Category: Star Wars novels

Rebel Dawn

The final book in the Han Solo trilogy begins with one of those seminal events that we all knew would be coming in this series. Much like Han had to rescue Chewbacca from slavery, he also had to win the Millennium Falcon from his friend Lando Calrissian. So we open the third book with the sabacc tournament at Cloud City, where the large tournament gradually sees just Han and Lando left, and despite a pretty good bluff, Han is able to win the game with a Pure Sabacc and claims the Falcon as his prize when Lando is forced to use a marker after running out of credits. He immediately begins to work on it, and he and his casual girlfriend Salla Zend engage in races to see who can deliver their cargo the fastest. Unfortunately, Salla comes into trouble and Han is forced to rescue her, after which her attitude towards him changes, and she starts to plan their wedding, despite the fact Han isn’t interested in settling down.

To escape, Han travels to the Corporate Sector, and is absent for a good chunk of the book while Brian Daley’s Han Solo novels take place. Instead, we catch up with Bria Tharen, who was actually present at the Cloud City tournament, using the gambling as a cover to meet with other Rebel groups to try to forge an alliance between them. En route to Nal Hutta for an audience with Jiliac and Jabba, she is nearly captured by Boba Fett, who is following a priority bounty on her head placed there by the Besadii Hutt crime family. However, Lando is able to rescue her with the help of the pirate queen Drea Renthal, who had unexpectedly pulled from hyperspace the cruise ship they were travelling on, intent on robbing the passengers.

Durga’s attempts to discover who had poisoned his parent Aruk the Hutt eventually lead him into bed with Black Sun, manoeuvred there by the Falleen Prince Xizor, who has wanted to gain a hold in Hutt Space and agrees to help Durga in exchange for a cut of the profits from Ylesia. Despite at first trying to remain independent, Durga eventually gains the proof to place a bounty on Teroenza and challenge Jiliac to single combat, during which he is eventually able to kill the Desilijic leader. Jabba, after killing Jiliac’s newborn child, is thereafter the leader of Desilijic, and agrees to bankroll Bria Tharen’s proposed offensive to destroy the spice factories on Ylesia.

Bria, after a discussion with Lando, finally reunites with Han in an effort to recruit smugglers to help with the assault, and at first Han wants nothing to do with her. However, he eventually comes round, and the two rekindle their romance from ten years before. Bria is privately convinced that Han will follow her into the resistance, while Han believes Bria will leave the rebellion and maybe they can re-locate to the Corporate Sector.

The Ylesian offensive goes off as expected, and even the arrival of Boba Fett doesn’t stop Bria and Han from clearing out Teroenza’s treasure, as the bounty hunter is only there for the high priest’s horn. Bria has received orders the rebels need every credit they can get, so she basically double-crosses the smugglers, and they take all of the spice, as well as rescuing all of the slaves. Han is left with a box of Teroenza’s treasure, and the rest of his friends having the impression that Han was in on the double-cross all along. 

When Han resumes his smuggling activities for Jabba, he is almost boarded by an Imperial customs patrol, and is forced to jettison the spice he was carrying. Evading the patrol made him fly dangerously close to the Maw black hole clusters, and the way space-time was warped effectively meant he shortened his distance, making the run in just under 12 parsecs. However, Jabba is not pleased, and demands either his spice or the value in credits. When Han approaches Lando for a loan, the gambler punches him in the face and tells him to stay away after double-crossing him. Desperate, Han and Chewie take on a charter to fly two people and two droids from Mos Eisley to Alderaan…

The final book definitely packs a lot of action into its almost-400 pages. Well, the whole trilogy actually has a lot going on, but it seems my synopsis of this one is so much longer than I had done for either of the others! I talked about this before, of course, but the story of Han’s earlier life had been doled out piecemeal for a number of years, through a variety of media, and the trilogy was always, to some extent, going to have that element of ticking off the boxes of things we know had to happen. Han had to win the Falcon from Lando, and it’s nice that we get to have a bit of the rules of sabacc explained along the way. I think it was this trilogy and the Jedi Academy trilogy that gave us our basic rules, with the West End Games supplement Crisis on Cloud City actually coming with a sabacc mini-game (complete with cards!) – I should probably talk about that book at some point, because it’s really pretty good!

We also have to explain why Han is so frosty towards both Leia and the Rebels, so we get Bria Tharen and her double-cross. Bria actually dies towards the end of the book, as her Red Hand Squadron beam the plans to the Death Star from an Imperial comms station to a blockade runner waiting in orbit, which of course was reworked for the movie Rogue One. But it’s nice to see the end of her story, as well. Yes, of course, she is a huge Mary Sue character, with sometimes awfully cliché descriptions (“exquisite bone structure” and “lovely mouth” always make me chuckle). But when you take it at face value, and try not to analyse the story too much, it’s actually a neat little parcel that Crispin delivers here.

Furthermore, we also get to learn what Chewie meant when Han was forced to stop over at Cloud City for repairs. The double-cross was perhaps not strong enough, in my view, as the way Lando had been written up to this point, being best buddies with Han and all, I think he would have actually listened to Han’s side of the story. I feel like something more should have happened to Lando. Han should have left him high and dry or something, it doesn’t feel like it was enough, somehow. And finally, of course, how did the Millennium Falcon make the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs, when a parsec is a unit of measurement, and not a unit of time? Well, it might not be the best explanation, but it’ll do!

The ending did feel a tiny bit rushed, somehow. It’s where that Run takes place, and I think there was perhaps a need to wrap everything up neatly that overrode things here. The way Han talks about it, it sounds like it should be a famous feat in the Outer Rim, but he made that Run at most a couple of days before he starts to boast, which doesn’t seem right really, but I suppose I’m just nitpicking on that point.

The problem, I suppose, is that the ending is a little bit too neat, for a trilogy that has, overall, been a little too neat as well. On reflection, Han’s life up until the time he sits down in that cantina booth has been pretty smooth sailing, and fairly uncomplicated. Whether that’s a stylistic choice or just bad writing, who knows. However, there is a part of me that thinks he had it a bit too easy, just walking into a life with the smugglers on Nar Shaddaa and becoming one of the gang, and more, very easily and very quickly. There’s very little in the way of working his way up to any kind of notoriety, which I think would perhaps have worked if he’s made that Kessel Run in the middle book.

Rebel Dawn is perhaps most notable for the fact that Han disappears from his own trilogy for about a third of the story, due to the fact Crispin had to incorporate the earlier Brian Daley novels. These novels came out in 1979/80 and are very much just throwaway adventures that were written just to give Star Wars fans more of their favourite stuff, similar to the (dreadful) Lando Calrissian Adventures. With Luke, Leia, Vader and co all off-limits, Han and (especially) Lando were easy fodder for more stories set before the movies, so we have these weird and wonderful sci-fi stories about their escapades. In order to try to pull as many threads from across the old EU as possible, Crispin therefore had to plot her story so that Han disappears, but isn’t entirely absent. There are some Interludes which almost act as a postlude to each book in the Daley trilogy, and this decision is pretty divisive among fans. Some folks hate the book for it, but others like me actually appreciate the fact that it all works out pretty smoothly. The reason for Han’s departure is sound, after all, and I think it works better than ending the Hutt Gambit with a sort of “I’m off to do Corporate Sector stuff!” scene, then beginning Rebel Dawn with his glorious return. It also helps to tie in with the Salla Zend that we know from Dark Empire.

The book also gives us more Hutt action than perhaps any other expanded universe story, and I love it for that. We get to follow the machinations of Jabba, Jiliac and Durga, and we learn a lot about Hutt society and business as a result. These parts of the story are almost more interesting than the rest, I have to say! I love the Fringe in Star Wars, so I suppose it was inevitably going to be among my favourite parts of the story.

All in all, the trilogy is enjoyable. It fits in with the fact that Star Wars is a space fantasy / fairy tale, and the life of Han Solo being as convenient as it is, it still makes for a fun read. Sure, there’s a part of me that wished some things could have been tweaked to make it seem a touch more believable, but I suppose that’s not the point. We want to see Han Solo the dashing rogue, the space pirate who makes the right call and so on. We need tales of derring-do and so on, and this – like most of the other Bantam novels – hits the mark. 

