All this Star Wars talk everywhere reminded me of two things:

1) I still unashamedly love the prequels and shall do a prequel marathon.

2) My favourite Star Wars inspired fiction, other than fernwithy's Father's Heart, remains a series of novels which are what modern fandom calls id fic these days - i.e. you know objectively that this fiction can be critisized for oh so many good reasons, that it won't ever win any awards, but they push fannish buttons/hit so many tropes you're fond of the right (for you) way that you don't care. What am I talking about? Margaret Weis' Star of the Guardians series, of course.

So, Margaret Weis. Probably most famous for writing Dragonlance together with Tracy Hickman. They also wrote some other series (which btw I prefer to Dragonlance) together, like the Deathgate Cycle and my favourite of theirs, the Rose of the Prophet trilogy. And they wrote separately. Star of the Guardians, which is arguably either a trilogy and an epilogue or a quarted, however, Margaret Weis wrote on her own. And I strongly suspect it originated as Star Wars fanfiction written after the original SW, aka A New Hope, hit the cinemas but before The Empire Strikes Back did, starting out as an AU wherein Leia is Vader's age and shares some of Obi-Wan Kenobi's narrative role. And then goes into a completely different direction from there.

The four books in question:

a) The trilogy: The Last King, King's Test, King's Sacrifice
b) The aftermath: Ghost Legion.

It never bothers to disguise its origins, btw: "Her mother was a princess from the Leia system" is said about Lady Maigrey, our heroine, in the first volume, and well, yes. Also we get lightsabers blood swords, psi powers by those yielding them, a Dark Lord War Lord who used to be a Jedi Guardian and was crucial in the fall of the previous political system and the hunting down of the other Jedi Guardians, a seemingly cynical mercenary and terrific pilot with a heart of gold, a naive young boy who at the start of the tale has no idea about who his parents really were and who seems to have the obligatory savior role, a vile old man who is the true villain behind it all, and AIs as the main comic relief. And yet, as I said, all these familiar balls are spun off in different directions.

For starters, and this is something why if you object to the books for it you have my complete understanding, instead of an Evil Empire, we have an Evil Republic which toppled the previous Well Intentioned But Weak Monarchy, and the endgame is a Good Monarchy. Said Evil Republic is pretty much your Anglosaxon cliché, mainly based on the French Revolution As Envisioned By Dickens And Baroness Orczy (people adress each other was "Citizen), with a dash of the Russian Revolution as perceived in Western Pop Culture (executed Royal Family! Secretly spirited away royal heir!) but also, more surprisingly, present day (as of time of publication, i.e. the 1990s) USA. (Less and less people vote, people are cynical about Congress, tv shows - or rather their sci fi equivalent - are key for political campaigns, and the talk show host is definitely a late 20th century USian one.) Also, there's the religion. If you've read anything by Margaret Weis, you may have noticed that she loves her religious tropes. There are either both true and false gods around (the false ones have fanatical adherents who get to embody all the evil religious tropes and are prone to cry "heresy!", but the good, true gods get only the sympathetic religious tropes - persecuted believers, compassion, healing, you get the idea), or officially decreed atheism versus suppressed religion (which is the case in Star of the Guardians). Again, if this puts you off for real life reasons, I completely understand.

(I also understand when you object to the books because Margaret Weis quotes Latin repeatedly but evidently can't speak it. Seriously, "et cum spiritu tuo" doesn't mean "and may his spirit be with you", it means "and with your spirit/mind" (it's the reply given in mass: "Peace be with you." "And with your mind.") She keeps reusing that phrase in the wrong translation, and it just irks me.)

With all those disclaimers in place, here's why I love those four novels anyway: first of all, Maigrey and Derek Sagan (that would be the Dark Lord Warlord), who embody one of my favourite tropes, and do it so well: friends/lovers turned enemies turning allies again. They have this history of incredible closeness and terrible betrayal, a push-pull dynamic, and because Maigrey is a Jedi Guardian, they're equally matched in every regard. They're also one of the few examples I know where "two characters having a telepathic bond" is pulled off as something that works with the characters, instead of providing a narrative short cut. (Being able to talk in their minds doesn't solve any of their problems with each other.) And they're both not youngsters anymore but in their 40s. I'm all for non-teenaged space opera best enemies!

There's also no denying that no matter their origin, all the characters are their own people. Tusk aka Mendaharin Tusca, the seemingly cynical pilot with whom Dion escapes early in the first novel after, you guessed it, Sagan has tracked down his guardian who raised him with lethal intentions, stops evoking Han Solo pretty early on. That his partner isn't a Wookie but his sarcastic flight computer XJ helps, as does Tusk quickly gaining a fellow mercenary, down-to-earth space trucker Nola, as a love interest. (Told you this all goes in very different directions than Star Wars did.) There are also characters with no equivalent in Star Wars (leaving the EU aside), like John Dixter (the fatherly general type, only in the day of the Evil Republic he's heading a troup of mercenaries). Some characters I side eyed at first (the Andonians are introduced as a camp, gay-coded bunch apparantly destined for cheap villainhood) only to be relieved and charmed later (the Andonian we see the most of, Raoul, is fabulously camp and very sympathetic). And for all that there's the amount of fighting you expect from a space opera, one of the heroes (introduced in a cameo in the second novel, graduating to a key character in the third) is a pacifist who is nonetheless in the thick of things, and not via suddenly learning to fight. And there's the way Margaret Weis can just mix a rolicking adventure, humor and tragedy. Plots and counter plots, duels, mind games, space battles, lots of conflicted feelings (not just between Maigrey and Derek Sagan, but also between Dion and the two of them), a dastardly main villain (Abdiel, who, to put it in a simplified way, can make people into zombies)...and of course there's a prophecy. Which gets fulffilled in a truly evil way, reminding me of Londo & G'Kar of Babylon 5 fame way, to put it cryptically.

Not every trope works for me. Dion experiences Love At First Sight in volume III, and I'm never sold on that particular relationship, which has consequences because it's important in volume IV. On the other hand, volume IV also features ( too spoilerly even as a trope ) So there is balance.

Speaking of balance: that's why I wouldn't stop - if you DO decide to read the books in spite of all the above mentioned problems - with King's Sacrifice. You could; the first three novels form a trilogy and its main plot ends there. But Ghost Legion not only wraps up the fate of a major character in a way King's Sacrifice didn't, it also provides some direly needed comfort (sort of) after the (necessary) hurt of one storyline, and it, as mentioned, introduces a very likeable character, Astarte, who also balances out the religious factor somewhat, since she's, among other things, High Priestess of a matriarchal religion centred around a Goddess, which isn't treated as lesser by the narration than the sci fi Christianity of the previous volumes. Oh, and after he got sidelined somewhat in volume III, Tusk gets a central role in Ghost Legion, which is also an example of "characters who never worked together before now doing so which proves unexectedly entertaining" because ( spoiler alert! ) One more thing re: Tusk: he's black, and the merceneries have female as well as male pilots (Maigrey isn't the only woman who gets to fight, nor are only warrior women featured), which puts them a step ahead of certain rebels in the movie that began it all.

In conclusion: it's derivative as hell (and not just of Star Wars - Margaret Weis evidently likes The Magnificent Seven, too, so they show up in volumes III and IV) - . it makes me laugh, it makes me cry, and I love it while being entirely aware of all the reasons why I shouldn't. And it's my favourite owing-its-origin-to-Star Wars fiction, no contest.