Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Yes, it took me over two weeks to read a thin 199 page paperback, but this book was GREAT! Night after night it helped me fall asleep after reading just a few pages. One afternoon I thought about powering through a section, but then I thought why? Why would I want to rush through the book that's curing my insomnia? Here's an example of the writing (p. 135):

    Exhausted, he fell back onto his back and stared at the pincushion ceiling.
    "You did it, Luke. You beat it off."

Sadly, that's about as interesting as it ever gets since I at least chuckled. This was horribly tedious. The sexual tension between Luke and Leia now seems creepy. The droids may as well not even be present since they take no active role whatsoever editing them out wouldn't change a thing. For some reason Luke, who grew up on a desert planet, knows how to swim, but Leia doesn't??? Huh? New characters are introduced that are as bland as their names (Halla and Grammel). After traveling for something like two weeks through the swamp, Luke and Leia are trapped in a pit and he wonders why the others don't go back in town to get a rope. I don't know, maybe because it would take them a month to travel both ways and our heroes would have starved to death in that time? Oh, there's more, but why? Why go on? Let's be honest, you're only reading this if you're a hardcore Star Wars fan to begin with which means you probably fall into one of two categories: One, you love everything Star Wars no matter what in which case you'll find some reason to enjoy this book despite all of its faults; or two, you grew up with Star Wars, still love the first two movies (that's right, I said two) and along the way you've come to realize that everything that's followed falls somewhere between bland and boring to downright terrible.

But seriously, this book helped me fall asleep for two weeks. So there's that.





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"The Horrors of Hawaii" a short story about relationships and manipulations was published in Page & Spine and you can read it at the link below:

http://www.pagespineficshowcase.com/samson-stormcrow-hayes.html

Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Once upon a time, Dark Knight Returns was a groundbreaking work that changed the landscape of comics. This? Not so much.

It really is terrible. Surprisingly terrible. And it makes no sense. It feels like Miller just trying to make money and he rushed through this in as little time as possible.



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The Empire Strikes Back by Donald F. Glut

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


So I owned this book back in my youth, but then, many years ago, I was moving and had to cull my collection and this book along with Han Solo's Revenge, Spinter in the Mind's Eye and many many others made their way to various used bookstores. Then, a few weeks ago, I was at the Glendale Vintage Paperback Book Show and saw a pristine copy of this book for only $3. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was numbered and signed by the author.

I decided to buy it for reasons of pure nostalgia and having bought it, I decided to read it. I thought the book had a few scenes of wampas running amok in the rebel base that weren't in the movie, but I was wrong. It's a fairly faithful adaptation of the movie except that some of the film's great lines of dialogue are absent (i.e. Leia: "I love you." Solo: "I know.") There's really not much reason to read it since it's far more fun to see the film, but I enjoyed it for what it was. Though most of the book is written competently, there are moments of horrendous writing scattered throughout.



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