Ylesia makes a return appearance later on in the New Jedi Order, in a short story to do with the Peace Brigade that I’ve never actually read, so I’m looking forward to my eventual re-read of that series so I can actually see what goes on there. In the meantime, I’m planning to sprinkle a few more of these Bantam classics into my reading schedule, I think I’m going to move on to Shadows of the Empire next…

The Hutt Gambit

Following on from the first book in the Han Solo trilogy, we meet up with Han a few years after the events of the last book, where he has been drummed out of Imperial service for his rescue of the Wookiee Chewbacca. Down on his luck, and morose thanks to the fact Chewie is now following him around due to the Life Debt the Wookiee has sworn, Han begins to fall into the life of a smuggler. He reluctantly agrees to having Chewie as a co-pilot and gunner, and the two make for Hutt Space, and the smugglers’ moon of Nar Shaddaa. There, Han meets up with a former Academy colleague Mako Spince, and he gets to meet all of the key players in the smuggler’s life.

Han eventually starts working for the Desilijic kajidic, and its bosses, Jiliac and Jabba. However, Teroenza has not forgotten the grievous blow Han had dealt him when he and Bria escaped Ylesia, and has placed a bounty on the young smuggler’s head. After a series of unsuccessful attempts to claim it, in steps Boba Fett, who almost succeeds until Lando Calrissian is able to intervene, as he wants Han to teach him to pilot his new ship, the Millennium Falcon. Aruk, the Hutt overlord of the Besadii kajidic and Teroenza’s boss, cancels the live bounty on Han, prompting Teroenza to enter into an agreement with Jiliac to help them poison Aruk and weaken Besadii.

Just when Han is beginning to adjust into his new life as a smuggler, the sector Moff, Sarn Shild, proclaims the Empire intends to crack down on smuggling out of Hutt Space, and he specifically targets Nar Shaddaa for “base delta zero”, leaving nothing alive on the moon. Han and his cohorts determine to do all they can to fight back, backed to an extent by the Hutts themselves, who wish to preserve their criminal enterprises, so Han is sent to parlay with Shild. When he meets with the Moff, however, he discovers that Bria Tharen there, seemingly as Shild’s mistress. In truth, Bria has been able to kick her addiction to the t’landa Til ‘exhultation’ and has joined the Rebellion, mainly in an effort to free slaves. Her current assignment couldn’t have landed at a worse time. 

The smugglers aren’t able to buy off Sarn Shild, but they do buy the Imperial battle plan from Admiral Greelanx, who is leading the attack. Greelanx is about to retire anyway, so takes the Hutt bribe, only to receive mysterious orders from the highest levels of Intelligence to suffer a defeat anyway. The battle goes well for the smugglers, and the Empire is driven off, not before Greelanx is visited by Darth Vader himself for retribution.

Much like the first book, I really enjoyed this one! Back when I was a teenager reading these things, I think books two and three of this trilogy, taken together, were in my top five all-time favourite Star Wars books. They are a tiny bit dated now, of course, and the plotline is perhaps somewhere more in the realms of junior/YA fiction than anything else – I mean, a lot of things go very right for Han, and sometimes I’m left thinking, where is the conflict? Seems like the life of a smuggler, out on the lawless Rim, is highly romanticised and just one long yarn. Of course, I talked last time about Star Wars on the whole not being all about the grim and gritty ultra-hard sci-fi that it has on occasion tried to become since, but even so. A lot of the plot of this book is very convenient, once again.

But I think this is perhaps down to the fact that Crispin is trying to weave her story around a lot of accepted facts about the Han Solo backstory, as they were understood back in 1997. Dark Empire and The Crystal Star had already been published, so any storyline about Han has got to reference the fact that he lived on Nar Shaddaa, he dated Salla Zend, he dated Xaverri, he hung out with Roa, and so on. The fact that the story is able to tick off all of these points, and still be pretty interesting and cohesive, is actually really nice, I think. When the EU became Legends, a lot was made of the fact that stories didn’t necessarily line up, but that was principally a problem for things set in the immediate are of the original trilogy. Books like The Hutt Gambit show how much care was taken years before the Story Group was established, to ensure the timeline remained sensible and coherent.

One of the things that I do dislike about the now-Legends stuff in general, though, is just how much is made of the fact that Boba Fett and Han have some kind of major enmity between them, which seems to have spouted from the fact that Vader told Fett not to kill Han in episode five. We have a ton of stuff that eventually seemed quite embarrassing, because for all that Fett was made out to be a feared bounty hunter, the fact that the overarching story dictated he could never capture Han, despite all this history between them, made him into a bit of a joke really. Here, an effort is made to explain that Han and Lando basically embarrassed Fett by drugging him and sending him far away from Nar Shaddaa, and then Jabba basically pays Fett to not hunt Solo because he’s too good for business. It’s not the greatest of explanations, but I suppose it’ll do…

But that is really a criticism of the larger EU at this point, I suppose!

All in all, the book is a lot of fun. We have tie-ins to all the other smuggler stuff like The New Rebellion and Dark Empire, we get to follow Han as he begins to make a name for himself in the underworld, and we get a look into the Hutt cartels and how they all work together. Much like the last one – indeed, much like a lot of the Bantam-era novels – it’s at its most enjoyable when you just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith (a review)

Hey everybody,
Last week, I finished reading Shadow of the Sith, a new novel in the sequel-era of Star Wars that seems to pull together a lot of the story whisps that we’ve been getting pretty much since 2015 and The Force Awakens.

The book begins with a young couple, Miramir and Dathan, escaping from some nebulous threat with their young daughter Rey. Pirates attack, but they are saved by the New Republic. However, the New Republic squadron that helped them is unable to provide further shelter, so they are sent on their way to a former Alliance collaborator. Meanwhile, we meet Ochi of Bestoon, the Jedi hunter from Episode IX, who is trying to find the lost Sith planet of Exegol to heal himself. His chance comes when some Sith cultists arrive, telling him to bring them “the girl”, and giving him a Sith dagger that seems to be somewhat sentient.

While Ochi is recruiting muscle, he is overheard by Lando Calrissian, who decides he must help the family as he has been unable to rescue his own missing daughter, Kadara. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker travels with Lor San Tekka to Yoturba to investigate a possible Jedi Temple site, and discovers some fragments of kyber crystal along with a damaged Sith holocron. Luke has been plagued for weeks with visions of a dark wasteland planet, so travels to Tython where he has the strongest vision yet – indeed, it is only through his father’s spiritual intervention that he is able to return to reality. Lando arrives and recruits Luke’s help in tracking down the family, so they head to the New Republic base where they find out the family was given directions to the former collaborator. 

However, Ochi almost beats them to it, but fortunately Miramir is able to hijack a ship and flee. Luke is attacked by a mysterious figure in a mask wielding a scimitar-shaped lightsaber, the blade of Darth Noctyss, who is clearly after the fragments of kyber crystal he has recovered. With the family gone, Luke and Lando travel to an acquaintance of the Jedi Master, a former Acolyte of the Beyond who is able to track ships through hyperspace. Komat is able to track the family to a refuelling station, but Ochi, with the help of the Corporate Sector Authority troopers, also gets to them. Turns out, Dathan has come up with a plan to deal with the pursuit once and for all – stealing Ochi’s own ship being part one. Thanks to Lando and Komat’s help, they are able to get away. Luke has left to track down his attacker, Kiza, and finds her in a ruined Trade Federation core ship. The mask she wears is possessed by an ancient Sith lord, and imbues her with power as the Sith aims to be reborn. During their fight, Luke believes both Kiza and the mask to have been destroyed and so returns to Lando in time to help the family to flee.

Miramir and Dathan return to Jakku, where they strike a deal with Unkar Plutt to look after Rey while they attempt to deal with their pursuers once and for all. Luke, Lando and Komat are confronted by the spectre of the ancient Sith lord using Kiza’s corpse to attempt to find a way to Exegol to be reborn, but Luke is able to destroy the mask and defeat it once and for all. Lando learns that the family have possibly travelled to Jakku, so follows them. However, Ochi has got there first, and already killed both the parents in orbit. Believing them to have hidden Rey on Pasaana, thanks to some beads Miramir dies holding, Ochi travels to the desert planet but, filled with the power of the Sith dagger, his judgment is clouded and he is swallowed by the quicksand there.

