Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone, was written by bestselling author, J.K Rowling. The Sorcerer’s Stone is the first book in the Harry Potter series.
SUMMARY
Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone is about a boy that learns there’s so much more to life than what his abusive family had led him to believe. This is a story of adventure and friendship. The magical, Wizarding-World or witches and wizards is hidden to the eyes of muggles, us normal folk. Select children are invited to enter the hidden world to attend the school of Hogwarts. Unknown to Harry Potter, he’s famous in this realm. Harry desires to know more of his past, who his parents were, and why/how they were killed.
In this young reader novel, Harry and his friends will uncover secrets of Hogwarts and reveal that a dark lord has risen from the shadows.
CHARACTER
Harry Potter is a young boy who’s mistreated by his blood relatives. He lives with his Aunt and Uncle, he has since he was just a baby. He was left on their front porch after the horrific death of his parents, James and Lily Potter. Harry’s parents were involved in magic, and were killed by the one who must not be named… Voldemort. Voldemort attempted to kill the infant Harry, but by the love of his mother, it deflected the deathly magic that Voldemort used, killing Lily, and only putting a scar on Harry’s forehead. As Harry Potter grows, he is treated like a dog by his family. One one fateful day, he’s rescued, taken to the Wizarding-World, and the magical school, Hogwarts.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
This book, is a quick, simple read that focuses on friendship, curiosity, and overcoming fear. The Sorcerer’s Stone moves along at a solid pace, shifting from point A to Z without slowing down much. With the book moving at such a fast pace, Rowling still gives us a great amount of character introduction (there’s a lot) and superb world building (it’s big). Rowling doesn’t waste any time with overly expressed details or pointless misdirection. The story unfolds naturally, and brings up new questions about Harry’s past as well as the history of Hogwarts.
The friendship built up by the first year Gryffindor trio – Harry, Hermione, and Ron is fantastic. Ron and Hermione have a bit of tension between them – that young immature boy vs. girl attitude. It’s a comical fault of Ron, he’s the primary instigator. Overall the gang gets along pretty well, each of them posses something that the other doesn’t. Ron is poor, Harry has a cache of gold left by his parents, Hermione’s parents are dentists, so they’re well off. Harry is an Orphan, and desires what Hermione and Ron have, family. Hermione is a muggle, which means she isn’t a witch by blood, while Ron and Harry do have the “magical gene” passed on to them. Their friendship truly feels authentic and they work so well together as a team. Hermione follows the rules a bit more tightly than Ron and Harry, who are usually just asking for trouble. They all share a pretty heavy dislike for the bully in the first year class, Draco Malfoy, who’s in the house of Slytherin. Slytherin has a rough history, as it’s where the primary antagonist spent his years at Hogwarts.
This story is fun and heart warming. The treatment of Harry by his family, was heartbreaking. I was pleased by the events that unfolded that lead to Harry’s escape of the abuse, to see a whole new world. I truly am impressed with the way Rowling told this first story, and leaving it wide open for more to be told.
RATING: I will give Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone, an A.
Star Wars: Dark Force Rising was written by bestselling author, Timothy Zahn. This Expanded Universe tale takes place during the New Republic Era, nine years ABY. This is book two of the original Thrawn Trilogy.
SUMMARY
The stakes are raised in the second instalment of the Thawn trilogy! The New Republic and the Empire are in need of war-ships. Talon Karrde has information on the whereabouts of a Clone-Wars era fleet known as The Katana Fleet or Dark Force. The news travels fast as both factions learn where the ships are located.
Leia and Chewbacca are on a mission to gain a new ally for the New Republic, Han and Lando are on the search for the Katana Fleet, and Luke Skywalker meets with Jorus C’baoth to discuss the future of the Jedi! Meanwhile, Borsk Fey’lya is determined to climb the political ranks of the New Republic! He’s desperate for power, and will stop at nothing to put an end to the “wreck less heroics” of Republic heroes.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
The second book in the Thrawn trilogy is definitely more entertaining than the first book, Heir to the Empire. Timothy Zahn had certainly had his hands full with all the characters and events taking place throughout the galaxy in this one. While some of the character quests taking place were a tab boring, others were more exciting.
While Leia had a lot to do in this story, I wasn’t much a fan of her storyline. tryng to mentally wake up an alien race that basically worshiped Vader and served the Empire. They thought the Empire had been helping them cleanse their planet. Turns out, the Empire wasn’t doing anything to help them. Leia does her best to open their eyes to that fact.
I was really captivated when Timothy Zahn brings Luke Skywalker to Jorus C’baoth. Zahn did a good job making me feel the discomfort Luke was experiencing during their meeting. Luke is very hesitant when it comes to Jorus, he’s uncomfortable around him. Luke doesn’t know if the old Jedi is in his right mind.
There was one big thing with the writing I couldn’t stand; Luke is seriously doubting Jorus C’baoth the whole time he’s with him, but when ill intentions are made known by C’baoth, it’s a total shock to Luke. This whole time Zahn has us believing that Luke has his wits about him and feels really uneasy about C’baoth… just to find be told that Luke didn’t expect such darkness and distrust from this crazy old mad-man.
