Starcraft: Shadow of the Xel’Naga | a Review
originally published on 26/07/2023;
Hello everyone, I am the funky monkey, born, not made: G.E.M.Simov, a creature so ancient I sometimes scare myself by recalling my age, and I’ve come here today to tell you about Gabriel Mesta’s book: “Starcraft: Shadow of the Xel’Naga”.
Simple review details - I rank books on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Content
Unlike the previous Starcraft book (Liberty’s Crusade) this one is, unfortunately, far less impressive in the field of its content, for it does not truly explore any concepts. There is a lot that happens in the book, and there are many, many characters, but what kind of concept is it that is explored?
Well, maybe there is political independence for cities? Perhaps the concept explored in this book, in its entirety, is that? But the lens through which it is examined is very distorting and improper. There is, indeed, a city that is its own state, but that is only because the city is the only settlement on an entire planet. I’m most certain that, were there other cities on the planet in question, the concept of a city’s political independence would not have been examined in this book.
Then what? Maybe it examines the way people react to others, and how they perceive strangers. There’s this new person, and I don’t trust them. Or, maybe, there’s this person and I just can’t trust them, even though they claim they’re trying to help me.
But then that’s not really new, nor is it explored at all. It is present as a concept, indeed, but it is not something that the book focuses on. Actually, now that I give it some thought, it seems as though the book does not focus on anything at all.
There are a few things that emanate a dim light, but it is not enough to truly shed light on anything. It seems as though things are inconsequential in it - which might be more related to the Story, rather than this field of examination, but it might be important to mention.
One of the three sapient races present in this are the Protoss, and the Protoss are characterized by their union in the Khala, by their incredibly religious society and the fact that the union in the aforementioned Khala is a psychic one, connecting all Protoss’ minds. As it stands, with a religious society based on warriors - as the Protoss are also, seemingly, very centered on war (by necessity) - they are split into castes.
That caste system is only mentioned, however. There is no focus on it, there is no great attention paid to it. The caste system exists only in passing, and there’s no thought given to that caste system, even if it had the potential to be something incredibly interesting.
Maybe the Terrans (humans) will present us with something worthwhile? Well, there might be something about… About governments claiming things (such as land) without the permission of those to whom this land belongs. Or, perhaps, the fact that governments who claim land do not bother with explaining what the claiming of said land will mean for the previous owners, or rather inhabitants, of the land.
Perhaps that’s not it, as I feel myself grasping at straws with that one. Maybe it’s the way war is handled, maybe it’s the fact that during wartime the rights of citizens are lessened, so that those involved in the war may do their own thing? Or, perhaps, the concept is based around the reduction of human lives to a statistic?
But that idea was far better explored in the previous book… Partially because it was explored, rather than simply being thrown out there.
Is there anything in this book that… That means anything? That matters? That might be worth something? Well, strangely enough, there’s no such thing. I must grasp at straws. I must interpret things and give them meaning, otherwise “Shadow of the Xel’Naga” remains an enigmatic pile of nothing.
The most prominent thing is contentment, I suppose. Being content with what life offers you, being content with working for your livelihood and barely having any time for yourself. Or, maybe it isn’t that sort of contentment, but the sort of contentment derived from doing something. The farmer’s life is depicted as rough and harsh, but rewarding, satisfying…
I’m spent, though. There really is nothing that’s examined in detail. This is a dreadfully shallow book, and I can’t really find any concepts that are explored in more detail than just a number of consecutive sentences which wind up repeated two or three times. 0/3
Richness of Expression
I don’t want to say anything bad about Gabriel Mesta. In reality, Gabriel Mesta isn’t actually the writer, that’s just his pseudonym, but as I read this book, I felt an overwhelming sense of displeasure. The manner of expression was just… Wrong.
First, there’s far too much repetition. Information is repeated over and over again, sometimes twice within a single chapter, and the chapters are relatively short. There’s so much regurgitation that I feel the book could have easily been around 100 pages shorter and nothing of value would have been lost.
Then, there are also some whole chapters that do not feature anything, during which nothing happens. They are just a regurgitation of information, coupled with a single tidbit of new knowledge for the reader, most often just an indication that “this happened”.
In addition to that, there appears to be far too much in the way of adjectives. Perhaps it isn’t that the adjectives are too many, but, rather, the way the adjectives are used, or the adjectives that are used. It seems as though there’s an overabundance of them, and then many of them seem to be inappropriate, which does strike me as problematic, due to the fact that an improper adjective is worse than a missing adjective.
In conjunction with those issues, though, there’s a very clear indication that this book is about a video game. If I were to take all the recognizable names from this book, those that make it Starcraft, and replaced them with some other set of names, even if the names were completely random, it would still be painfully obvious that the book is inspired heavily by a game. The book is written as an expansion to a game.