Luke and Lando bury Miramir and Dathan on a former smuggler’s hideout world, then travel to Pasaana where they find Ochi’s ship but the trail has seemingly gone cold. Lando decides to stay on-world to continue his search both for Rey and his own daughter, while Luke continues to build his Jedi Temple on Ossus.

There is a hell of a lot going on in this book, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I like it so much. It does have a fairly narrow focus, with just Luke and Lando chasing after Rey’s parents, with some hijinks from Ochi along the way, but otherwise it’s not exactly a galaxy spanning epic in the vein of some of the Bantam books from years ago. But the story is dense, and there are so many call-backs (and call-forwards, if such a thing is, well, a thing) that I can’t help but love it.

First off, it does feel a bit like Rey’s parents are a bit of a mcguffin for the whole thing, and there’s no real character behind them. They’re obviously fleeing from something nefarious, but we don’t really get to know what. It is inferred that the Sith cultists from Exegol want him back, possibly because he is a loose end in Palpatine’s return, maybe because he could potentially lead people to Exegol, but it is never explicit, and after a while it begins to wear thin. I feel like I would have wanted more meat on those bones, but never mind. We do get the flashback scenes, where Rey is saying goodbye to her parents, and then reaching for the sky and their departing ship, which nicely serves to link into the sequel films in that way.

I think the main tie-in comes with Ochi from Episode IX, and of course, the droid D-O. The final chapters feel like everything is being tied into a neat little bow so that Ochi’s ship is waiting to be discovered, Lando is now living on Pasaana, etc. There isn’t really a timeline specific point for the book, much like all of the new novels, but we do know this book takes place before Bloodline. Given that the Rey flashback scenes take place here, and we’re told that she’s six years old, this places it thirteen years before The Force Awakens, or seventeen years after Return of the Jedi. So we can fix it in 21ABY, if we’re using the old calendar. In case you find it easier (like me!) to refer back to what happened during the Legends timeline, this book takes place after the Hand of Thrawn duology, but before Survivor’s Quest.

Anyway!

A lot of this book made me want to re-watch The Rise of Skywalker, I have to admit. The way it deftly sets things up so that a lot of the plot threads are woven into something more like a cohesive narrative is really quite nice. I really liked the addition of the Corporate Sector Authority, and the fact their soldiers are still called Espos made me smile. I like the fact that Lor San Tekka is given a little bit more of a role to play, although we still need something that deals with the Church of the Force, I feel! I would love there to be something that would pull together these sorts of spiritual elements, like the Guardians of the Whills and whatnot. But even while we get more blanks filled in with books like this, the post-Original Trilogy era still feels wide open and a mystery, which is more than a little annoying. I want more of the full galactic picture, you know? It feels like the focus is too narrow these days, and nobody wants to give us novels like the old Legends stuff that gave us an idea of what the galaxy was like. But I could go on about this all day.

I do also like the callbacks to those interludes from the Aftermath trilogy. While the books didn’t really inspire me, I think I most enjoyed seeing those interludes, as we did get more of that galactic scale from them. It’s where we first got to see the Acolytes of the Beyond (the acknowledgements actually refers to Kiza being Chuck Wendig’s character, I’d clearly forgotten the specifics there!) so I did like the fact that was drawn on. We get more on the role that Yupe Tashu played in the earlier trilogy, as well, which further helps to join things together. Star Wars has always striven to be one long narrative, and it’s something that really irritates me recently about the new canon stuff being all over the place, and almost existing in a vacuum. I think we had a tiny bit in Resistance Reborn, and now we’ve got this as well, so slowly things are beginning to cross-reference and give us that feel of it all being one big story.

Of course, there are still so many problems with the sequel trilogy, the book cannot remedy that. In fact, I was quite dismayed by the way Disney is handling the source material here, when Luke is fighting Kiza and says something along the lines of nobody is ever too far gone over to the Dark Side of the Force. I mean, what does Yoda say? “Forever will it dominate your destiny”? Is this the House of Mouse telling us that it’s all sunshine and rainbows after all? It’s just one line, sure, and I can kinda see Luke would maybe think that after redeeming his father, but as we’ve discussed already, he did that seventeen years prior to this novel. It’s not like he’s all that optimistic still, surely?

Definitely have to deduct a star for that slip up. 

But otherwise, this book is pretty much the sort of thing I want from Star Wars. We’re getting a good space adventure with Luke and Lando, we’ve got the Sith working in the shadows to their own ends, and we’ve got some serious effort to draw elements from earlier books together and join up those dots. As a bonus, we even get some Ben Solo being undervalued action – I’m not saying I can totally see why he’d turn out a wrong ‘un, but it does make it easy to see how Luke’s treatment of Ben would leave the padawan susceptible to Snoke’s manipulations. 

Possibly the best new Star Wars novel since Bloodline. I liked it a lot!

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader

The novel begins on Murkhana, homeworld to the chairman of the Commerce Guild, Passel Argente. The Republic is leading an assault on the Guild, with no less than six Jedi in the fray, when suddenly the clones receive Order 66 and some of them question its validity. After a disagreement between the clones, three of the Jedi, led by Roan Shryne, are able to escape into the city, however Darth Vader is sent to investigate why the order was not carried out, during which he kills one of Roan’s companions. Roan and the padawan Olee Starstone are finally able to escape the planet thanks to one of his smuggler contacts, and they rendezvous with none other than Roan’s own mother, who became a pilot with the express purpose of one day finding her son.

Vader suffered an injury to his prosthesis during the fight on Murkhana, leading him to begin the process of upgrading his suit. He is tasked by the Emperor with retrieving the dissident senator Fang Zar, who has sought political asylum on Alderaan ahead of returning to his homeworld of Sern Prime. Roan has thrown in his lot with the smugglers while Olee is determined to find more Jedi who may have survived Order 66, and uses her master’s comm to tap into the Jedi Temple records to find the location of other Jedi at the time the order was issued. They are able to meet up with a beleaguered band of Jedi, many of whom are injured, but the activity in the Temple archive is being monitored by Armand Isard, who brings it to the Emperor’s attention.

Olee and Roan go their separate ways, Roan helping his mother and her crew to smuggle Fang Zar off Alderaan. Unfortunately for them, Vader shows up and is able to kill the senator before they can rescue him. Olee finds out that Yoda was on Kashyyyk with two other Jedi at the time of the Order, so the band of Jedi heads there to find the local population busy reclaiming the hulks of Separatist droids abandoned shortly after the abrupt end of the war. However, Vader is tipped off to their presence and joins forces with Moff Tarkin, who has an interest in taking Wookiee prisoners for his superweapon project. Roan comes back to help Olee, and he and Vader duel among the wroshyr trees as the Imperials begin to bombard the planet. Feeling Roan’s death in the Force, Olee determines that she was wrong to try to team up with other Jedi, and they must all heed the advice of the beacon and go to ground, hiding from the Empire and biding their time.

In the closing pages, Obi-Wan is watching over Luke on Tatooine when he hears of the news from Kashyyyk, and the praise lauded upon the Emperor’s enforcer, Darth Vader…

As is usual with James Luceno books, there’s a lot going on in this one, and he proves that he is as adept as ever at weaving a story around the pre-existing material at the time. In many ways, it’s quite a straightforward story really, as we see how the aftermath of Order 66 affects a couple of Jedi, and the polarizing ways in which they choose to deal with it. For Roan Shryne, who was never particularly happy with a lot of the Jedi bureaucracy, he is quite able to slip into the life of a smuggler and put his Jedi past behind him. For the “temple acolyte” Olee Starstone, who had a promising career in the archives but wanted to see the galaxy before cloistering herself up, she is completely unwilling to let go of all she has ever known, and is quite manic at times in her efforts to reunite with other members of the Jedi Order.

