first novel and the battle of Sluice Van.  Zahn takes this opportunity to splinter the characters, so that we follow a handful of different narrative threads: the criminals with a code of honor, Mara Jade and Talon Karrde, go on the run from Admiral Thrawn, Luke chases down the batty Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth, Han and Lando encounter a general from the Old Republic turned independent freedom fighter, and Leia negotiates with longtime Imperial mercenaries, the Noghri, to prevent them from coming after her and her unborn children.

Tying most of these disparate plot threads together is the Katana fleet, a lost fleet of starships that, if recovered, have the potential of shifting the balance between the New Republic and Admiral Thrawn’s imperial forces.  The Katana Fleet consists of two hundred Dreadnaughts, precursors to the Imperial Star Destroyer, and years prior to even the Clone Wars, its crew was infected by a virus that caused insanity, leading the crew to fling the compliment of starships out into the void of the galaxy.  (Along with unstable Jorus C’baoth, the madness of the crew of the Katana fleet makes insanity something of a recurring theme in the series).  As a MacGuffin, the Katan fleet bends each plot thread together by the end of the novel, although, because this is the second novel in a trilogy, plenty goes unresolved.

Dark Force Rising improves on its predecessor in most ways.  The multiple plots make sure that the narrative moves swiftly as we bounce around the galaxy catching up with what our characters are getting themselves into.  The sequel also provides Leia with a more satisfying role than Heir to the Empire.  In what is arguably the most interesting plot of the novel, Leia takes a Noghri captive to his homeworld where she uses her role as ambassador to try and convince the Noghri to abandon the Empire and join the Republic.  Leia must navigate the unique culture of the Noghri while also avoiding detection by Imperial forces.

Too often Leia gets scant attention, but she’s actually the highlight of the novel.  While tense negotiations with an alien race might not be the most visually interesting story in a film, it’s well tailored for the medium of a novel.  In fact, the role that the Republic has in keeping the peace is granted renewed attention.  In another wonderful moment in the novel, Luke must mediate between two seedy businessmen, and during the negotiation, he muses to himself that this must have been one of the central roles of the Jedi Knight.  With an exception of the opening of Episode I, we never really see the Jedi Knight as keepers of the peace, and it’s smart of Zahn to acknowledge this purpose.  (It’s also interesting to see how the prequels change Zahn’s timeline.  At one point it’s suggested that the Clone Wars occurred fifty or more years ago, but according to Episodes I-III, it’s probably more like twenty-five or thirty).  

Zahn’s great strength as a storyteller is his ability to plot out ways in which dueling characters continually think they have the upper hand until they don’t.  In fact, the strategizing reaches its wonderfully absurd peak with the character of Thrawn who studies a culture’s art in order to learn how they think and in turn how to defeat them.  At its most exciting, Zahn’s novels are like the sword fighting scene in The Princess Bride in which Bonetti is counteracted by Capo Ferro which is cancelled out by Thibault and then undermined by Agrippa.  These moves and countermoves are what makes the Thrawn Trilogy exciting, and by the end of Dark Force Rising, it’s easy to become eager to know who, in this interplay of strategems, gets the upperhand next.

Ciccone Youth - The Whitey Album

Ciccone Youth - The Whitey Album (⅘)

Did the eighties ever have a present?  At this vantage point, it’s impossible to imagine the eighties--with its puffy sleeves, big hair and synth rock--ever existed as a living, breathing era.  It seems as if the decade of New Coke was nothing more than a nostalgic fever dream.  I remember the boom of eighties nostalgia in the early aughts (clubs even had 80s themed nights back then), but Ciccone Youth’s 1988 album, The Whitey Album, makes a case for 80s nostalgia before the decade even ended.

Ciccone Youth, as their name implies, is a one-off side project of the art-punk, no-wave band Sonic Youth.  And while Ciccone Youth retains the band’s caustic experimentation, it’s distinct enough from their regular albums to justify the name change.  Listening to The Whitey Album, I can’t help but think that the band is commemorating the decade from some far off future.

Named after the surname of Madonna (Louise Ciccone), the band’s only album views the decade through a funhouse mirror and then breaks it into shards.  Various genres developed in the eighties, from synth-pop to hip-hop to industrial rock, are pulled and twisted until they are barely recognizable.  The playful name change signals Sonic Youth’s trickster intentions, but hidden underneath the experimentation there is a real affection for the decade’s popular music.  

By all accounts, Sonic Youth’s Madonna obsession was real, and the two covers included on the album push Madonna’s sound to the limit but also include sincere appreciation of her stature as a major female artist. Mike Watt of Minuteman fame joined Sonic Youth for the album, and he takes full duty on the first Madonna cover, “Burnin’ Up.”  Still, it’s telling that the band chose a lesser known single to cover. (I’m not overly familiar with Madonna’s work, so I heard Watt’s cover before I heard the original).  The resulting cover is decidedly lo-fi and stripped down, mostly consisting of Watt’s barely sung vocals, some guitar, some percussion, and lots of tape hiss.  

The album’s cover, a xeroxed black and white copy of Madonna’s portrait, indicates the band’s interest in playing around with post-modern concepts of artifice and reproduction. This is perhaps no more apparent than in their “cover” of Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love,” sung by Kim Gordon and recorded in a Karaoke machine, which at one point you were apparently able to find at your local mall.  

The song echoes the album cover’s copy of a copy aesthetic while also recalling Andy Warhol’s silkscreen process.  Importantly, when Warhol ran off a dozen copies of Marilyn Monroe, the printing process still created unintentional variations in each version. Likewise, although the cover of “Addicted to Love” is note for note the same, no one is going to mistake the Ciccone Youth version for the original.  The fact that the song was recorded in a mall on a karaoke machine dates the album to the 80s, and this context is almost as important as the music itself. Karaoke machines become prominent in the 1980s and resulted from increased economic and cultural entanglement between the United States and Japan. Furthermore, the mall in the 1980s quickly became a place for teenagers to safely flee the confines of family life, as depicted in countless 80s comedies, as well as a site for mindless consumption, which may in fact double as a critique of Palmer’s all-surface music.

But Ciccone Youth also take reproduction seriously as an artistic choice.  The highlight of the entire album is the second Madonna cover that caps off the album, “Into the Groove” (here, renamed “Into the Groove(y)”).  At first the song appears to be a menacing reimagining of one of Madonna’s more danceable numbers. The notes sound lower, the song appears to be slowed down, and Thurston Moore’s vocals are distorted.  But then a little over a minute and a half in Madonna’s vocals surprisingly interrupt Moore’s monotone, creating a sort of deranged duet.  When it’s time for the singer to hit the high notes, the sample of Madonna nearly takes over fully. It’s a strangely perfect melding of Sonic Youth’s no wave roots and Madonna’s pop sensibilities. Like many artists first employing samples, Ciccone Youth never received approval for Madonna’s vocals, but supposedly after hearing the cover, Madonna convinced her label not to go after the band. Good on you, Louise Ciccone!

Throughout the album there’s also a real appreciation for hip-hop.  The most obvious example of hip-hop’s influence comes on Thurston Moore’s hilariously embarrassing rap on “Tuff Titty Rap” (which sounds surprisingly like one of the Beastie Boys).  But hip-hop beats are employed throughout the album as well as the occasional musical stab stab.  “G-Force,” for instance sounds like an oneric version of a hip-hop beat fronted by Kim Gordon’s spontaneous prose, which appear to be influenced by the beat poets.  If this wasn’t enough, the album also bears the stamp of industrial music, and two of the strongest tracks, “Macbeth” and “March of the Ciccone Robots,” appear to be influenced by the likes of Throbbing Gristle and Ministry.  

