So, the first day of my little quest is over, and I'm ahead of schedule - though I suspect that won't last long. I finished the first two trade paperbacks in the old Tales of the Jedi series - The Golden Age of the Sith and The Fall of the Sith Empire. These are the two earliest items (chronologically) in my collection, and I'll be honest, I haven't read either one in years. As I was re-reading them today, I remembered why - they're just not that compelling. In truth, their lousy stories to start a saga like Star Wars with. They are, in essence, merely set up for the superior Tales of the Jedi series that were actually written before them. Perhaps another issue with them is that they are entirely written by Kevin J. Anderson, everyone's favorite EU author to hate (mostly with good reason - like this series).

I won't go so far as to say they're all bad - truth be told, the basic premise/plot of these two stories are solid - the first "second coming" of the Sith, who had been exiled for thousands of years. And really, the Sith just keep coming back, again and again and again, throughout all of Star Wars. George Lucas was big on recurring themes, and in a sense, the EU in a whole recounts those themes rather dramatically - good vs. evil and all that. But if we were to take this at complete face value, is it ever possible to defeat a particular evil, or will it always return, again and again, thousands of years apart? Perhaps it's a bit too early to start in on that kind of philosophical thinking.

Anyway, back on topic, the Sith Empire Duology (because let's face it, they're just one single story) is fine in concept - but executed poorly. The art varies a lot (and there's more than one artistic mistake I found along the way that I'd either never noticed before or forgotten about in the years since I've read these last), but it's the story/dialogue that hurts the most. Anyone who complains that Lucas writes stiff dialogue (something I'd argue, and probably will later on as we get to the stuff he's actually written), should avoid Anderson's work all-together. Every other line in these books seems like the characters are all but speaking TO the reader, as if the pictures are too unclear as to explain what's happening to the story. This is especially evident in the second book (Fall), in which the "battle" sequences are almost laughably poorly written - all the Jedi on Coruscant ever seem to do is talk about how the Sith are invading the city, and somehow THAT drives them off - though, to be fair, if I had to listen to some of that drivel being spewed at me, I'd be tempted to leave, too. It amazes me that there are whole tangents/subplots in this series that seemed thrown in to cover a weak story stretched too long (today, a quality writer could pull this off in maybe six or seven issues and loose nothing of import - I'd love to see John Ostrander take a shot at re-writing this whole series).

Both of these series read like some kind of outline of a real story - as if Anderson had planned on writing a novel, had it rejected by Lucasfilm, and was then told to turn it into a comic idea. None of the characters are fleshed out at all, including the supposed leads, Gav and Jori Daragon, nor the primary villain, Naga Sadow (who, admittedly, has one of the cooler villain names in Star Wars that doesn't start with "Darth" or "Grand Admiral"). Oddly enough, the one thing that I usually fault Anderson most for in his writing (poor timing) is surprisingly absent here. Yes, large chunks of time seem to fly by without so much as an eye blink, but there are no characters left hanging in imminent peril for the better part of three or four days/weeks/months while other characters "catch up" with them. But, since I'll rant all about this later on (Jedi Academy Trilogy, for sure), I'll just say I was surprised that didn't happen here - though maybe there just wasn't a place to leave Gav hanging from a cliff by his fingernails while we followed Jori around for three years as a prisoner of Empress Teta or some such nonsense.

Anyway, my final grades are as follows:

Story: C+ (good concept, poorly executed)
Art: B- (Stylistically consistent, but too many obvious errors here and there)
Impact: B (sure it impacts every other Anderson work to follow, but it barely touches on the real subject we all want to read about - the ancient Sith)
Overall: C+ (and I almost feel guilty giving it the plus)

Next up, the original Tales of The Jedi five-part mini series, featuring Ulic Qel-Droma and Nomi Sunrider (There's two more classic Star Wars names right there).

Current Page Count: 254
Days to Go: 364