Star Wars: Brotherhood by: Mike Chen

 

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.