The Whitey Album sounds like nothing else that Sonic Youth did before or since, and it’s no surprise that the new name was quickly abandoned.  For some, the absurdist nature of certain tracks, such as the pot infused ramblings on “Two Cool Chicks Listening to Neu” or the one minute of silence on “(Silence),” might push your patience, but if you spend enough time with the album, you come to appreciate these moments as the band’s trickster strategy to dismantle 80s music so that it can then be rebuilt.  Moments such as “Hi! Everybody,” which sounds like the intro to an 80s aerobic video from hell, demonstrate the band’s efforts to criticize popular culture, but there are other moments, such as the sampling of Madonna on “Into the Groove(y),” that show there’s something to be salvaged from this decade of surface and artifice.  

Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye by Alan Dean Foster (⅗)

Imagine a world where Star Wars wasn’t a genre-busting, blockbuster-inventing megahit.  Imagine if Star Wars were merely one in a long line of 70s sci-fi films beloved by a cult audience but mostly forgotten by the general public, such as Logan’s Run, Omega Man, Soylent Green, Silent Running, Rollerball, or even George Lucas’s own, THX 1138.  In this world, the dark challenging sequel, Empire Strikes Back, is never made, and instead, Lucas and Fox opt for a quick follow up to A New Hope by making a small scale movie that takes place on a single planet and includes only about half of the original cast.

We came much closer to this world than many realize.  Alan Dean Foster, author of countless movie adaptation novels, was first enlisted into the Star Wars universe after being commissioned to ghostwrite the first film’s novel adaptation.  Lucas also provided Foster with details regarding a possible sequel and asked him to write the novelization.  When Star Wars blew up, Lucas was able to fund Empire himself and no longer needed the compromised continuation, so Splinter of the MInd’s Eye was published in 1978, essentially becoming patient zero in the Star Wars expanded universe.

As Splinter of the MInd’s Eye begins, Luke and Leia are racing to Circarpous IV to convince the local populace to join the Rebellion when a giant energy storm forces them to crash land on Mimban, a fog-enshrouded swamp planet and a clear influence on Dagobah.  While looking for a means off the planet, Luke and Leia encounter an old woman in a bar who senses Luke’s Force sensitivity and tells him about the Kaiburr Crystal, a New Agey mineral that enhances its user’s Force power.  The old woman, Halla, is herself Force sensitive, but is only able to slightly move objects after a great deal of physical and mental exertion.  

Mimban is being used as an imperial mining operation, so Luke and Leia have keep a low profile, which becomes difficult after they become embroiled in a fight with the locals.  Halla manages to avoid capture, but Luke and Leia are taken to an imperial prison.  They’re lucky enough to become cell mates with Hin and Kee, two ferocious and furry Yuzzem, creatures who share more than a few similarities to Chewbacca.  With a little help, Luke and Leia perform a prison break and head into the Mimban wilderness in search of the Kaiburr Crystal.

Because Splinter of the Mind’s Eye sprung from ideas intended for a cheapie sequel, the novel at times feels restrained.  Foster had originally planned to open with a large space battle that would have grounded Luke and Leia, but this was deemed too expensive for the proposed sequel and excised from the novel.  The decision to make Mimban a foggy swamp planet had less to do with creating atmosphere than limiting the need to build more sets.  And, more conspicuously, Han Solo and Chewbacca are absent from the plot altogether (although Han is alluded to a couple of times).  When writing began, Harrison Ford had not yet signed on for any sequels.

While it’s unfortunate that Foster wasn’t able to fully indulge his imagination like most novelists, in other ways the novel benefits from the more limited scope.  Foster had the right idea initially to begin with a space battle, because, quite honestly, the story takes some time to gain momentum (for whatever reason, it takes days to get anywhere on Mimban, which may have been realistic but saps some of the energy from the plot).  Still, once events start rolling, the focused plot speeds our characters along, and I would have much rather read about Luke and Leia uncovering an archaeological MacGuffin than have them contend with yet another super weapon.  After escaping from the imperial prison, Luke and Leia are constantly on the run, often chased by aggressive indigenous life forms, including a giant worm, a cave-dwelling water creature, and a deadly giant lizard.  During the last half of the book, the two descend further into the caves of Mimban in what appears to be an echo of Edgar Rice Burrough’s second John Carter novel, The God’s of Mars.

