Talk:Impact Events

Ataru's review
Finally finished reading Impact Events. As I expected from a novel written by Goodwood, the technical polish is superb. Out of all the major writers on SWF, I'd rate Goodwood as generally the most polished writer. If the finesse of the author's writing appeals to you, you'll like Impact Events.

Overall, though, the narrative is disappointing on a holistic level. Impact Events lacks a defining conflict. It has a bunch of little conflicts, but doesn't particularly delve into them. This can work, but only if the reader is allowed to strongly resonate with the protagonist(s) and their journey,. I don't get that sense in Impact Events.

If you're avoiding spoilers, skip down to the end of the review.

If the novel wanted to have a central defining conflict, it should have stopped with the exorcism on Silas and actually fleshed out that plot. The reader almost has to have read TGLF right before reading this, because there are many references to Sa'ari culture. I read TGLF about a year ago and I couldn't tell you what a lighter is. There's just not enough context, especially for readers who are not emotionally invested into the S'aari.

There was so much potential. Laera was going to adapt to life in this new era with Silas. Then boom, aurodium parachute. Toss in a couple canon-friendly sidekicks, who join up with her because she's cool and a vision conveniently told them to find her. Add in HK-47, because he's cool. And a member of the author's invented species, because they're cool too. The fact that any element of hardship was summarily scrubbed from her life in a few pages of writing was a huge disappointment.

Never mind the incongruity of all these throwback things still being good 3500 years later for no good plot reason at all. The most ridiculous was eating bruallki from 3500 years ago. In fact, the ship and its contents are perfectly intact after 3500 years. Yes, I'm fully aware that it was vacuum-sealed, but that means no power failure, seismic event, battle, accident, or weather event disrupted that seal for 3500 years. Next, a 3500-year outpost is still intact and in working order. There could have been some tension and danger, but she just waltzes in through a secret entrance, which is still intact because erosion and tectonics have done nothing on Bad Alshir for 3500 years.

Let's add onto that the incredulity of the Bank of Bothawui holding an investment fund for 3500 years. It's such a contrived occurrence. With all the strife that happened in that time period, no major economic collapse or invasion ever ruined that investment? And not only does she get filthy rich, she gets a cool ship that is still an effective combatant and has a hyperdrive in comparison with current ships. For that matter, the bunch of Uglies it fights were obsolete thirty years ago. These must be the dumbest (or the poorest) pirates in the galaxy. You'd think there'd be more surplus military gear after the YVW and 2GCW. What would have made sense was for Laera to use her newly-acquired wealth to buy a ship rather than having an ancient freighter destroy an entire pirate band like it's Empire at War versus the AI. The closest analogy I can think of is Laera using the HMS Bounty to fight off Somalian pirates. Silas says "the tech hasn't changed that much either," which is a convenient way to explain away why Laera has a cool ship from the throwback era and why Silas can somewhat fly it.

I also had high hopes for Asyr and Ooryl, but after they meet Laera, they become nothing more than sidekicks. They are relegated strictly to supporting characters and get no development. I had high hopes for the scene where Bellinega is expelled from Silas's mind, but it happens relatively quickly and rather than persuading her, they just push her out until she's too weak to continue. It was a wasted opportunity to do something beside the brute force approach.

I did not care for how Laera was characterized either. There's self-pity from Laera, both from Silas' perspective and hers. "She had had enough of this, constantly being dumped on by an uncaring universe." I mean, jeez, must suck having arrived forward in time only to get billions of credits and a crew full of sidekicks. It'd make more sense if she expressed significant grief for all the people that were lost&mdash;but she doesn't. She's not that confused or hurt by being hurled 4000 years in the future. Culture shock is minimized. She gets a Force vision that tells her exactly what to do with herself. She doesn't once vocalize the fear that she might lose Silas during his stint at being possessed. When she's mentally "raped," it takes her less than two pages to reconcile and forgive the assailant. Silas is so whipped that he's not even angered when she tells him what happened.

There were a few other minor things in the story that just made me cringe. In Chapter 2, the Bothan species is established as having shrunk by .25 meters over 3500 years, but the language is the same. I'm sure excuses could be made about how Bothan culture has evolved very little over 3500 years, but it's so starkly out of contrast with reality that I didn't care for it. It's a convenient excuse to prevent any kind of real culture shock. Laera also uses the Force on the Bothan waitress in Chapter 2 unnecessarily. I could be wrong, but randomly using the Force was not something in her character in previous books. Chapter 3 also states that they have no idea about inflation, yet Laera estimates how much things would cost in order to live/eat when they sell their marine gear. Chapter 3 also has a droid walking around with a blaster rifle on a civilized world. Which seems illegal, given NEGTD's comment on assassin droids being restricted. Chapter 4 has Laera and Silas falling asleep en route to their award, because sitting in a luxury speeder surrounded by armed guards apparently incites no adrenalin in them. "As good as beskar'gam, for whatever that's worth. Heavy, though.” No, sorry, Silas, nothing from 3500 years ago is as good as Traviss's plot armor. This is the author attempting to correct/molest existing canon. Lastly, the two worst-contrived names in Goodwood's entire body of work: "the WTF bomb" and the "Jiphad" (jihad) references are neither clever or funny. I literally facepalmed at both of them.

Spoilers end

If The Great Leap Forward was a step forward in Goodwood's writing, Impact Events is two steps back. The disjointed plot, unbelievable scenarios, and weak characterization finally overpower Goodwood's technical skill in writing. Now, I am fully aware that one of my own works has this same sort of journey-oriented story rather than a central conflict. So as to not be hypocritical, 1) that's a weak point in the work, and I've matured as a writer since my first piece of fan-fiction 2) that work is having its ending cleaned up to streamline the meandering plot, 3) if I can say so, the characterization and more believable plot scenarios work somewhat in its favor. That's up for dispute, of course, but I'm not judging IE solely based on its lack of central conflict, because stories can work without one.

I wanted to like Impact Events, but in the end, there wasn't enough to like. I predicted the ending after Chapter 9 and only Chapter 13's slight plot twist (addressed in 2 pages of terse text that spilled into Ch. 14) deviated from that prediction. All of the characters except Laera and Ari are flat. The antagonists are laughably weak, as are the obstacles posed to the protagonists. If Laera had many things handed to her on a silver platter in the earlier installments of the series, it was replaced by an aurodium table and place setting in Impact Events. I don't get the title either.

In conclusion, I only recommend Impact Events to those who are ardent devotees of Goodwood's writing and want to read what happened next. I feel it's a disappointment on the narrative level even if the technical writing is, as always from Goodwood, superb. I rip into it on this review not because I want to discourage or attack the author, but because I feel he delivered a sub-standard piece of fan-fiction when I've seen him do better. Now, I suspect Goodwood can rationalize or defend many of these criticisms. I believe his confidence as a writer won't be shaken by this review which took way too long to write, and my belief in my evaluation is firm. Final rating: 1.5 out of 5 for narrative, 4.5 out of 5 for technical. Atarumaster88  ( Talk page ) 19:30, February 16, 2012 (UTC)