I was quite pleased, in a way, that all of the Jedi that we meet along the way are nobodies – we’ve never met them in any other story before, at least! It means the stakes are higher, as we just don’t know if they’re going to make it. But this isn’t just a Jedi story, of course. We also get to see how Bail Organa and Mon Mothma are dealing with the transition from Republic to Empire, and it was quite shocking, in a way, to see the death of Fang Zar. He didn’t make the final cut of Revenge of the Sith, of course, but I think the way in which it all happened seemed to be quite brutal. A member of the Senate, attempting to return to his homeworld following a period of political asylum on Alderaan, is brutally cut down by Darth Vader. Not a great deal is made of this, unfortunately. We do get a lot of rumblings about dissention and rebellion, but a lot of the political stuff seems to have been stripped away this time, which is unfortunate as I know Luceno could have quite brilliantly put something out there that dealt with the political backlash, and perhaps even incorporated more action as Vader quashes a rebellion on Sern Prime? Shame.

Of course, the book is all about Vader, and it reads quite beautifully at first, as we get to see how much Anakin is struggling to adapt to the suit etc. Well, I suppose he’s not Anakin anymore, is he? It was really well done, how we see Vader is disappointed with his prostheses at first. It still seems a bit weird to believe the fan theories about the Emperor wanting to keep Vader in his place by making the suit cumbersome and painful, because surely he’d want a strong apprentice? Indeed, in one of his many brooding monologues, we see the Emperor planning to find a stronger apprentice in the fullness of time.

One of the things I liked about this book is the fact it begins on Murkhana, as the Republic are taking the fight to the Commerce Guild. To me, the clone wars should have involved more of the Republic actively fighting the Separatist leadership on their homeworlds, and not the continual “battle of the week” style thing, where we see the clones liberating yet another random world. I’ll have more on this later in the week though, hopefully, as I plan to write up a bit of a post mortem of the prequel re-read!

All in all, though, it was a good book. Sadly not up there with Labyrinth of Evil or Cloak of Deception, probably more on a par with Darth Plagueis. Very enjoyable, and provides a very interesting window into the post-Order 66 world that the Jedi find themselves in. But with this one, my prequel re-read is now over! I hope you’ve all enjoyed my rambling thoughts on these books and comics as I’ve been wading through them all, anyway – five months of Star Wars reading has kinda done me in for now though, so I think it’ll be time for something a bit different before I return to the GFFA…

Labyrinth of Evil

Well folks, we’re hurtling towards the end of my Summer of Star Wars now – is September still the summer? Well, I’m counting it. Today it’s the turn of Labyrinth of Evil. This is one of my favourite Prequel-era novels, so as with some of the other blogs in my great prequel re-read, prepare for some slightly biased reporting!

Labyrinth of Evil

The Clone Wars are raging across the galaxy, with the Separatists finally on the run. Dooku and his forces have been pushed back from the core and inner rim, and the war is predominantly being fought now in the Outer Rim, as Palpatine is committing more troops to besieging the worlds still held by the Confederacy there.

Obi-Wan and Anakin are on the trail of Nute Gunray, who has stopped off at the Trade Federation purse world of Cato Neimoidia. In his rush to flee the planet, however, the Neimoidian Viceroy has left a mechno-chair behind, which incorporates a hyperwave transmission grid into its seat that Anakin quickly discovers contains a recording of part of a call between Darth Sidious and Nute Gunray. Having the final proof of the existence of the Sith Lord, after Dooku’s initial confession to Obi-Wan on Geonosis, the Jedi Council decide to pursue the lead, and Anakin and Obi-Wan head to Charros IV, to speak to the Xi Char artisan who made the chair.

The trail leads from the manufacturer of the chair to that of the transmission chip, a Bith technician currently holed up in a mining facility on Escarte. He points the Jedi to a pilot who delivered the device to Coruscant, a Twi’lek who is now living on Naos III, and she is able to indicate a factory building in The Works on Coruscant where she delivered the Sith Infiltrator ship. However, Grievous has attempted to contact Gunray through the mechno-chair, telling him that the Separatist Council will soon be re-located to Belderone – when Gunray disn’t answer, and the Jedi had a task force waiting in orbit at Belderone for the Separatists, Dooku informs Sidious that their comms are compromised, and the Jedi are on the Sith Lord’s trail.

While Anakin and Obi-Wan are dispatched to Tythe to confront Dooku, Mace Windu and Shaak Ti lead an investigation team into The Works and soon discover forensic evidence of both Dooku and Sidious being in the building. They learn that the tunnels used by Sidious leading eventually to the sub-basement of 500 Republica, the monad where so many senators and other celebrities live, including the Supreme Chancellor. However, just when the Jedi team has made this discovery, Grievous launches his attack on the capitol planet, and the Jedi are soon called to the defence of the Chancellor.

Grievous has been furnished with intelligence supplied by Count Dooku, and is able to pursue Palpatine across the planet as the Jedi and Senate Guards attempt to spirit him to his armoured bunker. The Separatist General captures the Chancellor, and is able to return to his flagship in orbit, while Anakin and Obi-Wan realise Tythe was a ruse to keep them away from Coruscant after all.

The book is pretty action-packed, especially considering it is something of a detective story. The opening on Cato Neimoidia is fairly tense at times, and there are space battles at Belderone and Tythe, as well as a snow sledge chase on Naos III and of course, the climactic battle of Coruscant, which takes up roughly the last 100 pages of the book. In some respects, it’s similar to Luceno’s earlier Cloak of Deception, as we follow the Jedi as they’re tracking down clues, with intermittent action sequences, though I think the earlier book is much superior, as it doesn’t have quite such a tight deadline to meet. With Labyrinth of Evil, we have a lot of plot threads to weave into the tapestry, and there is a definite end-point with the beginning of Revenge of the Sith.

That’s not to say it’s not a good book, however! Indeed, I think it’s one of the best prequel-era books out there. We get to learn a lot about the major players, including a complete backstory on General Grievous. Luceno is adept at bringing together many strands of stories to make a cohesive narrative, perhaps reminiscent of the fact his original role in the New Jedi Order was a continuity overseer. Threads from the comics, particularly Quinlan Vos’ storyline, Yoda’s meeting with Dooku on Vjun in Dark Rendezvous, as well as the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoon series, are woven in here to make things feel like we’re in one coherent narrative. Ironically, though, it’s with the Clone Wars cartoon that things become a little unstuck, as we know that the third season of the cartoon essentially deals with Grievous and his invasion, but also involves Anakin and Obi-Wan on the planet Nelvaan, in an episode that once again rams it down our throats that Anakin will become Darth Vader. I believe the cartoon was based on the novel’s outline as it existed at the time, though once the animation was finished, it then caused the novel to change as things had been sexed-up for TV.

Nevertheless, the invasion sequence is pretty spectacular, I have to say. It is absolutely frenetic, as Grievous is pursuing the Chancellor and his bodyguard across the planet. There is a lot of reference made to the real-world politics of the Second Iraq War during the Clone Wars, as we were at war while these stories were being published. It was perhaps natural, even if Lucas and others refuted the claim at the time. Palpatine makes a State of the Republic address, we have the Triad of Evil in Felucia, Mygeeto and Saleucami, etc. However, the way Palpatine was spirited to his hardened bunker was apparently purposefully modelled on the way vice president Cheney was moved during the 9/11 attacks – I remember reading something years ago where Luceno said he had originally planned to write it where Palpatine was instead flown around the planet on the Star Wars equivalent of Air Force One, as happened for president Bush.

There isn’t as much politics as you might expect in this one, perhaps in reflection to how Cloak of Deception had been received. There are a few scenes with Mon Mothma, Bail Organa and Padme where they try to persuade Palpatine to find a diplomatic resolution to the war, though they are few and far between, and eventually the three senators are caught up in the invasion and don’t really have much more of a part to play. It is a shame, given that the political stuff with the Loyalist Committee was cut from the final film, that more wasn’t afforded to it here, but I suppose this novel is more about the intrigue with the search for Sidious than mere political machinations.