Foster spends much of the novel detailing the sexual tension between Luke and Leia, a decision that has a certain ick factor considering that they are later revealed to be brother and sister.  Of course, it’s likely Lucas hadn’t come up with this plot twist yet, or he may have thought it a possibility but didn’t want to implement it in a world where the first Star Wars sequel is Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and not The Empire Strikes Back.  And even if Luke and Leia doesn’t go to the same length as King Arthur and Morgan le Fay and even if incest is a common theme in mythology, it’s still pretty damn creepy.  It doesn’t help that every now and then Foster offers up lines like this: “Even when bothered, to him that voice was as naturally sweet and pleasing as sugar-laden fruit.”  Most people can look past the chaste kiss between brother and sister in Empire, but I think produce metaphors are just a bridge too far.

The relationship between Luke and Leia is characterized by the difference in their social standings as, respectively, farmboy and princess.  This speaks to Foster’s understanding of the archetypal cutouts that form Lucas’s characters.  He even refers to the late Ob-Wan Kenobi as a “wizard.”  Unfortunately, Foster too often presents Leia not so much as royalty as stuck up.  There’s a sense throughout the first half of the book that she needs to be taken down a notch, which happens when Luke unilaterally comes up with a cover story for the two, which involves Leia being his slave.  In order to make the cover story work, Luke even slaps Leia around a bit.  (Yes, Luke actually slaps Leia in this book, or as Luke says to a local, “[S]he’s kind of amusing to have around, though she tends to get out of line at times and I have to slap her down”).  There’s an undercurrent of misogyny here, like a latter day retelling of The Taming of the Shrew or, if you prefer, an earlier version of Overboard.  Luke is the typical geek in the sense that he both elevates and resents the object of his affections.

Of course, the films themselves have always had difficulty using Leia.  The film that treats her with the most respect is probably A New Hope where she gets to bark orders to the men and handle a blaster.  Splinter of the Mind’s Eye does slightly make up for its earlier mishandling of the character by giving her a lightsaber fight with Darth Vader at the climax of the story.  The novel also deals with the PTSD Leia suffers from being tortured on the Death Star, something that Vader later brings up to taunt her and adds menacingly, “one can do some interesting things with a saber, you know.  I’ll do my best to show you all of them if you’ll cooperate by not passing out.”

The novel does pick up after some of these early missteps, and there are some interesting additions to the Star Wars mythos.  The Kaiburr Crystal was apparently detritus from an early draft of A New Hope.  Lucas decided that he wanted to make the Force more ethereal and mysterious, which I think most believe was the right call.  But I still like the implication that the crystal was used in healing rituals by the natives generations ago.  The novel also introduces the idea that even long, long ago there was a time even farther in the past.  The Knights of the Old Republic’s Korriban section also relies on the idea that Force related relics are buried throughout the galaxy, which makes George Lucas’s universe even more expansive.  

Hin and Kee, the Chewbacca stand ins, are also a great addition to Star Wars.  At one point they take a stormtrooper’s helmet to shield their hands while trying to break through a security door and also swing a droids body around to club stormtroopers.  The native Coway, who eventually battle with the Empire with the help of Luke and Leia, are also an interesting precursor to Return of the Jedi’s Ewoks.  The Coway are pulled directly from an H. Rider Haggard novel, and are presented alternatingly as savage and noble savage.  Naturally, Luke must fight one of their champions in order to earn their respect and avoid execution.

In an odd choice, Vader receives scant time in the story.  Perhaps Lucas didn’t want to overuse the character and instead treat him like Boba Fett, a mysterious figure of evil who is only more intriguing because we know so little about his backstory.  If this was the intention, then the prequels ruined it on both counts.  

It is interesting to see how Vader is represented prior to the shocking reveal in Empire.  Foster refers to Vader as a henchmen at one point, which is an accurate representation of his character in A New Hope before he started running through admirals at an alarming rate in Empire.  Tarkin is the main villain in the first film, and Leia describes as “holding Vader’s leash.”  Vader is still represented as an imposing figure, and is referred to as a “dark lord of the Sith,” a concept that I didn’t realize entered into the Star Wars mythos this early.  (Apparently, the term Sith is also used in Foster’s A New Hope novelization). In a weird continuity error, Vader accuses Luke of shooting him out of the sky during the Death Star battle, but we all know it was Han Solo.  Come on, Vader!  Luke was in front of you.  That doesn’t make any sense.

