Star Wars: Jedi Trial : A Clone Wars Novel

Rating:
Summary: Jedi Trial a readers test
Review: Ok let me start off by saying this isn't the worst Star Wars novel out there like others say, thats belongs to the Ruins of Dantooine. I have to say that this book was fairly enjoyable in a different kind of sense. This book reminds me more of the medstar duology than a clone "wars" book. As Medstar has its own style this book has it also. While Medstar focused on a behind the scenes MASH type book. This book goes behind the scenes on military preperation.
Now I will say the Jedi Trial does come up a little short on the trials part of the book. With Anakin on the cover you would think that he would be the main character...well hes not. But that doesn't mean that the others characters are boring but it would have been nice to see our favorite jedi featured more prominently.
In the end Jedi Trial does fail on some scales but i feel most will enjoy it. If not for the action then probably for the militeristic style of writing.

Rating:
Summary: Jedi Knighthood
Review: Just like "Republic Commando: Hard Contact", this novel falls firmly under the category of "military sci-fi". This is understandable seeing as how authors Dan Cragg and David Sherman draw upon their real world U.S. Marine experience to write the battle scenes. Never has a Star Wars novel gone into such detail on things such as military strategy, troop supply, friendly fire, reconnaissance techniques, and more. There are times when the novel almost reads like a combat training manual rather than a Star Wars story (to its advantage or disadvantage, depending on your point of view). It gives it a degree of realism that few others could offer.

This book is also noteworthy because it shows Anakin Skywalker in military command for the first time. Up till now we've seen him in covert Jedi missions, one-on-one battles, and battles with Sith. This is the first time you really see him commanding thousands of troops as they rush headlong into battle. He's there making battle plans, inspecting troops, and giving orders. It's a little taste of how he becomes the military leader Darth Vader.

One of the major characters of this novel is Jedi Master Nejaa Halcyon, Corran Horn's biological father. Including him is a nice tie-in between the Clone Wars era and the Expanded Universe. Halcyon also has a remarkable number of similarities with Anakin Skywalker. Both are rogues. Both question the Jedi teachings. Both have secretly broken the Jedi Code and married. It's almost like Halcyon is what Anakin would have become if he didn't turn to the Dark Side. It's nice to see Anakin connect with a Jedi Master rather than constantly butting heads with them.
I felt that the authors had the characterization of Anakin Skywalker done very well. From the very beginning of the novel, they highlight the impatience of Anakin, who dislikes being stuck at the Jedi Temple without a mission. The brief character interaction between Anakin and Reija Momen was very interesting. Momen reminded Anakin of his mother, and I thought it was poignant that in her presence, Anakin truly for an instant felt at peace. I also found the relationship between Anakin and Grudo to be very interesting. I enjoyed how these characters clicked together in respect and friendship. Most interesting though, is that the later Empire has a strong anti-alien bias, so it will be interesting when watching the transformation of Anakin to Vader, if his views changes in regards to non-humans.

I also enjoyed having Nejaa Halcyon in the novel, and discovering more of his back-story. After getting to know about his character in "I, Jedi", having his character in Jedi Trial is a great way of linking the era's and storylines together. I found it highly interesting that Anakin and Nejaa personally had a lot in common, especially in regards to having a secret wife. It is unfortunate that Nejaa and Vader never crossed paths, due to the death of Nejaa in another Clone Wars battle... that would have been an interesting story, and I would have liked to have read their reactions about one another.

It was great to see nods to continuity, with mention of the Sluis Van Shipyards, a potential appearance by Qui-Gon Jinn (well, Anakin *hears* his voice) and Freedon's Sons. I really enjoyed discovering more about Freedom's Sons. This organisation was initially an obscure Marvel Comics reference, which then was elaborated more by the Holonet News entries - fun way of tying in a part of continuity across different mediums, which has been floating around for decades.

