Star Wars again!?! you might be asking yourself angrily as you read this.
Tough.
I'm crushing hard on it, and it's my damn blog.
Also, shouldn't you be more excited and/or horrified that my so-called game website has a book review on it?
Seriously, get your complaints together, theoretical complainer.
Anyway, Heir to the Jedi is a Star Wars novel in the new canon set between episodes IV and V (for those of you keeping score at home who don't do Roman Numerals, that's between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back). It follows Luke in the first person as he has adventures throughout the galaxy.
Star Wars: Where the color orange reigns supreme [2]
For any nerds out there, you might recognize the author from the Iron Druid series. He does a pretty good job capturing Luke's personality, and like most of the new canon, this book does a good job informing some of the inconsistencies between the prequels and the original trilogy (I promised no spoilers, so I won't get detailed here, but it adds some good context).
In the old Expanded Universe, I mostly liked the books that followed non-movie characters because I always felt that the main trio weren't treated properly. I really thought HtoJ covered it well (I love acronyms).
The writing kept me engaged, and certainly for the last 100 pages or so I definitely found myself craving the next page. It's a good sign when I'm that intrigued by a book's plot. It took me a little while to get into it, and to be honest the main plot doesn't really pick up for about the first third of the book, but once that got going I was definitely into it.
My biggest complaint about any story set in this time period is that it's so confined. Because we know right where Luke starts and ends in the movies, it's tough to have a compelling story here without throwing in a bunch of nonsense or erasing everything that's happened. I've notice that a lot in The Clone Wars. I know Anakin will fall to the dark side soon, it's kind of sad to see him be a good guy and saving clone trooper lives. Although I suppose that was the point.
Only an Emperor could love that face [3]
Ultimately, Heir to the Jedi gave me some good insights into Luke's mental state after losing his mentor and suddenly becoming a Rebel celebrity, and it also highlighted some of the more nuanced concerns that the rebellion had between the films. This, like most non-movie content, did a good job of making it feel like a galaxy, rather than one family that seems to cause a whole lot of trouble being space wizards.
I recommend this to any Star Wars fans, and probably any fans of Kevin Hearne. And if you don't fall into those categories, but you do like sci-fi adventure, you might want to give this a try too. But you might want to watch Episode IV first.
Until next time,
Ryan
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