We do have a very angry Anakin in this book, and sometimes it seems like he’s almost primal, like when he brings the roof down on top of both him and Obi-Wan simply by being annoyed with Dooku. Now, it might just be me, but this kind of behaviour must surely be setting off alarm bells to someone like Obi-Wan, a member of the Jedi Council? Hm? I get that they kinda cut him some slack, him being the Chosen One, and the late training and all, but even so. On the subject of coming to training late in life, it’s always kinda bothered me that they allowed Obi-Wan to train such an important, such a potentially difficult padawan when he had barely made Jedi Knight the day before. Someone like Mace or Yoda should surely have taken on the fabled Son of Suns? At any rate, Angry Anakin is given a lot of lassitude, even when Obi-Wan is dropping massive hints that he knows what’s going on between him and Padme. Another hm.

But I guess that’s part of Lucas’ overall plot. There are some genuinely good spots of camaraderie between the two of them throughout, and you begin to see that perhaps they were friends after all. Angry Anakin might bristle at the merest hint of Obi-Wan in the majority of the Clone Wars media, but even Count Dooku remarks on how well they have come to work together here. It does go some way to help show that Alec Guinness wasn’t lying when he called Anakin “a good friend”.

There isn’t really a great deal more to be said on this one, though, I guess. It’s a good book, tells a very good tale as we lead directly into episode III. One of the downfalls of the story, of course, is that it doesn’t resolve, and you kinda have to watch the movie to finish it off – even if you know that going into it, it still manages to leave you hanging on the edge of things, more so than Rogue One. Of course, this works both ways, and if you have ever been bothered by the fact that Revenge of the Sith opens directly into the middle of a battle, and you’ve wanted to know what was going on, then you can wonder no more as to what is going on there!

Star Wars: Yoda – Dark Rendezvous

Hey everybody,
We’re getting close to the end of the Great Prequel Re-Read 2022 now – I’ve got to be honest, I thought I’d have finished this by now, but this is the way it goes, I guess! There isn’t much left, in fairness, but I think it surprises me because in the past I’ve been able to read the bulk of my Prequel plans in just the month of December! Just a couple of graphic novels, and a couple of novels left though!

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous was the last of the original Clone Wars Multimedia Project novels to be published, prior to the release of Revenge of the Sith. As such, it is able to reference things like General Grievous, although we don’t get to meet the cyborg general during the course of the book. There are plenty of references to the wider conflict at this point, as well, which is quite a nice way of dating the book – a lot is made of the recent devastation of Honoghr, which was dealt with during the one-shot Armor storyline. The battle of Omwat is referenced as well, without further elaboration – but it’s worth mentioning that Tarkin was involved in that conflict, where he eventually abducted a number of Omwati children to work on his superweapons, as later detailed in the Jedi Academy trilogy. Quite an impressive reference, I think, even if it’s all Legends so it doesn’t matter any more!

The premise of the novel is that Count Dooku wants peace with the Jedi, and sends a message that he will meet only with Yoda. The Grand Master of the Jedi agrees, and travels incognito with Jai Maruk and Maks Leem, and their respective padawans, Scout and Whie, to Vjun. Along the way, however, they are ambushed by Asajj Ventress, who thinks killing Yoda will land her in Dooku’s good graces and he will make her his apprentice. She kills the Jedi Knights, but Yoda is able to escape with the padawans, and they travel on to Vjun, a planet strong in the dark side and, unbeknownst to him initially, Whie’s homeworld. With the loss of the Jedi Knights, Mace Windu dispatches Anakin and Obi-Wan to help out, because of course he does. Yoda and Dooku meet, but Anakin’s intervention causes the meeting to go sour, and Dooku escapes from the planet.

I’ve only read this once previously, and I can remember loving it back in the day. The writing was somehow just incredible, the way Sean Stewart is able to use sounds in the narrative to drive forth the story is really quite something. You really get the sense of foreboding from the click of Asajj’s heels, or the incessant tapping of the rain on the windows of Dooku’s lair. The atmosphere of the book is also just stupendous – Vjun is a planet steeped in the dark side, first mentioned way back in Dark Empire, and Dooku has holed himself up in the mansion of a nobleman who went mad and killed his staff and family. It’s got overtones of a gothic horror novel about it, which of course is just perfect for the aristocratic Dooku, and it works tremendously well.

The story, as well, is beautifully told. Dooku and Yoda have history, of course – Yoda trained Dooku as his own padawan, not merely as a youngling, and that sense of shared history comes out really strongly during the initial overtures each of them makes, when trying to broker this peace negotiation. It’s interesting, because we never really know if peace is Dooku’s intention – is he fooling himself when he says it was almost on a whim, or is it actually a more deep-seated desire? Is he genuinely feeling as though he has gone too far with the war? It’s a fascinating character study into Count Dooku the man. Interestingly, throughout the whole prequel era, we hardly ever know him as Darth Tyranus, and Dooku’s Sith Lord status is intentionally kept murky, in part I suppose because he needs to be the suave, urbane leader of the alternative to the Republic. Does Dooku want to end the war, and therefore go against his Master, Darth Sidious? How strong is his loyalty to the Sith Lord, given he has spent decades of his life as a Jedi, regardless of how far in opposition to the Council he placed himself.

The book leads up to his interview with Yoda, and after their meeting on Geonosis, I remember being intensely curious as to how this was going to play out. In the end, it’s mostly a conversation – Yoda asks Dooku to turn him to the dark side, in an effort to make Dooku see how useless the dark side really is. It’s only when the Count catches sight of Anakin on one of the security cams, fuelling the older man’s jealousy of the so-called “chosen one”, that any possibility of détente is ended. We’re left wondering just whether Dooku would have come back into the light.

Yoda, for his part, is complex in another way. The book places him front and centre – the title was even changed during development to include him. However, this is mainly because of his presence throughout the book – we don’t really get to learn anything new about him, it’s all stuff that we already knew. For the majority of the book, he is very much in adorable/annoying scamp mode, much like we first meet in Empire Strikes Back. At times, the author doesn’t quite get his speech right, either, making it more backwards than it usually is. (There’s a pretty funny part where the two padawans are fixing a ship and talking to each other like Yoda, as well, which you just know most of the Jedi have done at some point during their youth). There are, however, some moments where the incredible wisdom of the little guy comes out, and his showdown with Dooku is a really amazing piece of intellectual sparring.

Naturally, Anakin and Obi-Wan appear, because what is a clone wars novel without them? Considering they’re meant to be saving the galaxy every five minutes, it’s incredibly annoying to see them show up quite literally everywhere. Their presence here, and in Outbound Flight, and in plenty of other places, is completely unnecessary – I kinda get the fact they’re in Outbound Flight, as otherwise that book has almost zero connection to the films, but this book has Yoda in it, there’s no need for the daring duo to be shoehorned in yet again. If they really needed to send Jedi after Yoda, and I’m hardly convinced that Yoda needs an escort, then why couldn’t it have been another pair of new characters, to raise the stakes as they too might fall victim to Dooku or Ventress? Or why not Ki-Adi-Mundi, or Plo Koon, or Agen Kolar, or literally anybody else who has appeared as set-dressing in Attack of the Clones? Bah! I suppose you could say that Anakin being on Vjun, a planet which amplifies the dark side in a Jedi, is another way to foreshadow his fall; but seriously, Star Wars stories that only exist to foreshadow existing events or situations from the movies are just the worst.

The best parts of the novel are those that involve Dooku. Unfortunately, however, there’s a lot of this book that deals with the Jedi on their journey, and as much as we’re supposed to like the padawans, I did find these parts of the story a bit boring. There’s a Padawan Tournament that takes up a couple of chapters near the start, where we are introduced to them, but it’s just in the way, somehow. It also annoys me, a bit, because it plays into what is becoming a familiar whine from me recently – “this is meant to be a Clone Wars novel, but it’s not!” Now, this book does tenuously walk that line as it is predominantly a character drama, and even involving as it does the leader of the Separatists and the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, the fact that there is a war going on across the galaxy is barely touched upon.