Admiral Pors Tanith was an interesting change for a villain. Instead of a Sith, or a droid general, we have an [...], stiff, banker... meticulous in his actions, overconfident and with a highly inflated ego.
I did have a number of problems with Jedi Trial. First and foremost, the dialogue was pretty bad at times. At one point a character exclaims, "Great balls of fire!" At another point, Tonith says, "'We' you say? We? Have you by any chance a dianoga stuffed if your pocket?" There are other examples throughout the book, but you get the idea. There are other silly elements as well. One character was named "Odie" and I couldn't help but think of Garfield's dog whenever I read it. The book also features Anakin Skywalker performing a wedding ceremony. While I know a few fans that wouldn't mind being married by Darth Vader, this seemed a bit over the top.

The cover to this book is also a bit deceptive (though I liked the artwork). Asaaj Ventress is shown prominently on the cover though she has little more than a cameo role. Anakin Skywalker is also only in about half the novel. A significant amount of time is spent on the secondary characters and the battle raging on Praesitlyn. I would have liked to have seen more time spent on our favorite Jedi. I also have to say that I was expecting to learn more about the "trials" that Anakin always whines about. I was expecting something more formal than Anakin just having to do real well alone in battle. After all, he's performed exceptionally in a lot of Star Wars books. I thought there was more to becoming a Jedi Knight.

Overall, a not so good book.


Rating:
Summary: there is no reason to read this novel
Review: "Jedi Trial" is another one of those Star Wars novels which suffers from false advertising. We see on the cover a big picture of Anakin Skywalker and with the title "Jedi Trial" the assumption is that this novel is going to deal with the actual Trial Anakin went through to become a Jedi. We remember Obi-Wan Kenobi in "The Phantom Menace" tell the Jedi Council that he is ready for the Trials, and from the description of this book this is what we think the novel is going to be about (much the way we thought "Yoda: Dark Rendezvous" would be mostly about Yoda, silly us). It isn't, of course, not really.

An army of Separatists forces has landed on Praesitlyn, which is a Republic Communications Center. The Communications Center is guarded, but not by enough forces to make a sufficient defense. They will be easily crushed by an immense droid army. To protect Praesitlyn, a former Republic captain Zozridor Slayke turned pirate is bringing his own private army to fight the Separatists. He had left the Republic Navy because of the inefficiency of government's method of warfare. Now he is fighting back against the enemies of the Republic. Ordered to assist Slayke are a squad of Clone Commandos (after reading "Hard Contact", we know what they can do), Anakin Skywalker, and Jedi Knight Neeja Halcyon (the father of Corran Horn).

Neeja is in the bad graces of the Jedi Council as he failed in his last mission to capture Zozridor and instead Slayke had stolen Neeja's ship. Now he is ordered to help Slayke. Anakin is given partial command of the military mission on Praesitlyn. The bad thing here is that in a novel which is supposedly about the Trial of Anakin Skywalker, Anakin only appears in perhaps half of the book. The other half is made up of scenes with Zozridor Slayke and a couple of minor characters who are part of the nearly destroyed home guard on Praesitlyn. It's disappointing.

The whole novel is disappointing. It is filled with all of this military detail about the Republic Forces and some talk about strategy, but compared with "Republic Commando: Hard Contact", by Karen Traviss, it falls far short. Overall, "Jedi Trial" is just a weak novel. There is no real storyline focus, either with Skywalker or Odie (the ranger from Praesitlyn), and there is the disappointment by not really being about a Jedi Trial. In reading the Star Wars novel, there is no narrative thread that would be lost if "Jedi Trial" is skipped, and that is what I would recommend, to skip this one. It's not worth the time spent reading it.

-Joe Sherry

Rating:
Summary: Mistrial
Review: 2.5 stars rounded up to a 3.

The first half of the book flows well and is actually quite interesting I thought. The pieces are put into place for a nice, albeit shallow, military sci-fi story. Unfortunately along the way things go wrong.

