Tag: James Luceno

Tarkin (Star Wars) (ARC)

~ Bookstooge ~ 1 Comment

89bdb3e0b52da066249ad32cf3f48371 I received this copy from the publisher through Netgalley.com and that in no way has influenced my opinion in regards to this review.

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.tumblr.com by express permission of this reviewer.

Title: Tarkin

Series: Star Wars

Author: James Luceno

Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: SFF

Pages: 289

Synopsis:

This book is the dual story about past and present of Tarkin. The past is about his beginning of life and rise to power and the forces that shaped him while the present story is a little adventure about the beginnings of the Rebellion and the Deathstar.

Which I believe completely throws the book Deathstar under the bus continuity-wise, but eh, what else is new in the Star Wars universe these days?

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed Kenobi but not this. It was bland, not that interesting and I found myself constantly checking my Kindle to see how much more I had before I would be at the end.

Which, to be honest, is how a lot of Star Wars book are but it used to be that I could ignore that and pick out whatever good I could because I really enjoyed the Extended Universe. But with Disney’s eradication of the EU my fandom turned to distaste and hence my thoughts are no longer so charitable.

I’ve been reading a lot of Forgotten Realms recently and the Star Wars books reminds me of those but not as fun. I guess I was looking for this book to redeem the actions that Disney took and it failed beyond belief in that regards and as a story was just a typical Star Wars book.

With that being said, I think I’m pretty much done with the Star Wars book universe. Doesn’t mean I won’t read the occasional one, especially once the sequel movies come out, but I certainly won’t be waiting for each book to come out so that I can devour it.

A big fat ‘meh’.

Darth Plagueis

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Star Wars: Darth PlagueisDarth Plagueis

Star Wars

James Luceno

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 

I really enjoyed this book. After the whimper of an ending that was Fate of the Jedi, I wasn’t really looking forward to any Star Wars books.

While this story is more about Palps, it is a good look at the thoughts of a pair of Sith. And I tell you, it was weird.

Many times I just shook my head and said “how deluded can someone be?”. Then I realized I was reading about a human, so I realized I shouldn’t be surprised 🙂

Definitely comes on strong for the “Sith are ok, not evil, just different” baloney line of philosophy. But while I noted that, I didn’t really find it affecting my reading or enjoyment, more of just something to keep in the back of my head.

So yeah, sith are evil baby eating scum, and names/titles like “Darth X the wise” [which are usually self appointed] don’t really apply.

MILLENNIUM FALCON

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MILLENNIUM FALCON
Star Wars
James Luceno
3 Stars
317 Pages

2 years after Invincible. The Solo’s go on an adventure to find out the history of the Millennium Falcon. 


In the process, they meet up with a Clone War era pilot who is trying to fulfill his last mission, which involved the Falcon. Overall, the history parts were cool. The Solo’s were working it backwards from when Han won her and the pilot was working forwards from when he crashed and burned her.
The “present” plot about some treasure to restore honor to the Republic [the last mission of the pilot] was kind of fuzzy and was almost a carbon copy of the Han Solo at Star’s End in its ending. It was even mentioned, so it was deliberate.

This was just a fill in story to tie the Legacy of the Force series into the new Fate of the Jedi series.

Cloak of Deception

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Cloak of Deception
Star Wars
James Luceno
3 stars
342 pages

An immediate prequel to Episode 1. I never was a big fan of Qui Gon, so that aspect of things didn’t appeal to me. This was more a book of the politics of the day and as such, wasn’t very exciting. More about Palps manipulating things. That was interesting 🙂
One thing I did like was the inclusion of Vergere. I wish we had the actual story of her turning though.

Sadly, this was much like of most of Luceno’s Star Wars books. Not badly written, but not exciting by any stretch of the imagination. I wouldn’t recommend this to a casual Star Wars fan.