That’s owed up to the way certain things are described. There are whole paragraphs that focus on concepts from the game, concepts that are not necessary for the story, concepts that do not, at all, contribute to the coherency of the tale told or the clarity of the message conveyed. In fact, they do the opposite, because they introduce an additional layer of stuff that the reader needs to sift through so as to find anything of value.
It is made manifest in things that are far too systematic, far too simple and broad, whilst actually being a lot more complex than what is described. Another manifestation can be found in the game-esque manner of expression, or the urge to involve absolutely everything from the game into the book. This story features a stupendous amount of units from the game - some of which really didn’t need to be mentioned.
Underwhelming and disappointing, I suppose is the way to describe it, as the previous entry in the Starcraft book franchise was a real banger… 1/3
Story
This could be considered the strongest part of the book. Or, rather, the strongest aspect of the book, as there was some real potential… However the book needed to be two times longer than it, effectively, was.
As a result of the fact that this book is not that long, the plot threads that wind up appearing tend to go about disappearing very haphazardly… So I’ll just summarize what happens.
On the distant colony of Bhekar Ro, a very nasty storm causes an earthquake and a green-ish artifact surfaces. It is discovered by Lars and Octavia Bren, but as they’re examining it it ‘activates’ and consumes Lars, after which it fires a beam of energy into space.
Octavia reports to the colony, but they figure they’ll just be careful. Around the same time the beam sent by the artifact is picked up by a Protoss fleet (led by Executor Koronis), by a single Dark Templar (Xerana) and zergified Kerrigan (The Queen of Blades). Each of them sets off in pursuit of the artifact - Kerrigan doing so by sending an entire brood of Zerg.
An Observer is sent by Koronis, which Observer is shot down by the automated rocket tower in the middle of town. The colonists are spooked and they have a council at which they decide to contact the Confederacy (for the first time in 40 years). Turns out, however, that the Confederacy is no more, and instead there’s a Terran Dominion, led by Emperor Arcturus Mengsk.
Mengsk sends general Edmund Duke to help the colony. Octavia, feeling a great disturbance in the force (not really, but kinda) drives her harvester combine up to the artifact and tries to destroy it, only to get blasted with lightning (and get out unharmed). She now has to walk back home. Meanwhile, the Zerg and the Protoss arrive and start fighting in orbit. Some of the Protoss - Koronis included - land by the artifact, which is a Xel'Naga creation, and set about fortifying the position. The Zerg land somewhere and assault some of the distant colonist homes.
Octavia passes by Rastin’s Refinery, which was visited by the Zerg, and she gets attacked by the inhabitants - Old Blue, Rastin’s blue-furred dog, and Rastin himself - who have been zergified. Here, the story introduces a new type of Zerg - the Old Blue Zerg - but that’s all that actually happens. The Old Blue Zerg shows up in the future, but it has the same effect as an ordinary zergling. It is inconsequential and has no bearing on the story, and did not need to reappear.
Then, as she flees with Rastin’s tractor, she’s attacked by Hydralisks but manages to avoid getting merked. She makes it back to town and shows the colonists, and then they have another council… And Octavia, who’s established as a tech-guru, whips out immaculate orator skills and convinces the colonists that they need to arm themselves and defend themselves from the Zerg.
Following that, she takes on the role of commander and defines a perimeter whilst also devising a strategy, gives out orders and does a lot of… You know, being strangely adept at being a commander.
Then the Zerg attack the colony. At the same time, the forces of Edmund Duke arrive in orbit and decide to duke it out with both the Zerg and the Protoss. He takes a big L (while the colony on the ground is slaughtering Zerg left and right, with old-time weapons and farm equipment), and orders a retreat. The colony on the ground gets its perimeter breached and then the colonists start duking it out with the Zerg in hand-to-hand combat and hold out.
Finally, Duke receives a transmission from the colony’s Mayor, who’s screaming for help, and decides to land on the planet. While he’s doing his thing, the colonists manage to fight back the Zerg by blowing up the town’s vespene gas storage facilities.
That’s when Duke arrives - just as a second wave of Zerg is about to swallow the town - and saves the day. Martial law gets put in place and stuff’s a little dire. No one is allowed to leave the perimeter, the farms are being trampled, the food supplies are being seized.
Octavia feels a presence. Another disturbance in the force, if you will, and sneaks out of the town. She encounters Xerana, who is surprised by the fact a human has responded to her call. The Dark Templar shares that Octavia should urge the humans to leave the planet, as the artifact is dangerous for everyone, and that it’ll be gone, regardless of what happens, in a couple of days.
Octavia and Xerana promise one another that they’re going to do their best to convince their races to leave, but, unfortunately, they both fail. Edmund Duke isn’t having any of it as an attempted assault on the Protoss position around the artifact fails and he calls in a Ghost, picking the nuclear option. The ghost informs Duke that Octavia is a natural born telepath, but that’s all. Literally. Duke then has Octavia dragged out of his command center, while Xerana is apprehended for being a Dark Templar and her warnings are not heeded.
Octavia returns to their meeting place the next night, with Xerana escaping her detainment and having a chat with the human girl. Unfortunate as it is, it is what it is, the Protoss muses, and they’re about to just give up, when the Ghost earlier shown drops the nuke on the artifact.
The artifact absorbs the nuke’s energy, then it consumes EVERY Protoss and Zerg on the planet (excluding Xerana, somehow), after which it gives birth to/becomes some radiant being of energy, which flies into space, destroying all of the remaining ships under Duke’s control, and disappears.
Xerana leads Octavia to the location of the artifact, which is now vacant of the artifact. The land is incredibly fertile, and Lars (as well as some of Duke’s soldiers sent in the artifact to do recon) are miraculously back there, alive.
The end.
In short - this is a story in which something happens… But then it almost didn’t really need to happen. Lars dies, and it’s very sad, but not too sad, and then Lars is alive and well. Octavia is a telepath, but nothing comes of it - it’s just told to the reader and left to hang in the air. Duke plays strategy games, beats them all, then goes on to be portrayed as unbelievably inept, almost to the point of being comic relief.
Xerana is introduced early on into the book, and there’s a supposition that she will be a main character, but then she shows up 50 pages before the very end of the book, with a large swath of nothing in between. There are other characters that are strangely developed, but their deeds are almost entirely pointless in regards to the story.
Octavia felt as though she was far too capable at everything she did, which bothered me slightly. Not only that, but it seems as though she managed to escape certain death, or at least situations that should have spelled certain death, without any issue.
Every character felt underdeveloped. Who was this person? Who was this person? There was Edmund Duke who is known to the reader from the previous installment of the Starcraft book franchise, as well as the game itself, who seems to literally just be a slapstick joke, a caricature of the confident and capable military man - in this case incredibly incapable but monstrously confident.
There was Koronis, who was characterized as being a reasonable fellow, if a bit mellow, who was driven by nationalism and patriotism. There was Amdor, who was religious fanatic to a T and nothing more or less. There was Scott, a lieutenant of Duke’s, whose only character trait is ‘being a veteran and being tired of war’, which trait is mentioned in a single sentence at the end of the book.
There was Octavia, the main character, who… Who did not seem to have any motivation. She was a reasonable, good guy type of character, and all she wanted throughout the entirety of the story was to set things right. Her character arc involved her going from being unable to understand why her grandparents had decided they wanted to live on this rock, separated from everyone and everything (especially politics) to being totally pleased with just being a farmer on the fringest of fringe worlds, unbothered by anybody.
I suppose one could reason there was a semblance of a hero’s journey here, but that’s really not the main thing. The big issue would be the plot threads that appear and then disappear. It seems as though there’s something that’s going to be done with X or Y, but then what does get done is nothing impressive or interesting, or that something is nothing, or that thing that gets done with X or Y could’ve just been achieved with a zergling or shouting.
There are so many characters in this book, many of whom are barely in the book, which characters are supposed to be interesting or compelling for the story to have any weight, but I couldn’t even find myself interested in Octavia’s fate. I just could not care less, she was the ‘character who dies in the opening scene to a horror film’ at the start, but she didn’t die, and she remained that same character - a blank slate that wasn’t much of anything.
It was something, but not something good. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this book get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? The answer, ladies, gentlemen and N-bees, is quite simple. It is a gentle, but firm NO. The reasons, well, I’ve listed them all in the previous three parts of the review. The book was, simply… A mess. Not a loveable one. 0/1
Conclusion
2/10. I am impressed by my performance in reviewing this book. I really, REALLY had no desire to say anything about it, because there really wasn’t anything to say about it. It was so uninspiring and lacking in the provocative zing of a proper book, especially one that is claiming to be Science Fiction, that I just flipped through the pages, intrigued by how the author was going to get the characters out of their debacle next. I wouldn’t even want to recommend it to a fan of Starcraft, as it… It doesn’t do anything. It’s just… It just is, much like a rock is.
On the wall of shame I’ll hang it. It’s a shame, because Starcraft provides so much opportunity for interesting storytelling, for interesting and compelling contemplation… Instead, we got this. A shame, indeed.