We start with a nice invasion by the Separatist forces leaving just a couple of survivors on Praesitlyn freed, along with the hostages at the communication center. Meanwhile Anakin and Halcyon bond together, although Halcyon gets too close to Anakin too quickly, and prepare the liberating forces. Anakin buckles down to learn how to command while an intriguing new character, Slayke, lands on Praesitlyn and neutralizes the Separatist forces. So the pieces are in play, the two survivors who know the planet and are developing a love affair, the rogue general Slayke and his forces holding the planet, and the two Jedi with the clone army arriving. On the other side we have an interesting drug addicted banker running the Separatist forces and Asajj Ventress apparently leading their reinforcements.

Then things fall apart. Upon landing and saving Slayke's troops, Slayke meets them and has turned into a complete insufferable prig. The infodumps that were actually interesting in the first half of the book multiply and become more tedious. We have some large scale fleet and ground actions which manage to be boring despite the numbers involved. These are not David Weber battles full of action and interest.

Finally Anakin realizes he has to do it himself, so he does. Hostages are rescued, we see a pointless death used for poor dramatic effect to push Anakin into a darkside moment, and Anakin flies off to join the fleet engagement. Ventress, who we were lead to believe was coming does not seem to be with the fleet. The Separatist fleet goes down easily and the worst fake death scene ever is perpetrated upon the reader(Anakin appears to the characters to die, we all know he isn't going to). The characters that showed promise upon introduction devolve into caricatures and what was an endearing romance between the survivors becomes annoying as they and a couple other soldiers stand around and bicker for a third of the book.

The 2.5 starts rounded to 3 for the beginning of the book. If only they had worked as hard on the second half this would have been a great one. Hard Contact still reigns as the best military clone wars book.

Rating:
Summary: a real disappointment!
Review: In one sense, this book reminds me of "The Approaching Storm", Alan Dean Foster's pre-ATOC novel. I looked forward to both books with great anticipation, purchased and read them soon after they came out, and found both to be some of the worst Star Wars fiction I have ever read.

Jedi Trial has been panned in detail by numerous other reviewers, and I doubt I have anything new to add. It's deadly dull, which is a sad state of affairs for a Star Wars novel. I found myself scanning sections of text to get a general idea of what was being said rather than reading it carefully... something I rarely do. The characters barely qualify for being even one-dimensional. Anakin is barely recognizable. This is all he had to do to be promoted to Jedi Knight? Ack. The writing reminded me of the Scholastic "Jedi Apprentice" and "Jedi Quest" books... it was simplistic and seemed geared toward a YA adult.

And it's really a shame, because some of what the authors were trying to do could have been valuable... they clearly wanted paint a picture of the horrors of war, and fell short because of poor writing.

Can't say that this really contributes anything to the "Clone Wars" saga... skip it, borrow it, or wait until the paperback. And be prepared to be bored... if I hadn't paid $25 for this book, I doubt I would have finished it.

Rating:
Summary: Not a Good Effort
Review: Man, what a bad book. The writing was at best amateurish; really, it's been a long time since I read a novel that had such choppy style, dreadful dialog, cartoonish characters and a definite spate of character development. And don't get me started on the awkward sentence structure and otherwise poor grammar.

And the contradictions...wow. You can tell this was written by two people, and boy, doesn't seem like they spent much time checking each other's work. For an example, look for a confrontation between Grudo and Slayke. What plays out as a surprise shouldn't be a surprise at all.

The death of Reija Momen - please. So, we need another example that Anakin is becoming a bad little Jedi? I don't think so. That was just ridiculous. And the set-ups about her being "mother-like" -- gee, just set up a billboard, why don't ya! This book was so little about Anakin anyway that the big denouement just made me angry.

I guess I have become used to the Matt Stovers and such that write books that make their readers think about what is happening, where you can trace the development of ideas and scenes and how the characters get to where they are (physically and emotionally) at the end of the book. This one had nothing that would make me recommend it, and when it comes to SW books, that's something for me to say.

