Book Review: Star Wars The Clone Wars: Wild Space

Book: Star Wars The Clone Wars: Wild Space by Karen Miller

Source: Library

Rating: 2 stars (because the story started to drag half way through the book)

Review:

This was much better than the other Star Wars: The Clone Wars book I read. I found the beginning to be really interesting, especially when we got a better understanding of how Padme and Anakin hid their relationship from everyone. But there were also things that I did not like about it, such as it started to get annoying with the never ending arguing between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Senator Bail Organa throughout the remainder of the book. There were also scenes that felt like they went on for far too long that did nothing but drag the book down.

The book begins where the Star Wars: Attack of the Clones movie left off, the story focused on Anakin Skywalker dealing with his injury and Padme Amidala's feelings for Anakin. Although the beginning was interesting, it actually had absolutely nothing to do with the main story of this book.

The main story focused on Senator Bail Organa finding out about a possible Sith attack on the Jedi from one of his secret informants. He along with Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi were there to meet up with Organa's contact to see if the information were true.

The information had the two going to a very distant Sith planet to investigate further. Throughout their travels either in space or when they were traipsing across the Sith planet the constant bickering was dragging the book down. The author didn't need to keep this up, as the readers we got it, those two clashed. They are both on the side of justice but just don't agree with the end results.

I found some of the portrayals of the characters to be rather bad. For instance, if the author's goal was for me to dislike Senator Bail Organa then she did an awesome job. I found his character to be snobbish and childish. It got tiring reading the constant disagreement between the Senator and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Senator was written as extremely confrontational, arrogant and a jerk. In the movies and animated series, Senator Orana was portrayed as someone who was very passionate about fighting for the good of the Republic but without the arrogance that was shown throughout this book. Where was the intelligent compassionate character we saw in the movie? It also seemed weird that he was so angry towards Obi-Wan Kenobi and the rest of the Jedi, it seem as if he was more against them than in favor of them. I was glad the author fixed this by the end of the book other wise it would mar with what happens in Revenge of the Sith.

I also didn't like how cruel Anakin was towards Ahsoka, as well as the way Senator Padme Amidala was shown in certain scenes as nothing more than a scheming woman trying to hold on to Anakin Skywalker.

However, the portrayals I did like were: Masters Yoda and Mace Windu and Chancellor Palpatine. The way they were portrayed, you got to see how they thought and felt about the ongoing war which brought a lot to their scenes. I enjoyed reading some of Obi-Wan's portrayal but he was also a bit out of character as well being a broken man in this.

I am really sorry this wasn't as good as I had hoped but I'm still going to continue to read more books from the Star Wars series whenever I get a chance. I'm sure there are good ones, I just have to find them. Also, the cover is very misleading, there was barely a mention of a clone in this.