Reading Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, I couldn’t help but imagine how this might look as a low budget Star Wars sequel, and while I think we can all agree it’s good this never happened, there are

moments that might have translated nicely to the screen, especially when Luke and Leia float across an underground lake on a giant leaf.  It makes sense why Dark Horse would later create a comic book adaptation of the story.  At its best, the novel reminds me of another beloved fantasy story that takes place in a swamp and involves an old crone and a crystal: The Dark Crystal.  Splinter of the MInd’s Eye is not a lost masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a fun read (even the terrible moments are enjoyable), and for anyone who wants a different perspective on the Star Wars phenomenon, it offers a fascinating glimpse into a world that could have been.  Besides, without the novel we wouldn’t have had Ralph McQuarrie’s genuinely kickass paperback cover.

Broken Age

Broken Age (4/5)

Since its announcement, Broken Age has become a talking point in how games, films, music, and other projects are financed today through crowdfunding.  At first, Broken Age appeared to showcase the incredible potential of asking fans to pony up for a project that might not have the kind of audience necessary to garner the approval of the bean counters.  Initially, Tim Schafer and his Double Fine Studios asked for $400,000 on Kickstarter in order to make their new adventure game.  They ended up pulling in nearly three and a half million dollars.  This was a massive haul, and the initial success helped establish Kickstarter as a legitimate platform for crowdfunding.  Of course, not just any video game developer could pull in seven digits through crowdfunding.  Tim Schafer’s time in the nineties knocking out stone cold classic adventure games such as the first two Monkey Island games and Day of the Tentacle likely helped.

But the studio ran into trouble when it realized that as their funding increased, so did their ambition.  Realizing that they would run out of money before finishing the game, Schafer decided to release Broken Age in two acts.  The internet did what the internet does best and started grumbling.  Unfortunately, the second act was release over a year after the appearance of the first.  And to add insult to injury, Schafer made it clear that, unlike the Telltale adventure games, Broken Age was never developed to be played in two halves and that those who have already played act one should go right back to the beginning following the release of Act 2.  For some, these delays and miscalculations have impacted their experience playing the game, but if you can put the game’s funding strategy aside and just play the damn thing, I think you’ll find a visionary experience that could have only come from the mind of Tim Schafer.

As its name implies, Broken Age is split into two halves: in one we follow Vella Tartine who lives in a fantasy world where maidens are sacrificed to monsters and people live on clouds; in the other we follow Shay Volta who lives in a spaceship where his every waking moment is monitored and controlled by the ship.  The player can switch back and forth between characters, so when a puzzle trips you up while playing Vella, you can play Shay for a while in order to give yourself some intellectual distance.  The game starts you off playing Vella, and I pretty much ran right through her entire story for the first half before shifting to Shaw.  But the second act is more difficult, and I appreciated the ability to switch between the characters.  There are also a handful of moments in the second half where it’s necessary to switch between characters in order to gather the right information in order to solve certain puzzles.  (It doesn’t go as far as the indie adventure game Resonance where switching between characters was an integral means of solving puzzles).

Vella lives in the small town of Sugar Bunting, which used to be called Steel Bunting and was once a warrior town but now has become a town of bakers.  Vella has been chosen to take part in “The Maiden’s Feast” in which a handful of select young women are offered up to a giant monster known as the Mog Chothra.  While most of Vella’s family—with the exception of her grandfather—tacitly accept the necessity of The Maiden’s Feast as a means to stave off Mog Chothra, Vella herself comes to doubt whether this ritual is the only way to save her town.  