In many ways, it’s quite an introspective look at things, though. We get to see the effect of events such as the Battle of Geonosis, where so many Jedi were killed, on the padawans who were left behind, for instance. Whie is a padawan tormented by prophetic dreams, including a vision of his own death at the hands of a Jedi (he is actually seen among the holorecordings Obi-Wan flits through following Order 66, where he is killed alongside Cin Drallig). It makes for a very introspective character. Dooku is very thoughtful about where he currently stands in life, as I’ve already mentioned. To this extent, then, it kinda makes sense that the book wouldn’t focus on the massive conflict at large, but even so, this series of books really does feel like a missed opportunity to show us the actual Clone Wars conflict. It continually bemuses me how nobody seemed to plot out how the war would be told – instead, it seems to be a continual series of vignettes or worse, where we’re told that the war really is raging, just not on this particular corner.

As it stands, we have no clear idea of what the clone wars are about, really. The Separatists are trying to break planets away from the Republic, and the Republic is trying to keep them in the fold – why does that need millions of clones? Why has diplomacy failed? Why is it a military conflict? Well, reading these novels won’t make that clear, despite “a Clone Wars novel” being emblazoned on the cover. It all boils down to – there’s a conflict going on called the Clone Wars, and this is a book set during that time, but telling a different kind of story.

But all of this is criticism that is more properly levelled at the overarching publishing programme, and not the book in and of itself. It’s actually really good, if a little slow at times. The atmosphere of the book is all-pervasive, and while the climax is a little stunted, it is nevertheless gripping as Yoda and Dooku face each other once more.

Up next, we have a couple of graphic novels, where we get to see what Asajj Ventress does next, and we catch up with Quinlan Vos and the tangled web in which he has found himself!

The Great Prequel Re-Read, part six

Continuing the Prequel re-read today, let’s start with Hero of Cartao. It’s a short novella from the pen of Timothy Zahn no less, and deals with the Separatist invasion of the planet Cartao. The planet has an industrial facility called Spaarti Creations, which is notable for the alien species who work there, who are able to make pretty much anything to order. They’re pressed into service by Kinman Doriana to make cloning tanks to help bolster the clone troopers, because apparently Kamino’s process is taking too long. Whether the Trade Federation actually got wind of this or not is unclear, but they soon arrive on-world as well and take over the plant. A lot of fighting ensues, but both sides don’t want to damage the plant itself. However, a Republic cruiser is eventually sent to help the beleaguered Republic fighters, and crashes straight into the factory.

This story basically exists to explain why the Emperor had Spaarti cloning tanks in his facility on Wayland, after the revelation that the clones were good, and made in Kamino. I’ve mentioned this briefly before, but when Tim Zahn was writing his original Thrawn trilogy, it was theorized that the Clone Wars pitted evil clonemasters against the Republic, and Palpatine was able to capitalize upon this to ensure his election to Supreme Chancellor. With the reversal that the clones we see are actually fighting on the side of the Republic, some retconning was required!

That said, the story isn’t bad in and of itself, it just seems a bit by the numbers at times. It’s fascinating to see Kinman Doriana again, of course, as he thinks he is playing both sides by serving both Sidious and Palpatine, without knowing they’re the same person. There’s an element here that suggests he thinks he’s pulling the wool over Palpatine’s eyes, which is kinda interesting. A significant part of the story deals with the droid siege of the factory complex, and the atmosphere of an occupied planet is really well-written, I think.

It’s by no means an important story, even when taken as the explanation for the Spaarti cylinders. I suppose it’s nice to have, but it wasn’t a huge burning question that I had, that is now answered!

From Cartao, let’s now head to Praesitlyn. Yes, we must!

Jedi Trial is the fifth novel in the original Clone Wars multimedia project, which began with Shatterpoint. In case you didn’t read my earlier blog on that book, between 2002-2005, Del Rey aimed to tell the story of the clone wars in real time, publishing these books while Revenge of the Sith was filming. Written by real-life veterans of war, it tells the story of Anakin’s progression from padawan to Jedi Knight, during a mission to the strategic comms centre of Praesitlyn. With Obi-Wan off doing other stuff, Anakin is cooling his heels at the temple when Nejaa Halcyon asks for him to join him on his mission. Nejaa, himself something of a rogue Jedi, is of course the Jedi grandfather of Corran Horn, who was one of the great stalwarts of the old expanded universe, and star of any book written by Michael Stackpole. Nejaa and Anakin both have secret wives, and they bond over their shared transgressions against the Jedi Code.

The leader of the droids on this instance is Pors Tonith, of the Intergalactic Banking Clan. The ground forces on Praesitlyn take up the main chunk of the story, however, which is probably because of the authors’ experience in similar fields. We get to go through military strategy where it actually makes sense (even if the situation doesn’t), and the exhaustive detail over stuff like military supply is, well, exhausting.

When you read this as a military sci-fi novel with Star Wars characters, it’s kinda fascinating. When you read it as a Star Wars novel that promises to show Anakin front and centre, possibly facing off against Asajj Ventress given how prominent she is on the cover, you’re going to be disappointed to the point where it’s just criminal. Before or since, we’ve never had a Star Wars novel tell us how important the quartermaster is to the army. The level of detail, which I keep banging on about, is off the charts impressive. But this isn’t what Star Wars is about. At least, not for me.

Nejaa and Anakin arrive to relieve the Praesitlyn Defense Force, and find barely anybody left. Anakin is in his element during combat, and performs exceptionally in both rescuing some hostages and capturing Pors Tonith. In the later space battle, his Force-aided skills allow him to cheat death, and the Council has no choice but to agree that his actions are worthy of becoming a Jedi Knight.

Somewhere in here there is a good idea for a story, which showcases Anakin’s ability when he is unfettered from Obi-Wan’s caution. Indeed, I don’t think there has been a story where I’ve actually liked Anakin Skywalker as a character, because authors are forever trying to foreshadow his turn into Darth Vader. But Anakin here is actually a pretty competent military commander, and his command of the Force is almost instinctive, as though he really is some kinda living prophecy. There’s a lot of derring-do, of course, but I don’t think it has ever been explained so clearly before that Anakin behaves like this because he knows he can do it. It might seem like suicide for him to lead a charge on the Separatists’ position, but he knows he will be successful, so of course he does it. It’s an interesting take on Anakin, and reminds me somewhat of how Horus Lupercal is portrayed in Horus Rising – no effort to foreshadow the monster he will become, instead we have a genuinely likeable guy.

Unfortunately, the story ignores Anakin for about half of the page count. Instead, we get Odie and Erk, the unlikely romance plotline that I really, really wish had been stripped out of the book. We also barely get any Asajj Ventress, only when Pors Tonith reports in to her. Why is she featured so prominently on the cover? Grr.

Overall, the book is just bad. I’ve read it three times now, and each time it has been, well, a trial to get through. I remember one Christmas-time, reading only the interesting bits and skipping over the other stuff – I basically read it in half a day, because the bad far outweighed the good. Like I said, somewhere in here there is a good story, but for a book that deals with Anakin’s Jedi trials, I was expecting far more Jedi stuff as we got to learn all about how the Council decides who is ready to graduate from Jedi school. The fact that the Prequels have been institutionalising the Jedi to make us believe the Trials are basically a formal test, it turns out that it’s actually much closer to what Luke has to do in Return of the Jedi, and it amounts to basically doing really well as a Jedi without supervision.

Every time I think about this book, I want to like it, because I want it to be good. And every time, bloody Odie and Erk drag me down and infuriate me over everything that’s bad about it. While it’s arguably a better Star Wars book than Shatterpoint, because it gives us more of the actual war and so on, I think the Clone Wars novels series in general is just a bit of a let-down. In Shatterpoint, we learnt that there haven’t really been any major offensives in the conflict, but instead we’ve had a lot of shadow operations as Jedi have attempted to negotiate planetary governments staying in the Republic, or destabilising those who have joined the Separatists. However, given that this is a galactic conflict, we should imagine that there are massive theatres of contested space. Instead, we get these kinds of stories where major characters are sent to tiny backwater worlds where the book stays on one world for the most part. It’s a complaint that I’ve made before, I know, but we just don’t get that kind of galactic sweep that we have in stuff like Zahn’s books – or, for that matter, in the movies themselves.

