In
reviewing many of these Star Wars novels I believe I had made it quite
clear that I’m not the biggest fan of the franchise. I have seen all the numbered films at least
once, the sequel trilogy in theaters with the general zeitgeist at the time. My most controversial opinions on Star Wars
are that Return of the Jedi is better than A New Hope and that The
Last Jedi is the second best film behind The Empire Strikes Back. I hadn’t read any of the books before doing
these reviews nor seen many of the shows, so it feels like I have reached the
first of the books where having some of that extra knowledge might have
helped. Brotherhood is a novel
taking place in between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith
while novelist Mike Chen is clearly a fan of writing Anakin Skywalker and
Obi-Wan Kenobi with this expected familiarly with the extended universe under
the new canon. This is a novel where
there are several plot and character beats written in such a way that the
reader is clearly meant to understand larger implications and character appearances,
likely from Star Wars: The Clone Wars which is a show I had not
seen. While nowhere near detrimental for
the novel, this is one where Chen doesn’t go far enough to necessarily make
readers unfamiliar with the character of Ventress understand her motivation outside
of being a student of Count Dooku. There is just a lot of this novel that feels
largely built around aspects of the universe Mike Chen loves.
Chen’s
love of The Clone Wars does mean that Brotherhood’s main
character thrust is the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan, the format of
the novel largely switching between their points of view each chapter. There are a handful of other point of view
characters who get chapters, partially to move the plot when the pair of Jedi
aren’t involved and what partially feels like a way to fill up space and make
the novel a full length novel and not an oversized novella. Luckily two of the other characters given
points of view are eventually paralleled with Anakin and Obi-Wan so Chen can
ring much of Anakin’s potential paths out in the open knowing which path he
will eventually choose. Anakin and
Obi-Wan are characterized incredibly well by Chen, really capturing this master
and student dynamic and continuing a theme of these novels of looking at the
hypocrisies baked into the Jedi Order.
This is a novel where Anakin gets an unofficial apprentice whom he
influences and sees almost far too much of himself in. There is this scene where the younglings
featured, though I’m not entirely sure if these are the ones to be slaughtered
in Revenge of the Sith, but it’s a particular highlight because it shows
so much of Anakin’s potential. Chen also
somehow manages to capture a lot of what Hayden Christensen was going for in
his appearances that wouldn’t come through on-screen due to a lack of
direction.
Overall, Brotherhood
is honestly a novel that I quite like.
Where it excels is doing what the title builds, exploring the bond of
brotherhood between our protagonists despite the pair largely being apart. Where Mike Chen doesn’t quite work is getting
wrapped up in continuity that he clearly enjoys but makes a reader like me feel
often like I am out of the loop. The
middle of the novel has this tendency to drag quite a bit in a way that just
doesn’t work as well for me. The first
and final acts however largely make up for it making for quite the enjoyable
reading experience. 8/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment