Star Wars: Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade was written by bestselling author, Delila S. Dawson. This tale takes place over a time, during the events of Attack of the Clones and well after Order 66.
SUMMARY
In this story we follow Iskat Akaris, from her time as a padawan to where she ends up after the great Jedi purge. When she was a youngling in training, she caused an incident that hurt another, and it’s been held against her. She’s always been a black sheep, never fitting in with her peers. She feels alone and betrayed.
When she is sent with a team to Geonosis and is forced to use her blade, she finds pleasure in taking the lives that cross her. At that first battle, marking the beginning of the Clone Wars, her master is killed. With her dying breath, she utters apologies to a name unfamiliar to Iskat. Through research, Iskat believes the name her master had mentioned is tied to Iskat’s past. Anger swells at the Jedi, for having hidden her past from her.
Bitterness toward the Jedi Oder boils over, they’ve let millions die in the Clone Wars with their tactics and poor intelligence. Iskat has lived a lonely life of frustration and depression. The bonds she’s tried to form always fail.
When the Order is issued to Clone Troopers to kill Jedi, Iskat is spared. She is given the option to live – to not be oppressed by the traitorous Jedi. She can have the freedom to unleash the force within, to discover who she truly is.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Okay so I’ll admit I was surprised by this novel. Delila S. Dawson was an author I really wasn’t a fan of at first, with Phasma. Later she wrote Black Spire which I thought was a decent book, and now we’ve got Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade – I enjoyed it.
Iskat Akaris, a black sheep in the Jedi Order, was a well written character. We follow her from the best of times to the worst of times… (though her life never really had best of times) it was always sad. I like getting an alternate perspective of the Jedi Order and how it may have felt for those that didn’t fall in like mindlessly. The glimpse at the Geonosis battle and Order 66 from a new perspective was also very well done.
I like how this book pulled from other content, obviously the movies – Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, but also other books. The one that stuck out the most was Brotherhood, which was a major turning point for the Jedi Order.
While I dislike the direction of canon, Dawson laid out the best argument for the Inquisitors. The one thing that drove me crazy though, was the lightsabers that the Inquisitors used. They were given new lightsabers with red blades. Whatever happened to the concept of “bleeding the blade?” The crystal’s energy being tainted by the dark-side… that would have been much cooler.
I am pleased with this book, I had fun reading it, it’s always fun diving into a character that struggles with who they are. There are opportunities and dreams that could become their reality but they keep doing the thing that binds them.
RATING
I give Star Wars: Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade, an A. I was hooked from page one all the way through to the end. We get some awesome Vader action, we have Sidious, we have a really deep look into the arrogance of the Jedi.