Overall, Zahn balanced out the many plots fairly well. He builds up tension and puts in a few unexpected surprises throughout. Leia with a lightsaber, C’baoth stepping up to be a bigger threat than Thrawn realized, Borsk Fey’lya getting his voice heard in the uppper politics of the New Republic, and a few other things.
I once really enjoyed Thrawn, thinking he was a cool character. He’s so calm, collected, loves art and knows cultural war tactics. However, upon this re-read, I found the character to be highly annoying and uninteresting. I know I mentioned this in the review of Heir to the Empire, but this book solidifies the dislike of the character. I found Jorus C’baoth and BBorsk Fey’lya to be far more interesting.
Do I recommend you read Star Wars: Dark Force Rising? Yes.
RATING
For the rating of the second book of the Trawn trilogy, I give it a B
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire was written by bestselling author, Timothy Zahn. This Expanded Universe tale takes place during the New Republic Era, nine years ABY, just five hears after the events of Return of the Jedi. Heir to the Empire is book one of what’s widely referred to as, the Thrawn Trilogy.
SUMMARY
The Empire, divided and unorganized is spread throughout the galaxy. The New Republic foundations are sill unstable, as political infighting ramps up. From the outermost reaches of space, the wild, unknown regions, a threat to the New Republic emerges… an imperial Star Destroyer led by Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Thrawn sets his sights on gaining Imperial control of the galaxy once again. Disorder and the lust for power divided much of the Empire after the death of Lord Vader and Emperor Palpatine. Thrawn devises a plan that could decapitate the New Republic (rebellion) and instill order in the galaxy once again. He seeks out an alien life-form that muffles the force, a wonderful tool to suppress the force in enemy number one, Luke Skywalker. Thrawn also seeks out a man named Jorus C’baoth, a lost Jedi. His plan is to use C’baoth to fulfill his quest, promising C’baoth that he can keep Luke Skywalker to build a new Jedi Order (that’s a bit twisted).
While Thrawn is on the hunt for the tools of conquest, Leia Solo (pregnant with twins) is busy avoiding abduction attempts; Han and Luke wind have an encounter with the Empire. Luke also comes face to face with a mysterious new enemy that burns with hatred.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
This novel captured the attention of many Sar Wars film fans as it opened up the universe of the franchise on a grandiose scale. The Star Wars Expanded Universe became a force of its own. This book is highly regarded by the Star Wars reading community as one of the best! This review follows my second reading of the novel. It’s a fine story for sure.
The book is full of action and moves the characters around to many new planets. The characters jumping around from location to location, makes it a little difficult to keep up with where we are in the galaxy. We spend some time on Kashyyyk which was interesting. While this book really pioneered the Expanded Universe and is truly entertaining.
There seems to be a lack of communication between the big three; Luke, Leia, and Han. Rumors of a lost jedi resurfacing are spreading, Leia brings it up casually to Luke in conversation and he had no knowledge of it, How do you not mention this to your Jedi brother as soon as you hear about it? I believe the characters weren’t the most accurate depiction of what we’d seen from them on screen.
The story is cool for the most part, but the execution in much of it is a tad wonky. It seems like everyone in the story just knows a lot about everything, everyone knows too much! There are too many little coincidences that take place throughout the story in an attempt to tie the story into the films. Luke drinks “hot chocolate” – that just doesn’t feel like Star Wars.
Yet, this story has a lot of really cool things in it; Leia being trained, Luke facing new challenges and enemies, the surge of imperial power, and a force user that uses the dark side.
Thrawn, knows too much, and I don’t like it. The “smarts” he has in this book go beyond mere strategic abilities. He knows who’s on what ship, he knows the history of people, he knows everything! If Thrawn had the force, it would be more believable. Thrawn is pretty harsh at times which is a good character trait; he doesn’t tolerate poor work. He has an assistant – Rokh – and when Thrawn needs to remind his crew how the Empire should work, Rokh has no problem executing on Thrawn’s command.
So do I recommend you pick up an dread Star Wars: Heir to the Empire? The answer is yes. This story really does a great job expanding the universe of Star Wars beyond the Emperor and Vader, giving us a fresh new cast in the Empire.
Star Wars: Truce at Bakura was written by Bestselling author, Kathy Tyers. This tale takes place during the Rebellion era on the Legends novel timeline, four years ABY (After the Battle of Yavin).
SUMMARY
The Rebel Alliance intercepts a message that was intended for the Empire. The Imperial Governor of the Bakura System is requesting that the Empire send more stormtroopers, as Bakura is under attack by an alien invasion force from outside Imperial territory!
The Rebels, fresh off their victory over Endor, which resulted in the destruction of the second Death Star, Darth Vader, and Emperor Palpatine, head to Bakura. Here, they offer a truce to help the remnants of the Empire fight off the attackers. These invaders are harvesting life-forms to use them as an energy source to fuel their weapons. Among the chaos, Luke senses a force user!
