Mission on Mimban One

[klcthebookworm]

Previous Installments

Introduction, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Outline for Mission on Mimban

What Happens in the Chapter

Each post will have a summary of what happens in the chapter before detailing what I liked, what I found problematic, and my notes for my fic. There's only twelve chapters, and I'll try not to be wordy. Also direct quotes from the story will be in blue text. I was confusing myself while writing since I wasn't using parenthetical citations with them.

The first chapter quickly sets up broadly what has happened after the award ceremony and why Leia and Luke are traveling alone in this system. Leia has to meet with the "vacillating underground on Circarpous" to get that system to join the Rebel Alliance. If they agree, another unnamed system will join as well. And the Rebellion desperately needs their aid. Luke is her protection for this trip.

Once that's established, Leia's Y-Wing develops a problem and she has to land on Mimban, the unexplored fifth planet in the Circarpous system. Luke follows her down in his X-Wing and both ships are hit by a strange energy once they reach the atmosphere. Luke and Artoo survive the crash, pack up their supplies, and set off to find Leia and Threepio.

What I Liked

I will find at least one thing in every chapter to put in this section. But just rereading Chapter One suddenly explained why I was meh about Alan Dean Foster writing the novelization for the Force Awakens. I will try hard in this section, peeps.

Luke's untrained Force sensitivity gives him "an almost palpable feeling of unease" about landing on Mimban. Alas, Foster misses the opportunity to have Luke utter The Line because it wasn't a meme yet.

What I Found Problematic

This section is for what I didn't like and red flags. I'm going to give Star Wars inconsistencies as large a pass as I am able, because George Lucas didn't have the universe firmly created while Foster was writing this book in 1977 and 1978. The first error along these lines I found if Luke's internal monologue explain how he has no title or commission within the Rebel Alliance. These posts will take forever to read if I point out all of those.

We spend the first five pages setting up this summit meeting that Luke and Leia will never reach. That could have been trimmed ruthlessly, but apparently the first draft had a dogfight in space which Lucas asked to be removed. So maybe all this was added to keep the word count where it needed to be? I think the information could have been parsed out better to the readers during Luke and Leia's conversation concerning her wanting to stop right then for repairs so to make it to the meeting on time.

Something I can't ignore is how much I dislike Luke's voice in this chapter. The opening poetics which condense everything evil in the galaxy to "a sequence of cancerous civilizations which fed on its own body" don't sound like anything an Outer Rim hick who grew up on a moisture farm would come up with for metaphors. I give a point for Luke mentioning Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru along with his dead parents, but it doesn't help. Plus I have an automatic distrust when any narrator tells me how much he has matured since blowing up the Death Star. I can't decide if Foster means this sincerely or if he's rolling his eyes at Luke too.

"The other... whenever he looked at her, the other caused emotions to boil within him like soup too long on the fire." No time wasted in getting to the twincest stuff that confused kid reader me. Now reader is just aghast at that metaphor. Actually comparing something to cooking is a metaphor I find believable for Luke's voice. It's the boiling emotions that make me go eww instead of aww. I'm not feeling Luke's unrequited love here.

What Changes in My Fic

This section is my brainstorming for the Mission on Mimban fic.

1. Cast change: Luke, Mara, and Artoo. Threepio is with Leia who doesn't get stranded on this swamp planet. Mara does need an astromech for her X-Wing so I have to commit to a new character or commit to killing off a droid. Regardless, this adventure will give Mara all kinds of snark when she and Luke end up on Dagobah.

2. The timeline: I need to move this adventure much closer to the Battle of Yavin to preserve the padawans' inexperience with the Force. Plus the Rebel Alliance suspicions on if Mara has fully defected.

3. The reason for being there: One of Obi-Wan's complaints in Extrication will be Alliance duties yanking his padawans out of their Jedi training. This could be one of those duties, surveying unexplored and non-colonized worlds for Alliance purposes, and it's Luke and Mara's turn. The beacon is unexpected given their information on Mimban so they approach to investigate, strange energy in the atmosphere fried their ships, and they crash on planet.

I also suspect everything in this chapter can be condensed.