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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2011
I'm a big fan of the Old Republic setting. I've played
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
and
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
, and read
Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 1
and
Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 2
- and recently started reading the Bane Trilogy.
Naturally, I was excited when I saw this book in paperback as I'm anticipating the upcoming Old Republic game and this book is allegedly a tie-in. This book is, to be frank, a complete disappointement. It's slowpaced, repetetive, the characters are bland with no one to root for (or really hate), and the dialogue is poor.
The plot involves a half dozen characters searching for a MacGuffin - there's a mysterious ship and the renegade parents of a sith apprentice. Eventually (many, many pages later), the plot evolves so that characters are forced to make tenuous alliances and work together to survive in an unforgiving environment. The usual lightsaber duels follow.
Not a bad setup for this kind of thing. The problem is that first 71 pages of the book are JUST set up. And have every character (several of whom are virtually indistinguishable, aside from Darth Chratis and Ax, I kept having to flip back and check who everyone else was) discuss the same thing over again with their circle of acquaintances. It gets worse, another problem is the fact that the author is excessively wordy and employs far too much dialogue. The author actually manages to make lightsaber battles boring. It should be a pulp book - you write succinctly, you create memorable heroes and villains, and you throw in a few cliffhangers, one-liners and exciting fight scenes that keep people reading.
I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt - perhaps he was constrained by a game treatment and requirements that certain game characters had to be used and additionally there don't seem to be any problems with the setting itself, where many Star Wars novelists go wrong. However, regardless, the book is awful and reads like fanfiction. I've read thousands of books in my life, and this is one of the few I can't bring myself to finish.
Not Recommended.
For other Old Republic novels, I'd strongly recommend the first two books in the rather excellent Bane trilogy (I haven't read the third book at the moment, but I'm looking forward to it) Path of Destruction (Star Wars: Darth Bane, Book 1) , Rule of Two (Star Wars: Darth Bane, Book 2) . They tie in more closely with the KOTOR games and are well-written, enjoyable and fast reading. The graphic novels Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 1 and Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 2 are also rather good and are the source of much of the lore that influences the Old Republic era (from outside KOTOR, of course).
Naturally, I was excited when I saw this book in paperback as I'm anticipating the upcoming Old Republic game and this book is allegedly a tie-in. This book is, to be frank, a complete disappointement. It's slowpaced, repetetive, the characters are bland with no one to root for (or really hate), and the dialogue is poor.
The plot involves a half dozen characters searching for a MacGuffin - there's a mysterious ship and the renegade parents of a sith apprentice. Eventually (many, many pages later), the plot evolves so that characters are forced to make tenuous alliances and work together to survive in an unforgiving environment. The usual lightsaber duels follow.
Not a bad setup for this kind of thing. The problem is that first 71 pages of the book are JUST set up. And have every character (several of whom are virtually indistinguishable, aside from Darth Chratis and Ax, I kept having to flip back and check who everyone else was) discuss the same thing over again with their circle of acquaintances. It gets worse, another problem is the fact that the author is excessively wordy and employs far too much dialogue. The author actually manages to make lightsaber battles boring. It should be a pulp book - you write succinctly, you create memorable heroes and villains, and you throw in a few cliffhangers, one-liners and exciting fight scenes that keep people reading.
I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt - perhaps he was constrained by a game treatment and requirements that certain game characters had to be used and additionally there don't seem to be any problems with the setting itself, where many Star Wars novelists go wrong. However, regardless, the book is awful and reads like fanfiction. I've read thousands of books in my life, and this is one of the few I can't bring myself to finish.
Not Recommended.
For other Old Republic novels, I'd strongly recommend the first two books in the rather excellent Bane trilogy (I haven't read the third book at the moment, but I'm looking forward to it) Path of Destruction (Star Wars: Darth Bane, Book 1) , Rule of Two (Star Wars: Darth Bane, Book 2) . They tie in more closely with the KOTOR games and are well-written, enjoyable and fast reading. The graphic novels Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 1 and Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 2 are also rather good and are the source of much of the lore that influences the Old Republic era (from outside KOTOR, of course).