OVERALL THOUGHTS
This is a pretty neat story, I love the timing in which this tale takes place as well; the day after the Emperor and Vader are destroyed. Witnessing the structure of an Imperial fleet cripple at the news of their fallen leadership was entertaining.
In this novel things go from bad to worse for the Empire stationed at Bakura; the shock that the Emperor is dead, no backup will come to their aid, they must rely on the rebellion to fight their ba, and finding out that the Ssi-ruuk were actually invited into their galactic territory by the fallen Emperor.
I like that we have some outside force making it’s way into the galaxy with the goal of conquering. The disturbing means by which they intended to do so was creative and terrifying. I don’t like how these beings were described – the Ssi-ruuk – dinosaur-like (there are artist depctions of these characters online, a bit silly). However, the technologically advanced aliens have some impressive tools of war. I love that the author brings the Rebels and Empire together in the Bakura system in an attempt to defeat the outsiders.
There’s a new character introduced, Dev, and he’s a force user! This is a pretty cool addition to the story. However, I think this new character was created to be a little too powerful, being able to sense Luke, to sense the death of the Emperor from the far reaches of the galaxy. Despite the “too powerful in the force flaw,” the author did a fine job fleshing out this character.
Do I recommend Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura? Yes, an exciting tale of a unity, betrayal, and wonder characters.
Star Wars: The Krytos Trap, book three in the X-Wing Series, was written by New York Times Bestselling Author, Michael A Stackpole. This Expanded Universe story takes place during the New Republic Era, seven years after the battle of Yavin.
SUMMARY
Tycho Celchu faces persecution for the death of Corran Horn!
The Krytos Virus, manipulated to affect non-human races, causes division within the New Republic. The need for Bacta is reaching the point of desperation, as the Empire and cartels have mass stock in the much needed medicine.
The stakes are high for many characters in this tale as the fight against the Empire and the sleeper agents chip away at the New Republic forces.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
I do like that there is distrust between the Rogue Squadron heroes and the the politicians. I like the concept that one of there own is a traitor. Yet, I believe this aspect of the story could have been handled a bit differently. If Stackpole led the readers into distrust of Celchu, it would have been more interesting. But we are fed the truth of what’s actually happening through the perspective of the Empire itself; where is the fun in that?
The book sheds light on the complications of building a governmental power. The spreading virus is making it difficult, as it’s targeting the non-human citizens, this causes conflict between the different races. At the birth of the New Republic, we are seeing corruption take root; guilty or not, Tycho Celchu will most likely be a sacrifice “for the greater good.” The New Republic wants to make it clear that they are just as hard on humans as the Empire was on non-humans. They want to look “fair.”
I actually appreciate this third book, more so than the previous two. I imagine creating a Star Wars story wouldn’t bee that difficult. However, creating a Star Wars story that has depth, putting a microscope up to the political affairs and advancement in character arches, has to be difficult. Michael A. Stackpole did a fine job of making this story have weight and throwing in an interesting character choice.
Do I recommend that you read Star Wars: The Krytos Trap? Yes, this installment of the X-Wing series is the best one yet.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars Gambit: Siege, an Expanded Universe novel – the sequal to Clone Wars Gambit: Stealty – was written by Karen Miller. This tale takes place during the Rise of the Empire era, during the clone wars, 21 years before the battle of Yavin.
SUMMARY
The story picks up right where we left off, with Anakin & Kenobi in a spaceship on Lanteeb. Sadly, the duo crash their ship and need to seek shelter immediately, before the droid army discovers their location. Ahsoka is growing anxious to hear back from her master; a bad feeling is filling her gut.
Dooku is losing his patience with General Durd as he’s wanting his plans to come to fruition; Durd just can’t get the work done in a timely manner. Meanwhile, Bail Organa has a scientist breaking down the elements of the developing bioweapon, to create an antidote.
Kenobi and Anakin hide out with in a small community that is mining the very substance (unknowingly), that’s used in the bioweapon that Durd has created. Trouble eventually finds them, and as a result, brings alarm to the community.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
A strange way to split this series into two books, why the Gambit books weren’t combined into just one book is baffling to me.
While I was enjoying the first book in this series, I was bored out of my mind with the second instalment. It was was like a Clone Wars episode that just wouldn’t end. Everyone was irritated with each other. Real life bickering and confrontation is bad enough, don’t care to read about it in an entire Star Wars novel.
A little foreshadowing of Anakin becoming man & machine happens, and it’s pretty dumb. He surrenders himself to become one with a machine. It’s mentioned that he can’t burn, because he’s machine… but you know… eventually he WILL burn and become machine.
“Let your feelings guide you Anakin, and you won’t go far wrong.” – Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kenobi delivers what is most likely the worst advice ever given to Anakin Skywalker.
The author pulls the curtain back on the Jedi Order, revealing that the Jedi are full of secrets. The guardians of peace have little to no control of the events unfolding all across the galaxy, and they truly are afraid.
Do I recommend you pick up Star Wars: The Clone Wars Gambit: Siege? No.
RATING
I give The Clone Wars novelization 2.5 out of 5 stars; C-.