Anyway, I think I’ve talked this one to death. Anyone else notice how I spend far too much time talking about the books I don’t like?! Up next is Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, and I seem to remember that I do like this one!

Star Wars: Shatterpoint

Well folks, I finally made it through the first official Clone Wars novel, Shatterpoint. What a book!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Mace Windu heads to his homeworld of Haruun Kal on a rescue mission with a difference. His former padawan and fellow Council member Depa Billaba appears to have “gone native” with the local partisan groups trying to eradicate the off world prospectors, and Mace fears that she may have fallen to the Dark Side. He teams up with Nick Rostu as he is led through the jungle to Depa and the Koruun natives, led by the powerful, untrained Force user Kar Vastor. All Koruunai are able to feel the Force, but Kar embodies the natural power of the jungle itself, and he does not want Mace to take Depa from them. When the offworlders, backed by the Separatists, lead a massive attack against the natives, Mace is forced to work alongside Kar and the others; however, when the Koruunai and Depa turn the tables and use the Separatist droids to annihilate the offworlder settlements, Mace is forced to switch sides in his attempt to stop the fighting.

This book has been well-publicised as the Star Wars equivalent to Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, and the depictions of war as a living nightmare are particularly graphic, to say the least. There are descriptions of wounds and displaced persons, the fallout of battles and the legacy of generational racism that all serve to underscore the serious tone of the novel. Some of this is counterbalanced by Nick and his sometimes forced levity, though it doesn’t take a genius to see how it’s perhaps a coping mechanism for the life he has led.

We definitely get the gritty, realistic feel of a war story here. It’s interesting because it’s not really Star Wars, that kind of tone, is it? A story that essentially tells the harrowing aftermath of a warzone that has almost been forgotten by the overall conflict, and left to let the natives carry on their eternal struggle is quite bleak, to say the least. The sounds and smells are described at length, and Haruun Kal is definitely not going to be high on anyone’s list of destinations to visit. A very interesting moment occurs as Mace arrives on-world and is the target of mistrust based on his race, which is a very different way of portraying the legendary Jedi Master.

One of the things I like a lot about this book comes from just two pages near the start, where we get an update on the galactic war position. We learn what has happened since Geonosis, how the Separatists have castled up in their “Forge of the Confederacy” heartlands, while the Jedi, under the guidance of Yoda, have primarily been engaged in destabilising the governments on those worlds, trying to bring systems back into the Republic or, at the very least, trying to cause a chaos that will prevent the Separatists from making use of the fact that they were prepared for the war to begin. All of this is happening while the Republic war machine attempts to catch up with the Separatists droid factories. With so few clones to rely on, the Republic needs to call on local peacekeepers and volunteers, meaning that there are very few actual engagements in the early months of the clone wars, merely skirmishes and an extension of the kind of border disputes Dooku took advantage of in the first place. It’s so satisfying to see a bigger picture here, as it’s something that we usually lack in these stories, as they seek to tell the story of a one-on-one fight without widening the focus to the larger brawl. Context is key – something that Star Wars writers have increasingly failed to understand, especially in the sequel trilogy!!

Much later on, there is also a very interesting comment from Depa Billaba as regards the war destroying the Jedi. Of course, in hindsight, given what we as readers know of the overall Star Wars plot, this is very true. The war was engineered to destroy as many Jedi as possible. But it’s interesting to see Depa comment how, no matter which side wins, the Jedi will lose, and she’s kinda dismissed by Mace as her jungle madness, or whatever.

However, this isn’t really one of my favourite Star Wars novels. The message is driven home pretty hard, and we end up with a fairly heavy-going book that kinda isn’t fun, for the most part. The interesting thing, to me, is how a lot of the prequel stuff, and especially the Clone Wars stuff, was written during the second Iraq War, which didn’t really click for me at the time, but looking at this now, it does come through.

For all the branding of being “a Clone Wars novel”, and being the first book in a publishing program that intended to tell the Clone Wars story in real time between 2002-05, the book is predominantly the story of the Koruunai partisans vs the offworld prospectors. Yes, the Separatists backed the offworlders, and yes, we get clones and droid star fighters at the climax, but in the main, this doesn’t feel like it’s telling a Clone Wars story. It sometimes doesn’t even feel like a Star Wars story…

I know a lot of people love this book, but for me, it’s probably going to be another 20 years before I think of picking it up again…

Star Wars: The Approaching Storm

Well, guys, I finished it!

The Approaching Storm is one of those Star Wars books that I know I don’t really like, but nevertheless I find myself willing to reread it more easily than the more truly dull books.

The seemingly insignificant planet Ansion is tied by many treaties to its more powerful neighbours. President of the Commerce Guild Shu Mai hatches a plan to have Ansion secede from the Republic, which would mean the planet’s neighbours would also be compelled to do so, creating the start of the Separatist movement. Shu Mai asserts that nobody would notice if Ansion did leave the Republic, yet within a page or two we learn that actually yes, many people are also aware of the network of treaties and alliances that bind Ansion and others, and the Jedi have dispatched both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luminara Unduli, and their padawans, to mediate this “border dispute”.

The planet of Ansion exists in tension between the city dwellers, many of whom wish to secede to open up free trade, and the nomads who roam the open prairies, who wish to remain in the Republic to keep the protection afforded to them by the many Republic acts in favour of ethnic groups. The Jedi offer a bargain to the city folk, to stay in the Republic if a treaty can be negotiated with the nomads. And so the Jedi embark across the prairie to find the Overclan, to whom the rest of the nomads generally listen.

Eventually they find the Borokii nomads, and a treaty is negotiated, and the Jedi are able to keep Ansion in the Republic, and all is well.

So, why did I give this book a 2-star rating on Goodreads? Well, I like my Star Wars books to have the sort of planet-hopping adventures with actual consequences or significant changes taking place. There’s nothing wrong with a book that is set on just one world, of course, provided the story is actually good, and stuff happens. However, TAS achieves very little, if anything, of consequence. We get some attempts to foreshadow Anakin turning into Darth Vader, while cognisant that he’s just a teenager, and the book actually marks the first appearance of Shu Mai and, indeed, Count Dooku himself. I think the book was marketed as a lead-in to Attack of the Clones while actually the only real impact it makes on the film is to explain Mace’s remark about Obi-Wan and Anakin returning from a border dispute on Ansion.

The book gives us Luminara Unduli and her padawan Barriss Offee, though, and these two are really very interesting. Their inclusion was meant, I believe, to act as a counterpoint to the relationship of Obi-Wan and Anakin, plus the added bonus of being able to say “I know them!” when they have that brief two second scene in the arena on Geonosis. However, as representative of what Jedi are supposed to be like, I think it’s really interesting to see the two of them throughout the book.

I also really like seeing Shu Mai predominantly acting as the villain of the piece. She’s a bit like the shadowy puppet master, even though we know she reports to Dooku etc.

Many of the bits I like about the book come in throwaway sentences, unfortunately. One such is a discussion of how diplomacy works when there are millions of languages in the galaxy. As it happens, the Jedi take a kind of short language course as they travelled to Ansion, allowing them to converse with the natives out on the prairie without the need for a protocol droid. It’s interesting, because we don’t normally get this kind of detail in Star Wars books.

Most of this book is spent with the four Jedi crossing the grasslands, and we get a variety of scenelets that allow us a glimpse into the planet. In terms of novel writing, I can’t help but admire the breadth of scope we get here, seeing all manner of minutiae from across the rolling plains. But as a Star Wars novel, against the backdrop of galactic secession that we know will form the backdrop to the clone wars, I really don’t care why a certain grazer has six legs, or a certain other grazer has three eyes arranged vertically rather than horizontally. It’s interesting on one level, but I don’t want a Star Wars book to be on that level, if I’m honest.

Thinking about this now, I want this book instead to dive into who Count Dooku is, why he’s the leader of the group of industrialists who want to leave the Republic, and why Padme thinks he would try to kill her. I want more galactic intrigue, too – not this bumbling low-level stuff we get here. Fine, if Ansion is the best we have, then let’s still send four Jedi there to mediate – but let’s show it for what it is, and have all eyes on Ansion. Let’s find out what Bail Organa thinks about the situation, or whoever is in charge over on Corellia or Kuat.

