I, Jedi

This book, besides everything else, is a stunning example of what the Expanded Universe novelists could do if they paid attention to each other and worked not only to make a good story but make a good story that complements the rest of the EU stories.
Michael Stackpole, the author, is mostly known for his novels in the X-Wing series. I, Jedi manages to combine the awesomeness of those books, along with a lot of Jedi mumbo-jumbo (I say this affectionately), a rescue mission, a character journey, and the entire Jedi Academy trilogy....into one book. Several characters created by other authors, notably Mara Jade and Kyp Durron, make small or large appearances in the book, and Stackpole manages to stay true to their characters while still show more keeping them sidelined to Corran Horn's story. I knew SOMEONE out there should be able to do it. It seems like the EU is a lot more categorized and boxed-up nowadays. For instance, Troy Denning is only "allowed" to write about bugs and Ewoks, Timothy Zahn keeps to his Chiss, Mara Jade, and Talon Karrde, and Kevin J. Anderson keeps to his Academy. This irritates me. Why shouldn't the EU authors be able to overlap better? Stackpole can.
I had to remind myself several times that this wasn't a big space epic, like the Corellian Trilogy (or the original trilogy, for that matter), it wasn't a adventure story like Outbound Flight. I, Jedi is exactly what it sounds like: a look into a character who is becoming a Jedi, how he gets there and how he deals with the powers and the philosophy. Since it's more about Corran's character journey rather than any particular super-weapon that needs destroying or Dark Lord that needs vanquishing, the storyline does suffer at some points.
But this book does the character-journey line EXCELLENTLY. It reminded me how very much I love Corran Horn. He's a pilot, he's an investigator, and, in this book, he's becoming a Jedi. All awesome powers rolled into one.
The book begins with Corran returning from a Rogue mission to discover that not only is his wife, Mirax, gone, but he can't feel her in the Force, either, other than she's alive. Persuaded by friends that if he goes after her she'll just be put in danger, Corran goes to Luke's shiny new Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 to learn freakish powers so he can save his wife.
This is where the JA trilogy comes in. The first half of I, Jedi, chronicles Corran's part in those events, which I thought was a fascinating way to write a book. You get a lot of insight into how the "normal" trainees reacted to all the insanity, and, more importantly (to me) you get out of Luke's head, which got pretty insufferable in that trilogy In My Opinion.
Again, I liked Mara Jade's various appearances in the book. She stayed true to herself, and I liked her silly camaraderie with Corran and her caring for Luke. *hugs Mara Jade*
Elegos' appearance in the later parts of the book was interesting because I thought he was a Timothy Zahn creation. Nope! I, Jedi, was published before Vision of the Future. Again, it shows that some authors can work together and keep the character the same even in different books and by different people. Although, on second thought, I think Stackpole did a better job with hitting the fine line between pacificism and just letting the bad guys do whatever they want: Elegos was prepared to do what was necessary to protect himself and others, but he just prefers not to. Zahn seemed to say that Elegos would always be a passive bystander no matter what.
ANYWAY back to I, Jedi. There were a couple things I didn't like. The fact that Mirax is kidnapped for most of the book means we don't get to see much of her, which is a shame because she's a great character. There was a lot of life when she got back in the game. Ah, well. Also, the climax and ending felt rather tacked-on to me, for various reasons that would be spoiler-ish to mention.
But that was really my only big complaint. Oh, just kidding: I was also mildly annoyed at how Corran is very careful to kill the least amount of people during the whole book, but then at the end with the stormtroopers he's just like trigger-happy. Er, lightsaber-happy. Either it was a cheap shot from Stackpole to make the ending more exciting, or everyone really DOES think stormtroopers are sub-human. Either way, a tad annoying.
Corran really does get the Best Jedi award from me. He always chooses the path that protects the most people and keeps the most people from dying. He has an ego and is sometimes selfish but he works around it. He doesn't rely on JUST the Force but also his piloting ability, his investigative skills, and his heart (to use a cheesy overused phrase). I think just about every other Jedi I've ever "met" could learn a LOT from Corran. show less

This book, besides everything else, is a stunning example of what the Expanded Universe novelists could do if they paid attention to each other and worked not only to make a good story but make a good story that complements the rest of the EU stories.
Michael Stackpole, the author, is mostly known for his novels in the X-Wing series. I, Jedi manages to combine the awesomeness of those books, along with a lot of Jedi mumbo-jumbo (I say this affectionately), a rescue mission, a character journey, and the entire Jedi Academy trilogy....into one book. Several characters created by other authors, notably Mara Jade and Kyp Durron, make small or large appearances in the book, and Stackpole manages to stay true to their characters while still show more keeping them sidelined to Corran Horn's story. I knew SOMEONE out there should be able to do it. It seems like the EU is a lot more categorized and boxed-up nowadays. For instance, Troy Denning is only "allowed" to write about bugs and Ewoks, Timothy Zahn keeps to his Chiss, Mara Jade, and Talon Karrde, and Kevin J. Anderson keeps to his Academy. This irritates me. Why shouldn't the EU authors be able to overlap better? Stackpole can.
I had to remind myself several times that this wasn't a big space epic, like the Corellian Trilogy (or the original trilogy, for that matter), it wasn't a adventure story like Outbound Flight. I, Jedi is exactly what it sounds like: a look into a character who is becoming a Jedi, how he gets there and how he deals with the powers and the philosophy. Since it's more about Corran's character journey rather than any particular super-weapon that needs destroying or Dark Lord that needs vanquishing, the storyline does suffer at some points.
But this book does the character-journey line EXCELLENTLY. It reminded me how very much I love Corran Horn. He's a pilot, he's an investigator, and, in this book, he's becoming a Jedi. All awesome powers rolled into one.
The book begins with Corran returning from a Rogue mission to discover that not only is his wife, Mirax, gone, but he can't feel her in the Force, either, other than she's alive. Persuaded by friends that if he goes after her she'll just be put in danger, Corran goes to Luke's shiny new Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 to learn freakish powers so he can save his wife.
This is where the JA trilogy comes in. The first half of I, Jedi, chronicles Corran's part in those events, which I thought was a fascinating way to write a book. You get a lot of insight into how the "normal" trainees reacted to all the insanity, and, more importantly (to me) you get out of Luke's head, which got pretty insufferable in that trilogy In My Opinion.
Again, I liked Mara Jade's various appearances in the book. She stayed true to herself, and I liked her silly camaraderie with Corran and her caring for Luke. *hugs Mara Jade*
Elegos' appearance in the later parts of the book was interesting because I thought he was a Timothy Zahn creation. Nope! I, Jedi, was published before Vision of the Future. Again, it shows that some authors can work together and keep the character the same even in different books and by different people. Although, on second thought, I think Stackpole did a better job with hitting the fine line between pacificism and just letting the bad guys do whatever they want: Elegos was prepared to do what was necessary to protect himself and others, but he just prefers not to. Zahn seemed to say that Elegos would always be a passive bystander no matter what.
ANYWAY back to I, Jedi. There were a couple things I didn't like. The fact that Mirax is kidnapped for most of the book means we don't get to see much of her, which is a shame because she's a great character. There was a lot of life when she got back in the game. Ah, well. Also, the climax and ending felt rather tacked-on to me, for various reasons that would be spoiler-ish to mention.
But that was really my only big complaint. Oh, just kidding: I was also mildly annoyed at how Corran is very careful to kill the least amount of people during the whole book, but then at the end with the stormtroopers he's just like trigger-happy. Er, lightsaber-happy. Either it was a cheap shot from Stackpole to make the ending more exciting, or everyone really DOES think stormtroopers are sub-human. Either way, a tad annoying.
Corran really does get the Best Jedi award from me. He always chooses the path that protects the most people and keeps the most people from dying. He has an ego and is sometimes selfish but he works around it. He doesn't rely on JUST the Force but also his piloting ability, his investigative skills, and his heart (to use a cheesy overused phrase). I think just about every other Jedi I've ever "met" could learn a LOT from Corran. show less

If one can forget the totally unrealistic start of the main storyline (the main character`s wife kidnapped so he decided to.... go studying to be a jedi), it`s a fairly entertaining above average although a bit overwritten SW book.

It's amazing what they used to jam into Star Wars books; this is like 3 different arcs in one. It's fine content but there's a lot of weird heterosexuality (not like that the straightness itself is weird, just how it's phrased?) The whole thing at the beginning with the baby plot was uncomfortable, and I never want to read the word "loins" in another Star Wars book if I can help it, because it appeared WAY too many times here. Also it spans a lot of other books, which is cool if you know what happened there but could be confusing. It wasn't a terrible book, there were just a number of moments that made me roll my eyes.

I wanted to like this book. It is rated very well but I don’t see it. The book is too long, over 600 pages where I feel that less than half of that would have been adequate for this story.

The book is set sometime after the movies. Han and Leah have their twins. It has a few settings, all new places to this universe.

The book starts of very poorly. It felt like the author was putting words down just to get past the setup. Corran’s wife is kidnapped. He knows she was kidnapped and is held in stasis, but nothing else. This started off feeling wrong. Maybe the stasis is explained in the end, but it doesn’t seem rational. Nor why he can ascertain that and nothing else. It was just a setup so he has ample time to mess around becoming a show more powerful Jedi.

Other characters from the movie appear. Luke, the most prominent, doesn’t seem reasonable from the movie settings. He seems to fall out of character when Corran needs to make a point – mostly to the reader.

Backstory for Corran is often provided through dialog. As in “You remember when…” Then two characters discuss something in detail that both of them know.

Corran encounters lots of odd characters. Yet many of them appear only briefly and provide a critical skill or give him equipment he direly needs and didn’t realize he needed.

The writing is mediocre. The story line seemed interesting, but someone else should have told it. He goes to excess in making up words to create an otherworldly feel. It mostly just slows down the reading, although I do believe he has some skill at creating words that provide a good feel for the situation or thing described.

It felt contrived and overly dragged out with weak supporting characters. show less

Not only is this a good read and interesting as a first-person Star Wars novel (the only one thus far), it also serves neatly as "fix fic" to clear up some discrepancies and outright problems with "The Jedi Academy Trilogy." One of the best Star Wars titles of the Bantam line.

One of Stackpole's stronger works, the first person narrative makes things a lot more interesting than they'd otherwise be. Some solid action sequences, neat ideas on Jedi training and good characterisation round up a perfectly good Star Wars book.