Review: True Colours, Karen Travis (Star Wars: Republic Commando 3)

[major_clanger]

True Colours, Karen Traviss

A little while ago I was down the pub talking to a fellow geek with an interest in sf. I can't remember why or in what context the conversation got around to media fiction but I commented that I'd actually quite enjoyed a couple of books by Karen Traviss set in the Star Wars universe. My new acquaintance looked at me as if I'd suddenly grown another head and simultaneously dropped half my IQ, and carefully enunciated "I don't read Star Wars novels."

Sad to say, a few years ago that might have been me. But then I met Traviss at a BSFA event, read her first SW novel, Hard Contact, and her mainstream sf Wess'har series. (Which I strongly recommend). Whilst I'm not exactly a convert to spin-offery as a whole, I'm certainly now much more sympathetic to good examples of it, and True Colours is definitely one of those.

What are the criticisms usually levelled at spin-off fiction? Most complaints seem to centre on the nature of the source material; that it is often unoriginal, hackneyed, based on poorly-conceived science, politics or history, or relies on characters that are either two-dimensional or so grounded in continuity that no personal development can be permitted. Granted, I've read the odd media tie-in for which these accusations carry a lot of weight. The writers' guidelines for Star Trek novels, for instance, enmesh prospective authors in a morass of dos and don'ts that sacrifice originality and depth on the altar of ensuring that nothing contradicts the Official View of Trek history.

So does Traviss do any better? On the face of it, her subject matter is not promising. How, after all, can you have characters more two-dimensional than armour-encased clones? And whilst most of the ire aimed at Attack of the Clones, the film that establishes the background of the Clone Troopers, was aimed at Lucas' appalling tin ear for dialogue, it's hardly difficult to pick holes in its plot. We have a supposedly galaxy-spanning war with an alliance capable of churning out battle droids by the cubic mile, and the Galactic Republic's response is "Whew! It's a good thing that someone ordered three million clone soldiers ten years back, even if we've only just found out about it." Not 'an initial batch of three million with production ramping up year-by-year', but three million, full stop - about the size of the British Army in 1945. Faced with such weak raw material, the challenge is for Traviss to spin something worthwhile out of it.

As it happens, she does a very good job of it. Her first challenge was to make interesting characters out of the Clone Troopers, by definition faceless most of the time and all sharing the same face even with their helmets off. To begin with, she slightly sidesteps the issue by centring not on the rank-and-file troopers, but rather on the Republic Commandos, an elite force introduced in an eponymous video game. RCs are intensively trained in squads of four, and groomed to express initiative and flexibility that implies a greater scope for developing distinct personalities. In a twist on this, the members of Omega Squad (introduced in the first novel of the sequence, Hard Contact, did not grow up together - RC-1136, -1309, -3222 and -8015 - alias Darman, Niner, Atin and Fi - are all sole survivors of their original squads, 'orphaned' after the climactic Battle of Geonosis at the end of AotC (which, Traviss suggests, was much more of a bloody mess, owing to the inexperience of Jedi commanders at organised warfare, than was presented in the film). The shock of losing their clone brothers, then having to come to terms with new squadmates who looked just like them, but had their own distinct personalities, was one of the driving plot elements of Hard Contact, and established strong characterisation that ensures that the main cast of True Colours are far more than generic troopers. Above all, though, Traviss has mined her own lengthy experience as a military reservist for character traits to flesh out her commandos, giving them an unmistakably British flavour. From slang to demeanour, Omega Squad are, well, squaddies - albeit for the most part very polite and disciplined ones.

When it comes to plot holes in the source, Traviss' attitude is clearly that when George Lucas gives you lemons, you make lemonade. A good part of the plot of True Colours arises from the growing realisation amongst Omega Squad and their commanders that the Clone Wars seem to make little sense, with the esteemed Chancellor Palpatine's strategy seeming only to lead to a thinly-spread Grand Army fighting to hold a stalemate. As one character acidly remarks, with no further clone production and a lack of strategic focus for existing forces, the logical end point will be three million planets each with a single Clone Trooper instructing the locals on how to hit droids with rocks. Except that by that point there won't be three million clones; another issue that is fast becoming the elephant in the room (or whatever Star Wars creature would serve in its place) for senior clones and their Jedi commanders is the question of what happens to those clones too badly injured to serve, and what will happen to the Grand Army if and when the war ends? I don't think it is reaching too far to see Traviss' manifest anger at the treatment of injured and retired soldiers of our own wars expressing itself in True Colours; hopefully it is a point that will not be lost on its readers.

True Colours works as a stand-alone novel, although I'd recommend reading Hard Contact and Triple Zero first to get a better introduction to Omega Squad and their friends, and to the various plot threads that form the backbone of the book. The fourth of Traviss' Republic Commando novels is out later in the year; it's to be titled Order 66, and if you went anywhere near Revenge of the Sith you'll have a damn good idea what it's going to be about. And if you've read the three previous novels, you can expect that, given Traviss' view that the Jedi were arrogant idiots who got their just desserts, it's going to make for pretty interesting reading.

Comments

[ben-jeapes.livejournal.com]

> the elephant in the room (or whatever Star Wars creature would serve
> in its place)

That I think would be a bantha ...

It does seem to be a fact that only those with experience of the forces (small "f") can write convincingly about the forces; and only those with experience of the British forces can do characters who are convincing, likeable and able to think for themselves. Discuss.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

[dalmeny]

On reason why I usually prefer fanfic to tie-ins the sort of crippling constraints that typically forced on tie-in authors, which limit artistic freedom. But if authors are given just enough freedom, there shouldn't be any reason for them not to excel.

(My favourite tie-in is still The Final Rfelection.)

[jamesb.livejournal.com]

`karen `travis is an excellent writer and `i think she has a realistic take on military stuff.

`but then `i loved `veitch's star wars comic and also `zahns original trilogy

`j