And of course another thing that's really bugging me, and it's all because Lucas is keeping a clamp on anything related... I just want Padme to show up in a book, and walk and talk and be a "real person." I'm so tired of reading these prequel novels that don't have her in them, and also barely mention her. It's getting annoying. She's such an important character (despite what Lucas would like us to think LOL), and to continue to ignore her existence is just plain terrible, IMO.

In conclusion, boy, I hope these guys don't have a contract to write another SW book. What a disappointment that will be.

Rating:
Summary: The Clone Wars from the military perspective
Review: Star Wars: Jedi Trial is the story of Anakin Skywalker and Nejaa Halcyon and their fight to free a crucial communications hub from the Separatists. Along the way, there are many many battle descriptions that are well done. The military background of the author's is obvious. Although I'm not sure that the Jedi would have studied Napoleon and used his tactics in such a big battle, but hey I'm a military historian, so I should recognize that stuff. The side stories involving individual stories are interesting however, they seem to overwhelm the main characters. What gets this book 3 stars is the weak characterization of Anakin Skywalker in the beginning of the book. He is portrayed not as a character who has already fallen to the dark side once, but as a more happy, but impatient Padawan. It's not till the end that the characterization becomes slightly accurate and the dark side of Skywalker comes out kinda of. Nejaa Halcyon is underused and that was truly dissappointing. Overall, Jedi Trial is not a very good Star Wars book.

Rating:
Summary: The real "trial" was getting through this.
Review: The weakest of all the novels set during the Clone Wars, Jedi Trial is an unnecessary story that redefines the word "borrrrrrrring." If you are looking for a story about Anakin, do not bother with this. He is hardly in it. Rather, readers are given a look at faceless recon soldiers and clone troopers who inspire as much as they entertain (translation=not much). Avoid this book at all costs -- it isn't worth the paper it is printed on. In fact, send along a self-addressed stamped envelope to me and I'll just put my copy in the mail just to rid myself of this mistake. Just because it says "Star Wars" on the cover doesn't mean that it actually tells a "Star Wars" tale inside. This isn't anything close to a good story from a galaxy far, far away. The authors should be thrown to the wolves; the publishers should be ashamed.

Rating:
Summary: Good military action!
Review: This book wasn't as good as I would have liked it. I would have preferred a little more characterization - but that's me! There were some minor characters that seemed to be used to either fill space or try and emotionally involve the reader. I'm not sure if they were needed. We got the whole thing that war is bad and nasty. We got the sheer tonnage it takes to supply a war. We got the whole antidotes about war but what I wanted more of was really getting into the characters and their plights in this battle. It would have been really cool to if the bad guy had been Grievous. He's much cooler than the guy whose name I can't even remember other that the fact that he was a banker and is now a military general.

This is a good book if you are looking for some Star Wars action. I would have liked to have seen the result of Anakin's Trials (if you know what I mean because I don't want to give the plot away) but for some odd reason, that was not in the book. I'm not sure if it's even somewhere in the comics or novels. Alas, it is another thing that Lucas has chosen for us not to see.

That said... let the Force be with you. Struggle, you must, through Jedi Trials. Because Dark Rendezvous and Labyrinth of Evil. Worth it, they are.

Rating:
Summary: How to fight a Galactic War for Dummies.
Review: With advance apologies to the authors of this book, I have to say this is the worst Star Wars novel out there. The attempt to bring the action in the Star Wars universe closer to reality by discussing at length what exactly the job of the quartermaster is is not only brain numbing, but useless to the "plot" of the book. If you do choose to endure the book simply to see how it ends as I did, you will be disappointed that all of that "how to fight a battle and win" knowledge that you trudged through turns into filler as Anakin does what he should have done about 150 pages before he actually does. I am sorry but the last time I checked Star Wars was a fantasy story where the main focus is the struggle between good and evil, not a documentary on how often a X-Wing needs an oil change in order to function properly. While their writing style may have it's place in stories that take place on Earth, it is not suited for a galaxy far far away.