And the biggest thing, let Ansion secede. The Jedi should fail, and this book becomes more than just a throwaway Obi-Wan and Anakin story, but instead it actually shows the beginning of the Separatist crisis, which is already about to kick off as the opening crawl flies up the screen.

However, instead we have a zoological gazetteer of Ansion that is vaguely tied in to the GFFA. Which is a shame.

Anyway, let’s try not to get too down on things. We have that great romance coming next (cough), it’s time for Attack of the Clones!

Star Wars: Outbound Flight

Outbound Flight

Continuing the Great Prequel Re-Read, yesterday I finished reading Outbound Flight, by Timothy Zahn. The storyline was expanded out of a paragraph included in Dark Force Rising, where Luke is researching the Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth and learns he was part of the Outbound Flight expedition.

The book takes place before the outbreak of the Clone Wars, in 27BBY, and focuses on the efforts of Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth to launch the Outbound Flight venture, an attempt to reach a new galaxy for colonisation. Six dreadnoughts, tethered together around a central storage core that carries enough provisions to last for generations, on a mission of exploration. The project has languished for many years for a variety of reasons, but following a successful negotiation between the Barlok and the Corporate Alliance, C’baoth is able to ride the wave of popularity to force his project through. It turns out that C’baoth has foreseen dark days ahead for the Jedi (it is hinted that he has foreseen Order 66) and so wishes to take as many Jedi with him as possible. He eventually gets 16, along with a number of techs and families who wish to leave the corruption of the Republic behind and start a new life in the Unknown Regions or beyond.

However, the Council don’t especially trust C’baoth, and so assign Obi-Wan Kenobi to keep tabs on him, both during the mission to Barlok and the initial test flight for Outbound Flight. Kenobi is quite concerned by some of the practices C’baoth introduces on the dreadnoughts, such as practicing the Jedi mind-meld technique, and training Force sensitive children much older than the infants normally trained by the Jedi. He eventually wishes to remain aboard for the full project, which is anticipated to return to the Republic within 10-15 years, but Supreme Chancellor Palpatine himself intervenes to ensure Obi-Wan and Anakin return to Republic space before Outbound Flight heads into the Unknown Regions.

Kenobi isn’t the only one concerned with C’baoth however, and many of the families and workers aboard the vessel grow increasingly disaffected by what they perceive to be C’baoth’s tyranny. C’baoth is convinced that his insight from the Force makes him the one able to know what is best for those non-Force-sensitives, but many see this as crossing the line into Jedi rule.

Meanwhile, a smuggler group that includes a very young Jorj Car’das find themselves on the edge of Wild Space, where they are apprehended by a Chiss task force led by Commander Thrawn. The Chiss keep them as uneasy guests for months on end, and Thrawn and Car’das form an unlikely friendship as they each learn the others’ language. Thrawn is part of the Expansionary Defence Force, whose remit is to patrol the space around the Chiss Ascendancy to watch for potential intruders, but never to act as an aggressor. However Thrawn, who subscribes to the maxim that the best defence is a good offence, is able to use Car’das to effectively neutralise the threat of the Vagaari raiders who have been coming ever-closer to the Ascendancy.

During his patrols, he comes across a Trade Federation/Techno Union battleforce lying in wait for somebody, and with meets with Kinman Doriana, who has assembled the warships in that region specifically to destroy Outbound Flight when it arrives. Doriana, working for Darth Sidious, believes Outbound Flight could jeopardise the Republic, and specifically Sidious’ plans for a new order, by coming into contact with an extra-galactic group referred to as Far Outsiders. Sidious had foreseen these invaders cutting a swathe across the galaxy, and intended to stall this until he had more firm control over the galaxy. Thrawn meets with Doriana, after the Chiss have effectively neutralised their task force, and realises Thrawn would be more than capable of destroying Outbound Flight. He introduces Thrawn to Sidious, who approves of the Chiss joining the conspiracy, and so the trap is set.

Car’das travels to the Vagaari last-known position and succeeds in tempting them to a strike against the Chiss, but they are diverted to the area of space where Outbound Flight is being held. Thrawn is able to manipulate the Jedi into using the Force to attack the minds of the Vagaari, before he then uses Doriana’s droid starfighters to disable Outbound Flight. Finally, he uses radiation bombs on Outbound Flight to ensure all crews aboard the six dreadnoughts are killed. However, a small group of dissidents against C’baoth’s “tyranny” were being held in the storage core, and survive this bombing. When the Chaf family arrive in an attempt to claim Outbound Flight and its technology for their own, these survivors are able to escape, only to crash-land on an unknown planet.

I was surprised by this book. I remember reading it when it came out, back in 2006, but my memory of the plot is just so hazy that it was like reading a new book! I do recall some aspects from the start, but the action with the Chiss, specifically Car’das and Thrawn, and the denouement as Outbound Flight is destroyed, was like uncharted territory! Which is just as well, in some respects, because the beginning on Barlok and Coruscant almost feels like it was shoehorned in as a compulsory element to force Anakin and Obi-Wan to have a role in yet another story.

Once we leave Barlok behind, and particularly once Obi-Wan and Anakin leave, things take a bit of a turn as we focus in on Zahn’s trio of Thrawn (and Car’das), C’baoth, and Kinman Doriana. Doriana was first introduced by Zahn in Vision of the Future, but has somehow become a firm part of Palpatine’s inner circle in my mind, so it’s nice to see the man himself again here. Part of the Trade Federation task force, there was an element of cognitive dissonance at first for me, as we have Thrawn on the Springhawk (which is familiar from the Ascendancy trilogy) attacking C’baoth and Outbound Flight (which has been a part of the lore since Dark Force Rising), while Kinman Doriana watches from the bridge of a Trade Federation battleship… worlds truly collide!

I always appreciate seeing more of Palpatine’s direct underlings like Sate Pestage and Kinman Doriana, so I did like getting to see him work to further Darth Sidious’ plots. It’s interesting that Doriana doesn’t know that Palpatine and Sidious are the same person, but he serves both individually. I believe it was some time during the Clone Wars that he eventually caught up to speed.

Jorus C’baoth behaves almost exactly as we would expect him to, from the behaviour of his mad clone in the original Thrawn trilogy. It’s almost too on-point, however, and you have to wonder how he was able to get away with being so overbearing during a time when he would have been in fairly regular contact with the likes of Mace and Yoda. I suppose it’s similar to Dooku, though (can you imagine getting the pair of them together?!) C’baoth’s actions aboard Outbound Flight, however, become increasingly reprehensible, though, and I was left wondering just how he could justify these to anybody, when he is quite clearly taking over the whole enterprise and ruling over the others aboard. Towards the end he is said to have fallen to the dark side, but it seems that he spends most of the novel on that path, anyway. Although it’s entirely possible also that he is simply meant as a different kind of Jedi, separate from the serene space monks that we otherwise get during the prequels. Hm.

The Chiss storylines I was particularly surprised by, because of how they fit in with the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy. I hadn’t realised that Admiral Ar’alani had a presence in the EU that went quite as far back as this! I think the only thing that felt a bit wrong was how the Chiss ships are able to get into hyperspace with no mention being made of the sky-walkers. As these parts were invariably being told from Car’das’s point of view, I suppose it’s easy to assume he just wasn’t paying enough attention, or maybe was too focused on Thrawn, or maybe even the caregiver was instructed to keep that side of things especially hidden from the humans on the bridge. Whatever. It’s a tiny niggle in a storyline that otherwise I did enjoy a great deal. Though much as with C’baoth, I did find myself exasperated by how short-sighted the Chiss are, but I suppose Thrawn has to shine…

All in all, a good book, though one that I wouldn’t say is particularly necessary to read during the Prequel re-read, per se. It fits in far more closely with Zahn’s later EU work, especially Survivor’s Quest, which was written to tie in with this book while it was still in the planning stages. But I’ll get to that book later in the year… It’s a shame that Anakin and Obi-Wan were shoved into the mix, because their storyline could pretty much be excised without losing anything from the main plot, but I’m not the first to point out that it’s probably a bad editorial choice.

Up next, we have The Approaching Storm!