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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
8/10.
Probably the most unique EU book I've read in terms of pacing, setting, and characters. Matthew Stover does an excellent job crafting a visceral depiction of the horrors of civil war and placing it into the earliest days of the Clone Wars shortly after Attack of the Clones came out. Tons of character development and substance for Mace Windu here that makes me appreciate his character much more. A very solid narration by Sullivan Jones makes the new audiobook version a win as well. All in all, I'd highly recommend this one to anyone who likes Mace Windu or wants a grittier and more realistic take on war within the context of Star Wars.
Probably the most unique EU book I've read in terms of pacing, setting, and characters. Matthew Stover does an excellent job crafting a visceral depiction of the horrors of civil war and placing it into the earliest days of the Clone Wars shortly after Attack of the Clones came out. Tons of character development and substance for Mace Windu here that makes me appreciate his character much more. A very solid narration by Sullivan Jones makes the new audiobook version a win as well. All in all, I'd highly recommend this one to anyone who likes Mace Windu or wants a grittier and more realistic take on war within the context of Star Wars.
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Xenophobia, War
Minor: Genocide, Suicide attempt
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Star Wars Legends Project #117
Background: Shatterpoint was written by [a:Matthew Woodring Stover|1567394|Matthew Woodring Stover|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1301265530p2/1567394.jpg] and published in June 2003. Stover has written three other Star Wars novels, including the adaptation of Revenge of the Sith, as well as other fantasy and science fiction works. Outside of Star Wars, he is probably best-known for his "Acts of Caine" series.
Shatterpoint takes place about 6 months after the Battle of Geonosis, 22 years before the battle of Yavin. The main character is Mace Windu, with a major role played by Jedi Master Depa Billaba. Most of the story takes place on the jungle world Haruun Kal.
Summary: Still obsessed with his failure on Geonosis to end the Clone Wars before they could begin, Mace Windu is horrified to learn that a member of the Jedi Council, Depa Billaba, may be guilty of war crimes. It has been months since she contacted the Jedi Temple, despite having apparently driven the Separatists from the system where she was sent to organize a guerilla resistance, which also happens to be on the planet where Mace himself was born. When a message arrives from an apparently raving Depa accompanied by scenes of a civilian massacre, Mace knows he has no choice but to make the dangerous journey to seek the truth for himself, and either clear his former padawan's good name or bring her to justice. But he cannot even begin to prepare himself for what he will find in the primal jungles of Haruun Kal.
Review: This is such a killer idea for a Star Wars novel: It's Apocalypse Now . . . but with Jedi, but like that classic film, it also owes a deep debt to Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Ultimately, of course, the novel cannot help but fall short of the artistic and philosophical heights reached by those great works, but that doesn't make it any less significant as an entry in the Star Wars bibliography.
Obviously, a great concept is well and good, but the real key is in the execution. Stover pretty much nails it. There are tics in his writing that I didn't notice much when I first read this novel over a decade ago, but it sucks you deep up into its narrative and characters and doesn't let go. Good luck putting this down at any point during the 2nd half. Stover is a master of world-building, and his cast of characters is memorable and compelling, but what I think I liked best is how he takes elements of other Star Wars stories, including far lesser ones, and weaves references to them into the book. Plus, he does this in a way that makes it genuinely feel like part of a larger universe and increases the cachet of those other stories rather than diminishing this one.
One character I'm not completely sure he gets right is Mace Windu himself, although perhaps that's too his credit. What we know of Windu from the films and many other stories is somewhat flat and underdeveloped . . . so much so that it's hard to imagine that character having as much personality as he does here. Stover's channeling of Windu's voice in the various excerpts from his private journal are great writing, and make for great reading, I'm just not sure they feel authentic. I'm also not sure that I care. There are certainly things he gets right: Mace's steely determination, his undisputed sense of authority, and his general lack of a sense of humor.
The most important thing that this book does, though, that so few other Star Wars novels do (despite the title of the franchise) is treat war seriously and realistically. Shatterpoint is brutal and violent and full of senseless casualties of huge numbers of good people and innocents. What's more, it's about cycles of violence and how they create no-win situations, despite Mace's constant search for a victory. In the end, he can barely save himself, let alone anyone else.
