Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, funny and pageturner
Review: Although it was written less than a year after A new hope had been released, it still keeps its freshness and attraction.
The plot goes around the misfits Luke and Leia must go under while trying to help an old force-sensitive woman (never mentions she was a former Jedi) to get a powerful crystal that could enhance the Force.
The story gets a little "pink" in my opinion about Luke and Leia, but how could you ever imagine they were brother and sister?
And the end makes you chew your nails with the supposed "first" encounter between Luke vs Vader (actually it''s the second, the first is the one which appears in Vader's quest) and...
Well, you'd better read it by yourself...
Rating: 
Summary: This book is great...
Review: As long as you remember that it was first published back in the early 80s the movies were not done yet. For example things might get a little steamy between Luke and Leia but thats alright because the author didn't know that they were brother and sister. I also liked the idea of an imperial offical that actually CAN THINK. I loved the movies but that little part of the story line where the underdog rebels always beat an over confident empire gets a little tireing. We meet some new charecters in this book that are also well worth the money(because except for the normal charecters you would expect they never show up in a star wars book agian) some are quite memorable.
Rating:
Summary: THE STAR WARS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN
Review: The first novel to take the adventures of Luke Skywalker beyond what we now call Episode IV: A New Hope, "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" drops Luke and Leia onto a primitive jungle planet where the stranded duo must contend with bizarre alien tribesmen, ravenous monsters, labrynthine caves, and roving bands of Imperial stormtroopers--all the while coming ever closer to the romance early Star Wars fans thought was written in the stars. While fleeing the Empire's soldiers, Luke and Leia learn from a Force-sensitive old woman that the backwater planet they've chanced on is home to a mythical crystal that can give its wielder heretofore unimagined power over the Force itself. But Luke and Leia aren't the only ones in on the revelation: the promise of even greater power lures Darth Vader himself, setting up a spell-binding climax including a lightsaber duel that compares favorably with any the films have offered thus far. Naturally, no novel written in '78 can jive with the Star Wars continuity as the movies have developed it since then, but that's not the author's fault. Alan Dean Foster has been of the world's best sci-fi writers for years, and "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" is first class storytelling. Contitnuity nothwithstanding, this is an outstanding and thoroughly entertaining stand-alone novel. What else matters?
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad. Not good either.
Review: This book takes place between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. It was interesting, but not the best by far. Leia, escorted by Luke, was on her way to Circarpous to enlist their Rebel underground in the battle against the Empire. Thier ships crash on a jungle planet known as Mimban. Hidden on the planet was a crystal that had controlable power over the force. Now, with Vader on the planet, Luke and Leia have to race to find it. Along with the two droids, their new friend Halla, and two Yuzzems.
In this book, you can tell Luke and Leia have a strong connection with each other. They pretty much stay in character, except they act like a bunch of little kids. Han Solo and Chewbacca are left out. Which was dissapointing to me, since Han is my favorite character. All in all, this was a decent book that all fans should read.
Rating: 
Summary: Comic book material
Review: Reading Splinter of the Mind's Eye gives you a different perspective of the Star Wars universe before the Empire Strikes Back movie arrived. Alan Dean Foster sets about a story where Luke and Leia travel to Circarpous IV to sway the inhabitants to join the Rebel Alliance. Well, they never get there and end up on Mimban which seems similar to Dagobah. Luke, Leia, Threepio and R2, find themselves on a planet run secretly by Imperials using locals and slaves to work the mines. Luke and Leia get in trouble in a local bar/eatery and are imprisoned, but the Imperials do not know them. Before this takes place, they meet a woman, named Halla, who possesses a shard from the Kaiburr Crystal which supposedly enhances the Force to the one who possesses it. Luke and Leia manage to escape the Imperials with the help of Halla, but not before they draw interest to the local Captain who in turn informs the Governor of that sector. There's action as Luke, Leia and the rest of the crew seek to find the crystal, while being pursued by Imperials, and other creatures of Mimban. Eventually, Darth Vader shows up, and there is a duel between Vader and Luke for the crystal near the end. The book seemed mostly like a comic book story, but was interesting how Alan Dean Foster portrayed the characters, and apparently not knowing Lucas's plans for the future as Luke and Leia appear to have a strong attraction to each other.
