Quick book review
Dark Disciple by Christie Golden
A few years back I really stopped buying Star Wars books and reading them, mainly because the New EU books were so disappointing and poorly written compared to the Legends EU books. So I was surprised late last week when I was going through my storage and found a box of books and found this hardcover at the bottom. Had I read it? No, and I'll tell you why. Because I bought this book at the same time as I bought the Aftermath novels, and after reading them packed up a bunch of Star Wars books and put them into storage.
But being in basically isolation and not having a job has allowed me some time to read, and I said, hey man what the duck. I pulled this book out and started reading it.
Dark Disciple focus around two key characters. Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos. Ventress had become one of the most interesting characters in the Clone Wars series as she went from a assassin under Dooku to a Night Sister to a Bountry hunter and seemed to be on a path to redemption, last scene in the final Ahsoka arc of season 5. Vos was a major Jedi character in the Legends EU as a betrayer of the Jedi who eventually returned to the fold, in Clone Wars he made one appearance as a slightly over energetic goofy character in one episode.
This book was meant originally to be a story arc in the Clone Wars and I hope someday they do it. This takes place after the betrayal by Barriss and the Jedi council is still reeling over that betrayal.
The basic premise of this book is that Count Dooku perpetrates another slaughter of civilians and the Jedi Council decides that he needs to be assassinated as a major step in ending the war. They decide to use Vos as the assassin and order him to find and befriend Dooku's former apprentice Ventress to help him. Vos passes himself off as a bounty hunter and not a Jedi. However things get complicated as the two of them fall in love, which is against the Jedi Code.
This is a seriously dark book. First of all, we get to finally see Dooku at his height of evil. He was serious business throughout this novel, and conniving and ruthless. At the same time everything that he does has a huge angle of truth.
Ventress continues to be one of the most interesting characters in the Star Wars storyline as she struggles to get past her tragic past that drove her down the dark path and try to self redeem herself.
At the same time, this book really pushes out why maybe it was time for the Jedi to fade from existence. In ROTS when they talk about taking over the Senate after toppling Palpating Yoda commented that they were going down a dark path. After reading this book you realize how dark a path the Jedi were one and how lost they had become, this book is well worth reading just to see this.
Anakin and Kenobi play a background role, but you begin to see Kenobi making decisions that would haunt him for the rest of his day as Vos becomes the proto Anakin.
We also see that Mace is probably one of the most ruthless aholes in Star Wars history.
We do get reintroduced in a minor way to characters from the Clone Wars series. We get a brief run with a more ruthless and jaded Boba Fett and some other bounty hunters in the series, we also get a scene with Palpatine as the Dark Lord and though its brief the author creates a huge sense of fear and menace out of it and just by describing this character in a holo communication you realize what Sidious is.
Christie does a great job in writing this book, the narrative style really lets you see into the hearts and thoughts of the characters. She writes heartbreak and tragedy very well and this book is really an emotional roller coaster.
If you're into Star Wars novels, I really have to strongly recommend it.