Vella begrudgingly accepts her own sacrifice until she’s finally faced with Mog Chothra himself and decides to escape near certain death.  This sends Vella on an extended quest to once and for all defeat Mog Chothra.  In order to kill Mog Chothra, Vella visits several other towns that have their own version of The Maiden’s Feast.  Perhaps the most imaginative locale in the game is Meriloft, a town nestled in the clouds and ruled by a buffoonish cult leader named Harm’ny Lightbeard.  The clouds are awash in the colors of a summer sunset while the rest of the town is composed of pastels.  

Shay’s side of the narrative has sci-fi trappings.  You begin his story by completing what at first appear to be dangerous missions on other planets, such as rescuing people from an avalanche, but you quickly discover that these are fully controlled playtime scenarios that occur on ship.  The avalanche, for instance, is made out of ice cream, and Shay must eat enough of it so that his robotic friends made out of yarn are freed.  Shay’s every waking moment is monitored by mom, an A.I. that encourages him to participate in his playtime activities, eat regular meals, and keep a regular bedtime.  However, a secret stowaway eventually punctures this numbing routine.

Both Shay and Vella’s stories share thematic connections.  They are both teenagers trapped in a world where their destiny appears to be out of their control, but they are determined to break away from cultural strictures.  It is important for the story that the two main characters are teenagers, a period in your life when you are capable or even encouraged to question and buck social bonds.  Eventually, as you might assume, the connection between Shay and Vella become less metaphorical and more real, but you could imagine a nice little game where the parallel adventures never intersect.

Perhaps Broken Age’s greatest strength is its unique aesthetics.  The world looks as if it is built from intricately cut construction paper.  The children’s book imagery gives the game a sense of instant nostalgia, and it’s hard to overstate how beautiful the game is.  And like a great children’s book, you could imagine pulling this game out now and again just to flip through some of the images.  There’s something tactile about the look of Broken Age, as if you could touch your computer screen and feel something other than a flat surface.  Broken Age is a kind of artisan video game, something only possible thanks to the internet’s ability to reach niche audiences.

Like Schafer’s earlier creations, the world of Broken Age is dotted with quirky tertiary characters, and the story is aided by a fine cast of voice actors, including household names like Elijah Wood, Wil Wheaton, and Jack Black.  Throughout the game you will encounter Harm’ny, a cult leader who lives on a cloud, Curtis, a hipster lumberjack, and a set of talking utensils (it kind of makes sense in the context of the game).  In fact, I enjoyed the characters so much that one criticism of the game is that I wish I could have spent more time with these people.

***Warning: Ahead there be spoilers.  I can’t really discuss the second half of the game without revealing some major twists in the story.  Since discovering each new wrinkle in the game’s world is one of the more enjoyable aspects of Broken Age, I would recommend that if you haven’t played the game, turn back now.***

When images of Broken Age were first released, they immediately brought to mind The Longest Journey, a seminal adventure game in which the protagonists flits between a fantasy world of magic and a Blade Runner inspired megalopolis.  These two halves of the game are parallel worlds whose destiny are intertwined, even if few are conscious of this connection.  But this is not the case in Broken Age.  In fact, not only do Shaw and Vella live in the same universe, they live on the same world.

It turns out that Shay is not floating through space.  In fact, his “spaceship” happens to be the same Mog Chothra going from town to town abducting maidens, and an elaborate system has been developed in order to keep up the illusion of space travel.  Shay and his family come from beyond the Plague Dam, a giant wall separating modern cities of Shay and his people from the agrarian world of Vella and her people.  In a twist that never quite makes sense, Shay’s mother is not actually an A.I., but a flesh and blood parent who was merely using the ship’s system to watch over her son while she maintains the ship.  He also has a father, but he doesn’t appear until Act 2.

Shay and his family were actually being manipulated by the Thrush, an advanced race of beings who have genetically modified themselves.  But, in a plot point that appears to be borrowed from Dark City, the Thrush need to diversify their gene pool so they abduct young women from what they call “the badlands,” and it turns out that young children have a certain amount of purity that allows them to make the right picks.  (This was Shay’s job, but don’t worry, the Maidens aren’t dead.  They’re just locked up on the ship/Mog Chothra).  