Rating:
Summary: Worse than "the Ewoks Battle for Endor"
Review: The best thing about this book is the cover art in my opinion, and yes I am a huge Star Wars fan. Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa travel to a distant planet to recruit new members for the alliance. On the way, they crash on a jungle planet (similar to Dagobah) and get caught up in a search for a crystal that contains special powers (how original). Darth Vader tries to thwart their quest, and a battle ensues. Ok, sounds interesting. First of all, the plot was way too simplistic. Nothing really interesting happens (who really wants to read about a crystal that contains special powers?) It's been done to death. There's no dramatic space battles- a first for a Star Wars story, no futuristic cities, the original quest of Luke and Leia was never concluded, and the ending is rushed. In general, SOTME is poorly written and has nothing to get excited about. It's an adventure, but far from the usual sci fi standard. I was expecting an exciting climax, maybe a few plot twists, or a cool lightsaber duel but it just fizzled out. The portrayal of Vader was amusing and unrealistic, Alan made him into a big scary boogie man that gets hit by blaster fire, shakes his fist at Luke and Leia, then falls into a pit at the end. Come on, that's pathetic. This is the dark lord of the sith, not some weak villain who gets outsmarted and outdueled by a punk like Luke. This story has nothing to do with the movies (obviously) and I find it laughable that this was intended to be the low budget followup to the first movie if ANH failed at the box office. It was just boring, I couldn't wait for it to be over. It reminded me of the Ewok movies, it contained elements of Star Wars, but it was very shallow. The main thing missing was that the fate of the galaxy was not at stake, there was no sense of desperation to bring down the Empire. Those who gave this book 5 stars are either friends of Alan Dean Foster or are not in highschool yet. The only reason I gave it 2 stars and not 1 was because it came out in 78, before our expectations skyrocketed with Empire. Also, you have to take into consideration that it was intended as a young reader's book. However, I honestly believe a 7 year old could write a better story, how this book ever got published is beyond me, truly awful.
Rating:
Summary: Worse than "the Ewoks Battle for Endor"
Review: The best thing about this book is the cover art in my opinion, and yes I am a huge Star Wars fan. The plot was too simplistic, nothing really interesting happens (who really wants to read about a crystal that contains special powers?) It's been done to death. There's no dramatic space battles- a first for a Star Wars story, no futuristic cities, the original quest of Luke and Leia was never concluded, and the ending is rushed. In general, SOTME is poorly written and nothing to get excited about, it's an adventure, but far from the usual sci fi standard. I was expecting a very exciting climax, but it just fizzled out. The portrayal of Vader was amusing and unrealistic, Alan made him into a big scary boogie man.... Come on, that's pathetic. This is the dark lord of the sith, not some weak villain who gets outsmarted and outdueled by a punk like Luke. This story has nothing to do with the movies, and it was just boring; I couldn't wait for it to be over. It reminded me of the Ewok movies, it contained elements of Star Wars, but it was very shallow. The main thing missing was that the fate of the galaxy was not at stake, there was no sense of desperation to bring down the Empire. Those who gave this book 5 stars are either friends of Alan Dean Foster or are not in highschool yet. The only reason I gave it 2 stars was because it came out in 78, before our expectations skyrocketed with Empire. I honestly believe a 7 year old could write a better story, how this book ever got published is beyond me, truly awful.
