Not the "true" Anakin

This was my least favorite book of the clone wars books. First, it split up Obi-Wan and Anakin, the team that I felt should have been kept together, especially since Anakin was still a padawan. Also, this book did not depict the "true" Anakin. The real Anakin is a little more unpredictable than was displayed in this book. The internal conflicts were not identified.

The Clone Wars "Battle" Novel

"Jedi Trial" tells the story of The Praesitlyn Conquest. Praesitlyn is home to a key communications center for the Republic, and it is seemingly out of the way. Then, Count Dooku's Sepeartist Forces attack, lead by Pors Tonith, a banker of all things. Its not long before the Chancellor dispatches and army lead by Jedi Knight Neeja Halycon and Padawan Anakin Skywalker to take back the planet.

The Good:

1. This novel actually has a "Clone War" in it. There are thousands of them. In addition, they actually engage the droid armies of the Seperatists. The war has been missing from many of the Clone Wars novels, which have focused on other aspects of the war instead.

2. Pors Tonith. Not the greatest bad guy of all time, but Pors is at least unique. He brings his banking knowledge to the battlefield and is ruthless. He also has a strange addiction to a tea that stains his gums. The tea comes up a lot.

3. Grudo. This Rodian is a unique character that outshone most of the others in the novel.

The Bad:

1. The Premise. If this station is so important, it is unfathomable that the Republic would have left it as unprotected as they did. I kept waiting for a good answer to this question, and never got one. In addition, despite taking over the communications center that is suppose to be so vital, it appears there were no repercussions anywhere in the universe. This left me wondering: why bother?

2. Minutae of the Battle. The battle had some excellent use of tactics and disucssion of strategy. However, in a couple of places, all this falls to the way side due to some gimic that the Seperatists have employed.

The Ugly:

1. Odie and Erk. Odie is a recon trooper. Erk is a pilot. They are both awful, awful characters that develop a ridiculous romance. They are forced to work with each other after their headquarters is overrun and they encounter each other in the field. Next thing you know, they have a hard time keeping their hands off each other and the spew terrible dialogue.

2. Dialogue. This was mentioned in the previous point. In many places it is just awful. A good editor should have fixed this.

Overall:

I'd recommend reading it to Star Wars fans because the end is kind of important in the grand scheme of things for the Star Wars universe. However, everyone else can skip it. I was disappointed with it after having read what it was about.

This novel does have an interesting place in the Clone War series. 'Shatterpoint' was the 'Apocalypse Now' of the series, while 'The Cestus Deception' told the story of resistance cells. This is the big battle novel. While that was refreshing, this novel could have been so much better.

Overall Grade: 2.75 stars.

"Alright rocks, here we come!"

Yep, that's right. That is just one line of incredibly terrible writing from this book. I have read almost every Star Wars novel out there (with exception to Dark Redesvous & Labyrinth of Evil) and this is probably the worst one that I have read. The problem is that this book is marketed as an adult novel but is written worse than some young adult novels that I've read!

First of all, let's go over the dialog. The were plenty of scenes in this book where the authors had put in lines like "and they chuckled in response". This would have been no problem had the jokes been somewhat funny or were consistant with the characters and the situations that they were in. The problem is that the jokes were terrible and many of these lines are in reference to soldiers laughing. I don't know about you but if I'm in the middle of a battle and I've been trained as a soldier I don't think that I'm going to be doing a whole lot of laughing or joke telling.

Another dialog problem I had was that many times the authors would set up a scene where they'd have two characters talking and right in the middle of the conversation they'd write things like "Then Anakin told him about Padme". What?!?! This goes directly against the "show, don't tell" rule of writing. Instead of showing us the rest of the conversation these authors decided to take shortcuts! Now, again, this would not be a problem if the authors only did it once or twice in the novel. Unfortunatly they do it about once every chapter (there's over 30 chapters)! How lazy can you get?

Also, the love angle between Odie & Erk was way over the top and very unrealistic. These are two soldiers who meet on the battle field and spout off dopey dialog throughout the book. I was hopeing that Anakin would slice their heads off but instead he conducts their wedding at the end of the novel! It was just so out there that I really couldn't hate any more than I do right now. I really hope we never hear from those two dopes ever again (as well as these authors for that matter...).

Also, Asajj Ventress is on the cover of the book but appears hardly at all through the book. She's on only about 8 pages in this entire book. Also, Dooku was hardly used in this book and it would have been great to see more of him in here.

The last thing bad thing about this book is the repetitive nature of some of the scenes. Oh yes, let's go on for about two pages about how much water troops need to drink per day! Hey, here's half a page dedicated to Nejaa yelling for someone to get the latch on Anakin's cockpit open! Okay people, we get it already!

However, there were a couple of good things about this novel. Nejaa Halcyon makes an appearance and takes Anakin with him to free some prisoners of war on the planet Praesitlyn. People who have read "I, Jedi" will remember Nejaa as being Corran Horn's father. This is a great little tie-in and it is well appreciated.

I would only recommend this book to those who feel the need to read every Expanded Universe book there is or those who love terrible dialog. Believe me, once you're done reading this you'll have mental scars for years to come. I'm not sure mine will ever heal!