Note: While the below text represents a brief review of this specific Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear entry, a greater retrospective on the entire series, complete with images and footnotes, can be found here on my site, dendrobibliography.

Planet Plague, the third book in the Galaxy of Fear series, is a big improvement over the first two in telling a coherent, enjoyable plot. Despite being written in (reportedly) a frenzied 48-hour span with no sleep, the adventure Tash, Zak and the whole family faces on the Gobindi planet is far more cohesive than the first two books.

Shortly after their escape from City of the Dead's zombies, Zak's having medical aftereffects, and the family finds themselves touching down on the planet Gobindi to get medical attention and visit a contact of Uncle Hoole's in the Imperial Biological Welfare Division. Keeping with the theme of anthropology, Gobindi holds an interesting history to explore: The planet contains massive cities of nothing but temples towering over dense jungles: Empty cities, as the original inhabitants all vanished long ago. (Where they originally got the material to build such places, no one knows.)

As in the prior two books, Planet Plague features a guest appearance from a well-known Star Wars celebrity. Corellian pilot Wedge Antilles provides a helping hand to the rest of our heroes.

And just as before, things aren't as they appear on the planet, and, as our heroes soon find out, a horrific virus is spreading among all the visiting aliens. The virus effectively uses the DNA of whatever biological matter it infects to replicate itself at a terrifying rate, resulting in people appearing to turn into gargantuan, parasitic blobs. By no surprise, the virus is a piece of the greater Project Starscream puzzle defining the first six books in the series, and the Imperial Biological Welfare Division is really a Weapons division run by the Project Starscream mastermind.

While I love and applaud the Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear series, and each entry has so far improved on the prior's faults, they certainly have consistent problems. John Whitman wasn't a writer, but an editor for translating comics and books into radio dramas for LucasFilm, and his prose consequently feels like an outline: like a headlong rush through the plot, originally intended to be acted out with crackling lightsabers and squawking alien life forms providing the soundtrack. That works more towards Planet Plague's favor, since the whole story takes place over only a few hours.

One of the worst consistencies are the prologues that tie the first six Galaxy of Fear books together in a cohesive arc. In a scene right out of Inspector Gadget, it always features an evil, scarred scientist in a dark, Imperial cave, looking over a myriad of flashing computer screens, analyzing his latest failed experiments and the happy-go-lucky kids that accidentally -- unknowingly -- defeated him. But! -- he always has a back-up plan! A new nefarious scheme that will show those meddling kids what-for, full of cliche lines and family-friendly curses. This time -- this time! -- those kids will rue the day they messed with Dr. Evil Scientist Man. And, for that matter, so will his bosses in Empire. So will everyone! The whole galaxy will bow down before his evil genius!

Those prologues are necessary to tie the story together, but with Whitman's writing faults, and only at 3 pages on average, they can only convey the weakest and the briefest of stereotypes to propel whatever fun Star Wars adventure comes next. Even though the faults are still faulty, and the scares more thrills, Planet Plague is a step in the right direction for the series, and provided some of my fondest memories for the series.

John Whitman's Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear (1997–1998):
#2 City of the Dead | #4 The Nightmare Machine ( )

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