Wild Space


Book Data
Type	Novel
Series	Clone Wars Series
Era	Rise of the Empire
	22 BBY
Publishing Data
Author(s)	Karen Miller
Del Rey	09-Dec-08
Century	18-Dec-08
Arrow	24-Dec-09

Synopsis

The Separatists have launched a sneak attack on Coruscant. Obi-Wan Kenobi, wounded in battle, insists that Anakin Skywalker and his rookie Padawan Ahsoka leave on a risky mission against General Grievous. But when Senator Bail Organa reveals explosive intelligence that could turn the tide of war in the Republic's favor, the Jedi Master agrees to accompany him to an obscure planet in the Outer Rim to verify the facts. What Obi-Wan and Bail don't realize is that they're walking into a deadly trap concocted by Palpatine... and escape may not be an option.

Lord Depravus Says

Wild space and wildly wide of the mark - 04-Feb-10

They say with food that the first bite is with the eye. If the same rule applied with books I would have spit this out after the first paragraph. The opening drivel in that first block of text left me with a sense of dread that the whole book was going to be more of a poem than a novel.

Fortunately, the next few chapters were quite good. The scene was set immediately after Geonosis and dealt with the events surrounding Anakin, Padme and Obi-Wan. The next few chapters slotted in nicely with the Clone Wars TV series, dealing with events in between the feature film and the first few episodes of the series and filled in some of the gaps. Karen Miller had obviously done her research – or so I thought.

Then we came to the main plot, which is basically Obi-Wan and Bail Organa going on a little adventure together. Now I could live with Miller’s idea that the two didn’t see eye to eye when they first met but I think she went way over the top. She made them both sound like silly petulant children rather than wise and noble adults. Not only that but she got Obi-Wan’s character all wrong. She made him far too pompous, arrogant and angry and nothing at all like the man we see in the films or the TV series. I felt her portrayal of Bail was all wrong as well. Their childish bickering and disagreements started to wear thin very quickly.

Then we came to the plot itself which was just plain silly. It also dragged on and on and on and was so repetitive it felt like I was reading the same two pages over and over again.

So why did I give it two stars rather than one – or none? Well to tell you the truth I quite liked it. I felt compelled to keep turning the page to see what happened. I’m not sure whether it was because I was keen to see how the story ended or just because I wanted to check whether the next page was any different to the one I’d just read. Either way, Karen Miller does have a quality about her writing that I like.