Rating:
Summary: Back before Star Wars got domesticated
Review: I read this book in 1978, when I was seven years old, and I thought it was terrific. I read it again three years ago, and I still think it's terrific. I'm delighted to see that it's still (back?) in print, because I think it has a heck of a lot more spirit and energy than most of the Star Wars franchise drivel being pumped out nowadays. Reading through the other reviews I see a lot of "I liked it a lot, but"--followed by some complaint about an inconsistency with the subsequently established Star Wars canon. I know that there's a bit of popular mythology out there that George Lucas had the entire Star Wars series plotted out before he put the first one on celluloid, but I'm here to tell you it ain't so (check out Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays by Laurent Bouzereau for the skinny on this). That is, there was no way for Alan Dean Foster to know that Luke, Leia, and Vader were family, or that Vader was a cyborg under all that armor, or that Leia and Han were going to get romantic, or that Luke would get his lightsaber-wielding butt stomped in the next movie, or that Leia would develop beyond the sarcastic damsel in distress we saw in the first movie. Which is all to say that DESPITE what you read in these other reviews, Foster actually does a pretty terrific job of making this consistent with the characters AS THEY ARE PORTRAYED IN THE FIRST MOVIE. The reason they're different from their portrayals in Empire, Jedi, etc. is that, well, the characterization in the original film was pretty thin. Luke, Leia, Han, Vader--even the droids and Chewbacca--really only developed three dimensional personalities in the second film. So this is a decidedly different Luke and Leia than the ones you're used to, and--swamp planet aside--this doesn't feel like most of the Star Wars that's come since. If the Star Wars that's come since can be compared to Lord of the Rings (epic scope, huge conflict), this is more like one of those original, great Conan novels by Robert E. Howard--well done, fun stuff, but a bit raw. And THAT'S why you should buy it. ...
Rating:
Summary: A well earned 4 star book
Review: Before I read this book I read a lot of the reviews, and based on other peoples' opinion of it, I wasn't even going to bother to read it at all. I'm glad I did, since, while the book is no litterary work of art, it is generaly well written and brings up some very interesting questions about what could have happened, or what might have happened. The book takes place about a year after A New Hope, and was written before The Empire Strikes Back was made. So, considering that the author had no idea not only of the Luke/Leia/Vader family ties, but also that Han was going to stay with them, he did an excellent job of gracefully avoiding certain issues, and still creating a fairly plausible story, with no real breaches in standard Star Wars history. The story itself basically tells of the misadventures of Luke and Leia as they go on a mission to an obscure planet to try to secure it's help for the rebel alliance. They are diverted and forced to land on a slimy jungle planet, and they soon find themselves caught up with some local lady in a quest for a special crystal that enhances the bearers force powers. There is a lot of interesting interaction between Luke and Leia, but luckily nothing happens between them. Han is also carefully left out of the story. He was never one of my favorite characters, but even so I missed him. The only thing I was truly dissapointed with was Leia. She was portrayed as a weak, disturbed, unapreciative, middle of that time of the month, prissy little princess, who does nothing but complain and cling to Luke when things get dangerous. She is basically an annoying character, which irritated me to no end, since she was always my favorite female Star Wars character, aside from Mara Jade. Anyway, besides those things this was a good book, not entirely neccecary, but in general good entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: some parts were cool
Review: I picked up this book mostly because Luke and Leia were in it alone and I thought that was a great relationship to explore. As far as Vader and his fun ol'time killing with Lightsabers, blood post light saber slash was a off, because the wound would cauterize immediatly---lightsabers are very very hot. I could deal with Luke's attraction to Leia as long as nothing happened (justification: he just doesn't get why he feels bonded to her yet). But I wasn't fond of the way they portrayed Leia. They couldn't decide if Leia was a shrieking princess who could do nothing, or a bad girl who could handle everything on her own. One second she's afraid of water, the next she's trying to kill Vader. As far as the force goes, Leia never actually touched the crystal (justification: I could just assume her force powers weren't set off). I actually liked the fact she tried to fight Vader with a lightsaber, and did about as well as Luke did in Empire. But it all turned to junk at the very rushed ending. Find crystal, Luke battle Vader, Vader go down the hole. He's dead! Uh, no he's not. And it's utterly amazing how "good" Luke is with that little lightsaber in this book, but he gets beaten so badly in Empire Strikes Back. I guess way back before Empire Strikes Back was released this would have left an intresting question in people's minds. But now it just feels silly. Still, having the three Skywalker's in one book(Daddy and the kids), in one room, battling it out, did make it intresting read up until the last section.
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