The twists on top of twists makes for a somewhat convoluted second half, but there’s something admirable about taking Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and doubling down on it.  In Act two, Shay and Vella switch places, so while Shay discovers Meriloft and its quirky denizens, Vella explores Shay’s damages ship.  Both Shay and Vella seem oddly at ease with this change of scenery.  Shay doesn’t seem perplexed by people living on clouds and advanced technology doesn’t seem to phase Vella.  Both are decidedly non-nonplussed.  Not addressing Shay and Vella’s unusual situation in Act 2 is something of a missed opportunity.

Broken Age’s second half doesn’t quite live up to the promise of its first, but it’s still a wonderful experience.  Because of the layers of twists, not everything gets explained.  The game repeatedly insinuates that there’s a special connection between Shay and Vella, but this is never fully spelled out.  The game also ends after the worlds of Shay and Vella are quite literally bridged, which makes me wonder how their societies will handle knowledge of each other.  The world of Broken Age is so rich with possibilities that I would love to see a sequel.  But even if we only get one Broken Age, it still stands out a unique visual and emotional experience.

Mikal Cronin - MC III

Mikal Cronin – MC III (4.5/5)

            Born out of the California garage rock scene—with its loose style and buzzing guitars—Mikal Cronin’s solo material has unexpectedly veered towards more orchestra laden power-pop.  His second album, simply titled MC II, opened not with muscular guitars, but with light ivories on the undeniably catchy “Weight.”  Cronin’s third album, naturally titled MC III, expands on these light flourishes of strings and piano, transforming his songwriting into something approaching Beach-Boysesque pocket symphonies.  And while most rock and roll musicians would be buried by all of these additional instruments, throughout the album, Mikal Cronin’s superb songwriting always shines through.

            There’s a certain airiness to Cronin’s songwriting, whether it comes from his heavy use of acoustic guitar or the gusts of violin that greets the listener.  It is this open sound that allows him to incorporate further instrumentation without overburdening his songs or burying his songwriting chops.  “I’ve Been Loved,” for instance, is a memorable acoustic ballad enhanced by a building wall of strings that leads into an echo-affected whistle reminiscent of vespers through a grove of birch trees. The album also happens to be well sequenced.  The lush “Turn Around” leads into the hooks-focused “Made up My Mind,” which in turn leads into the propulsive “Say.”  It’s clear that Cronin is thinking not just in units of songs but also whole albums.

But as an album, MC III is split in two.  The first half is a collection of pristine pop songs where the second half aims to comprise a single song cycle known collectively as “Circle.”  Much like the first half of the album, this six song opus reaches for a diverse array of impressionistic and emotional resonance.  I can think of no other album where a song’s tail end jam session includes the unlikely addition of a tzouras as happens in “Gold.”  From the way it is situated in the liner notes, “Circle” is supposed to function as a single unit, but while it is, again, well-sequenced, each track works as an individual song.  Tellingly, “Ready,” with its immediate chorus “I’m not ready for December,” stands out as one of the album’s most radio ready songs, and yet it is fitted within a larger song cycle.  Instead of viewing the first half of the album as a loose collection of songs and the second as a single entity, it is probably easier to view the album as either two E.P.s released together or an L.P. with a distinct A and B side like artists used to crank out in the 60s and 70s.

            Mikal Cronin’s roman numeral naming strategy might seem like a lazy way to avoid coming up with a title, but this choice actually demonstrates an awareness of ways in which each iteration expands on the last.  Some might miss the more guitar focused MC II, but I prefer to watch an artist continually build on what has come before.  MC III is one of the best albums of 2015 so far, but I’m also confident that it represents one stop in Cronin’s larger musical journey and not his final destination. 

The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton

The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton (2.5/5)

With the exception of the books from the X-Wing series, as a kid my favorite Star Wars novel happened to be The Courtship of Princess Leia.  I don’t think this particular book gets a lot of respect from Star Wars fans these days, so in my bid to further explore the Star Wars Expanded Universe, I decided to revisit the continuing story of Han and Leia’s romance to see if my twelve-year-old self was onto something or if the general consensus was correct.  It turns out that there are some potentially interesting ideas in The Courtship of Princess Leia, but they’re mostly marred by poor execution.

