Star Wars: The Clone Wars: No Prisoners Book Review
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: No Prisoners was written by Karen Traviss. This novel is part of the Expanded Universe, aka, Legends timeline. The tale takes place during the Rise of the Empire era, during the Clone Wars, somewhere between 22-19 years before the battle of Yavin.
SUMMARY
Anakin Skywalker needs a break from everything, his padawn, the war, space, just responsibilities in general. He is desperate for some quite alone time with his wife, Padme. So, he sends his padawan, Ahsoka Tano off with Clone Trooper Captain Rex and his team of “new” clones. The squad boards the Republic Assault Ship, Leveler, to join Captain Pallaeon on a routine “shakedown cruise.”
Meanwhile, Republic Secret Agent Hallena gets caught up in a sticky situation, and is forced to send out an SOS. The message is picked up by some Jedi that live by a different set of rules than the Order. These Jedi come across The Leveler and deliver the message to the Republic forces. The urgent news of Hallena’s situation, will take take Captain Pallaeon, his crew of “green” clones, Captain Rex, Ahoska and a few Jedi from outside the order – on a rescue mission.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
I found this book to be a strange one. It’s not too bad, but I definitely wouldn’t call it good. Karen Traviss delivers some bizarre takes on the Jedi Order and how they operate. I was really enjoying the first half of the book, but when the author shoved in a few new Jedi characters, everything turned upside down for me.
Before I get into what went wrong, I’d like to cover what I did enjoy about the book. Traviss does well writing dialogue for the characters. The structure was straight forward, making the book a breeze to get through.
I thought it was pretty cool that we get to see some fresh clones getting involved in the war. We focus in on the small group as their pulled into a rescue mission, and it was pretty fun. The slower moments with characters sitting around talking with each other was well done. It’s in the action that the story felt weighed down.
In the Clone Wars show, I always thought Ahsoka’s attire was disturbing… she’s a 14 year-old girl and she revealed more skin than necessary. In this book, Karren Traviss brings attention to the dress-code when Ahsoka boards Pallaeon’s ship; the Captain makes her put on cloths that don’t reveal skin, as the young lady looked unbecoming and undisciplined.
We meet some new Jedi from outside of the Republic’s Jedi Order. The group of three Jedi, are very strange. I thought they were a bit interesting at first, but they ended up being too weird. They viewed the Jedi Order as way too strict, enforcing rules that didn’t matter, rules that bred defiance. The Clone Troopers disturb them quite a bit, they are disgusted by the Republic’s decision to send cloned humans to war as a disposable tool; the lives of these clones, basically meaningless. I feel like these characters were shoved in as a way for the author to rebel against the canon (at the time).
The message in this book, that was driven into the endless reaches of space, the message that beat the dead banhta… “attachment is good – obsession is bad.” It was such an annoying subject to cover. We learn that Ki-Adi-Mundi has several wives (5 of them, and he’s got children. His race has a low birth rate and males are rare). Anakin is highly irritated by this, as it just isn’t fair, it didn’t affect Ki-Adi-Mundi’s abilities, and he’s on the Jedi Council!
Traviss’s character, Master Altis, was created to be wiser than Yoda. He understood so much more about everything than the nearly 900 year old Jedi Master. Altis was a better teacher, able to bring in new students to train as Jedi, that were older than Anakin is at this current time. Altis had a wife at one time, he has students that are in a relationship… I found these characters absurd. It really felt like the author just wanted to put in new Jedi, to express how she viewed the Order – or how the Jedi should have been. It’s strange.
So, do I recommend that you read Star Wars: The Clone Wars: No Prisoners? No, I think this is one that could be left out of your reading stack.
RATING
I give No Prisoners a D, or 2 out 5 stars.