April 2024

[colls]

As we don't have the Book-of-the-Month right now, what Star Wars material did you read/watch/etc?

Is there anything you're looking forward to reading/playing/watching?

Comments

[colls]

I've been staying current with Season 3 of The Bad Batch and this coming week is the finale. I'm nervous and anxious and feeling uncertain for the future of some of the characters - so, you know, par for the course!

Is anyone else caught up on this series?

[starlady]

I read one page of Brotherhood several weeks ago and I would definitely like to finish it in May. And I'm looking forward to (but nervous about) the Bad Batch finale, and very excited for Tales of the Empire!

[colls]

Brotherhood looks interesting. I read an article on how the author slid it into Disney book canon plus Legends canon and it seemed a thin needle to thread in some ways. Always fun to see when authors try to do that sort of thing.

Oh! That's right, the Tales of the Empire is releasing May 4th, right? That's so soon!

[kuwdora]

I'm about 60% the way through my audiobook of Zahn's The Last Command (after getting Survivor's Quest by accident, listening to that for about 20 mins and realizing that I had missed the Heir to the Empire conclusion, lol). I'm having such a great time. I love Marc Thompson's narration and I would kill for Mara Jade and Leia.

[colls]

I'm so glad to hear you're enjoying the audiobooks!! I generally love Star Wars audiobooks.
Now that we don't have the book-of-the-month format here, (which was difficult to do as a mod - I don't pay attention to chapter markers as well when I listen, I just get engrossed in the story), I hope I can return to doing more listening vs. reading.

[justanorthernlight]

I recently listened to the Dooku: Jedi Lost audio original, with mixed feelings.

John Jackson Miller is a quasi-local author to my area so I went to a signing/launch event for The Living Force so I'll probably read that next or relatively soon. At the event he also announced that the first volume of the Legends Epic Collections The Old Republic comics are getting reprinted soon, which I have been trying to get my hands on for several years, so that's exciting but it's not coming out until late June.

[colls]

I was never very interested in Count Dooku, but this audio is intriguing. And more about Asajj Ventress seems like something I'd gravitate towards. What is mixed for you?

I've enjoyed other books by John Jackson Miller (A New Dawn & Kenobi come to mind). Cool that he's local for you!

[justanorthernlight]

I think Count Dooku has been one of the least fleshed-out villains in Star Wars until recently, except for General Grievous. The Clone Wars never really dug into him like they did Maul, Ventress, and others.

With as few spoilers as I can manage:

Things I liked about the book:
1.) Sifo-Dyas is a major character, and his master Kostana, who's main job is locating Dark Side artifacts, was really cool and intriguing to me. I basically loved everything about the relationship between Dooku and the two of them.
2.) There was some interesting insights into Jedi youngling training, temple life, visions, and Dark Side artifacts and stuff.
3.) The voice actors for Ventress, Qui-Gon, and Yoda were all on point.
4.) Ventress's emotional arc is pretty good, but it's also a tiny part of the book.


Things I disliked:
1.) The voice actor for Dooku sounds nothing like his film/cartoon counterpart, which made it difficult for me to relate the narration to the character. Honestly if it had been a story about a Jedi OC I might have enjoyed it more.
2.) I thought that the framing device was pretty weak. To facilitate the flashbacks, Dooku gives Ventress a bunch of recordings of messages between him and his sister from when he was a Padawan and later she 'finds' his private diary from when he was a knight. However, the flashbacks' usefulness to the present-day plot (finding Dooku's sister) felt tenuous and contrived. Like the goal could have been accomplished without them without any more difficulty.
3.) The ending 'twist' was obvious from the first five minutes of the book.
4.) Little to no Palpatine in the story. He might have had a cameo appearance, but I don't quite remember.
5.) I had a couple of personal gripes that kicked out my suspension of disbelief at certain points (shallow political metaphors, total lack of understanding of planetary scale, etc), but those are kind of my personal pet peeves.


Things that may have unfairly prejudiced me against the book:
1.) Yoda: Dark Rendezvous was one of my favorite Clone Wars era Legends books. It involved the relationship between Yoda and Dooku and this book has a very different take on them.
2.) I don't remember if it was Legends canon or just fanon, but I was under the impression that (at least in Legends) Dooku left the Order because of Qui-Gon's death while here he leaves before Obi-Wan is even in the picture, which throws off a lot of my preconceived notions about him.

[colls]

Thank you for the details! I'm intrigued by the Asajj Ventress angle, so it's disappointing to hear it's a small arc.

I think the things you disliked would likely be manageable for me - I'm not as in tune with prequel-era characters and can handwave contrived plot devices (like the flashbacks you mention).

I haven't read Yoda: Dark Rendezvous yet, so maybe I'll read/listen to this first so I don't have the same reaction on that front.

[justanorthernlight]

I've also liked most of John Jackson Miller's stuff. When I was in my "All Old Republic all the time" phase I liked Knight Errant and the Lost Tribe of the Sith short stories. I recently checked and the Knight Errant comics seem to have been reprinted in one of the Epic Collections, and I haven't read those yet!