Like most early Star Wars novels, The Courtship of Princess Leia begins by dealing with the detritus of warlords that have risen out of the destruction of the Galactic Empire.  While the New Republic has started to reestablish itself, it’s still looking at a series of lengthy and costly battles against these remnants of the Empire.  A possible solution presents itself by the arrival of a delegation from the Hapes cluster, a wealthy and powerful collection of systems that offers to aid the New Republic in its fight, but on the condition that Princess Leia marries the Hapan Prince Isolder.  Naturally, this doesn’t sit well with Han Solo.

Many readers might rightfully scoff at the idea that Leia would drop her affections for Han Solo to marry a dreamy prince.  The author, Dave Wolverton, does suggest early on that Leia might marry the Prince out of a sense of duty to the New Republic and the lives that might be saved by a potential alliance with the Hapan cluster.  But this tact is quickly dropped, and it appears that Leia is genuinely falling in love with the Prince because he’s totally hot.  In one of the novel’s sillier conceits, because of planned breeding everyone from the Hapan cluster are super attractive. (There’s a weird undercurrent of evolutionary psychology in the novel.  Later, Prince Isolder suggests that monarchy is a suitable form of government because it pairs the best and the brightest and their brood as rulers, something that struck me as really silly even when I was twelve).  The Hapans are also a matriarchal society, so if Leia were to marry Prince Isolder, she would eventually become queen of the Hapans. 

Out of jealousy and desperation, Han enters a high stakes card game in the bowels of Coruscant and ends up winning an entire planet, Dathomir.  I do kind of love that Han could win an entire planet from a card game, just like he apparently won the Millennium Falcon.  But when even this doesn’t win over Leia, he eventually abducts her and takes Leia to his newly acquired planet.  The kidnapping plot might, rightfully, leave a poor taste in many readers’ mouths.  While there is common trope of women falling in love with their captors (which may very well go all the way back to Tristan and Iseult), I think this cliché has become more difficult to justify in the new millennium. 

It’s when Han and Leia get to Dathomir that things get really bizarre, mostly for the better.  Dathomir is under the control of the Warlord Zsinj, making it impossible for Han and Leia to flee the planet after making their way through an Imperial blockade.  They’re followed by Luke Skywalker and Prince Isolder who have teamed up to retrieve the Princess.  On the surface of Dathomir, Han, Leia, Luke and Isolder have to contend with matriarchal clans of Force sensitive women.  In fact, there is a particular clan of witches that have been threatening other inhabitants of Dathomir and are seeking an alliance with Zsinj in order to leave the planet and wreak havoc across the galaxy.  Oh, and these clans of women not only ride Rancors, but they also appear to keep men like property.  This is the kind of pseudo-feminism that could have only occurred in the nineties.  When one of the women decides to keep Prince Isolder as a mate, the book threatens to turn into the Futurama episode “Amazon Women in the Mood.”  In other words, Wolverton’s idea of feminism not so coincidentally doubles as a male fantasy.  Still, the concept of Rancor riding Force witches is pretty damn cool.  And while it might diminish Luke’s unique status in the universe, the invention of the Witches of Dathomir manages to expand the fantasy/mythology aspect of Star Wars when so many authors at the time approached the world strictly through a sci-fi lens. 

I probably genuinely enjoyed The Courtship of Princess Leia as much as I rolled my eyes.  But Wolverton’s novel has contributed to the larger mythology of Star Wars.  The Witches of Dathomir have become a permanent, canonical part of the Star Wars Universe thanks to their inclusion in The Clone Wars TV-show.  And the one thing I remember enjoying about the novel was the fact that C-3PO does whatever is in his power to help out Han Solo win over Princess Leia, including uncovering Han’s supposed aristocratic ancestry and writing and performing a song about the greatness of Han Solo.  So if you ever wanted to read about C-3PO playing wingman to Han Solo, then this is the book for you.