SPOILER FREE
Star Wars Dark Disciple, the fifth book released in the new Star Wars canon. Dark Disciple is written by New York Times Bestselling Author Christie Golden. This tale takes place after Attack of the Clones and during the Clone Wars. Dark Disciple starts off nice; the first chapter is well written and is indeed a page tuner… then the rest of the book follows. Minor Spoilers (not the ending) are below. The Clone Wars is an era in Star Wars that I could care less about. I was hoping this book would make me enjoy a small part of the era.
Summary: In this book, Count Dooku is doing what he does, which is cause problems. Many beings die because of him as he trudges through the galaxy with his battle droids. Well, the Jedi council, instead of getting a good number of Jedi to seek him out and put him down… select one Jedi in secret (Quinlan Vos), to somehow team up with Asajj Ventress and assassinate Dooku.
The Review of Characters and Story: We have multiple encounters with the Jedi Council so I’d like to start off with the most outspoken members. The voice of Yoda is hard to capture, from the little amount of Filoni’s television series I have seen, Yoda’s voice was done incorrectly. It is way too choppy and irritating, so it was disappointing that Golden does a fine job of imitating Filoni’s Yoda… it just doesn’t work, it isn’t Yoda. The other council member worth mentioning is Mace Windu. Windu, basically comes off pissed the entire book. He’s the short tempered, irrational thinker of the council, although he’s the only one in this book that seems to “get it.” Kenobi… I’ll get to Kenobi a bit later. Quinlan Vos, a fun loving Jedi that visits 1313 in Coruscant, which is the shady underworld of the planet. He meets up with the infamous young bounty hunter Boba Fett… and that took me out of the book for a moment. Of course it would be Boba Fett, he’s like 1 of 12 bounty hunters in the galaxy. He needed help seeking Ventress and eventually finds out where she is. (By chapter 12 I realized that Vos is an alcoholic, this guy is throwing back drinks all the time!) When Vos meets up with Ventress, there are a few subtle and unnecessary sexual references that didn’t need to be there. Ventress comes off as this hard edged scoundrel that works alone, she takes nothing from nobody… but she evolves into a whole other character really fast. This is one of those minor spoilers: Ventress must train Vos in the ways of the dark side because it’s apparently the only way Dooku can be defeated. There are some fantastic moments in this book for sure, but the story just makes no since to me. Why does it take someone steeped in the dark side of the force to take down Dooku? Why is Dooku so powerful? Why won’t the Jedi just hunt him down and get rid of him instead of sending in two force users to assassinate him? When there is confrontation between Vos and Dooku, why do we have to hear the same old material that should be left alone to the films!? Dooku says “Join me!” and Vos echoes Luke Skywalker with, “I’ll never join you!” In this little duel, Ventress is distracted with a little dual of her own and when she makes her way back to where she needs to be, discovers that Vos has been captured. Boba Fett and his gang of familiar Bounty Hunters make another appearance, this time assisting Ventress on a rescue mission to get Vos back from the Count. This whole chapter was a waste of my time. Once again, I don’t understand why Dooku is made out to be this unstoppable force. The more I read in the book the more I disliked it, and beyond that, it makes me dislike Filoni and the irritating Clone Wars series! ANAKIN DOESN’T HAVE AN APPRENTICE!
Bigger Spoiler Alert HERE: Vos slips… no, he falls to the Dark Side. Ventress discovered this when she went to the rescue. She becomes depressed and talks with Kenobi about what’s happened. In turn, Kenobi reports the devastating news alongside Ventress to the Jedi Council. The Council appreciating Ventress’s humbleness to come forward, and in exchange for helping retrieve Vos, her slate will be wiped clean of all offenses in her past. It’s interesting that a force user can drift between light and dark and have a clean slate if they come back to the light. What about all those lives they had ended in the past? No punishment.
Kenobi: Kenobi has his own little section here because this is the most odd and disappointing character in the book. This portrayal of Kenobi is by far the worst written I’ve ever read. I can’t tell you how he acts in the Clone Wars television series, but in this book he is oblivious and childish. Kenobi is the biggest liberal on paper. In his eyes, a dark force user is not guilty of the heinous murders and various other crimes they’ve committed; they are in fact… victims themselves. Shut… Up… Kenobi argued each time execution was ordered by the council for Vos and Dooku, when did he argue with Yoda when he was sent to execute Anakin Skywalker?!?!?! He didn’t, because he isn’t a coward or a baby. According to this book, if Kenobi was ordered to execute Hitler, he would refuse. Back to the Story Review: It’s amazing how many times a lightsaber blade was held just inches away from an enemy’s neck. Dooku could have been killed a number of times in this book. Toward the end of Dark Disciple, I wanted to give up; I can’t stress enough about how annoyed I am with the writing of these characters, especially Kenobi. There is so much with Ventress and Vos that was good and there was so much that was outright nonsense. The last chapter in my opinion was cheesy, laughable, and ridiculous.
That’s my review for Star Wars Dark Disciple by Christie Golden. I give this book 2 out of 5