What's really impressive is the fine line Stover has to walk here. Having an extremely powerful Jedi as your main character is like operating with a constant built-in deus ex machina. That's fine if you want to tell a rollicking, action-packed adventure story, but it's much trickier if you're trying to deal with the themes this book touches on. This is far from the first story I've read where a Jedi or a superhero or someone else with extreme powers encounters a situation where they can't save everyone. But usually, the ultimate ending is somewhat victorious because these individuals are almost always triumphant in some sense. Stover, by contrast, is continually pulling the rug out from under Mace in unexpected ways, forcing him to peel back layer after layer and dig down to the core of who he is as a leader, as a Jedi, and as a person, and get to what his values really are and what they amount to in a galaxy where 1000 years of relative peace has just come to an end. What is the difference between the law enforcement Mace has spent his whole life pursuing, where people can be brought to justice before a shared authority, and waging war?
I also particularly appreciated Stover's obvious debt to his source material, which is primarily the film Apocalypse Now. But it's pretty clear that, if he didn't also read Heart of Darkness and study the Vietnam War and the Belgian colonization of the Congo, then he's just unbelievably intuitive in his understanding of human nature and historical realities. Star Wars is a lot about big, fun good vs. evil adventure and escapism . . . but this is a Star Wars book that has something to say about us as people, and that's pretty cool. Any quibbles I have with the book are minor to the point of insignificance. I don't know what more I could reasonably have expected it to embody or accomplish. Brilliant.
A+
Background: Shatterpoint was written by [a:Matthew Woodring Stover|1567394|Matthew Woodring Stover|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1301265530p2/1567394.jpg] and published in June 2003. Stover has written three other Star Wars novels, including the adaptation of Revenge of the Sith, as well as other fantasy and science fiction works. Outside of Star Wars, he is probably best-known for his "Acts of Caine" series.
Shatterpoint takes place about 6 months after the Battle of Geonosis, 22 years before the battle of Yavin. The main character is Mace Windu, with a major role played by Jedi Master Depa Billaba. Most of the story takes place on the jungle world Haruun Kal.
Summary: Still obsessed with his failure on Geonosis to end the Clone Wars before they could begin, Mace Windu is horrified to learn that a member of the Jedi Council, Depa Billaba, may be guilty of war crimes. It has been months since she contacted the Jedi Temple, despite having apparently driven the Separatists from the system where she was sent to organize a guerilla resistance, which also happens to be on the planet where Mace himself was born. When a message arrives from an apparently raving Depa accompanied by scenes of a civilian massacre, Mace knows he has no choice but to make the dangerous journey to seek the truth for himself, and either clear his former padawan's good name or bring her to justice. But he cannot even begin to prepare himself for what he will find in the primal jungles of Haruun Kal.
Review: This is such a killer idea for a Star Wars novel: It's Apocalypse Now . . . but with Jedi, but like that classic film, it also owes a deep debt to Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Ultimately, of course, the novel cannot help but fall short of the artistic and philosophical heights reached by those great works, but that doesn't make it any less significant as an entry in the Star Wars bibliography.
Obviously, a great concept is well and good, but the real key is in the execution. Stover pretty much nails it. There are tics in his writing that I didn't notice much when I first read this novel over a decade ago, but it sucks you deep up into its narrative and characters and doesn't let go. Good luck putting this down at any point during the 2nd half. Stover is a master of world-building, and his cast of characters is memorable and compelling, but what I think I liked best is how he takes elements of other Star Wars stories, including far lesser ones, and weaves references to them into the book. Plus, he does this in a way that makes it genuinely feel like part of a larger universe and increases the cachet of those other stories rather than diminishing this one.
One character I'm not completely sure he gets right is Mace Windu himself, although perhaps that's too his credit. What we know of Windu from the films and many other stories is somewhat flat and underdeveloped . . . so much so that it's hard to imagine that character having as much personality as he does here. Stover's channeling of Windu's voice in the various excerpts from his private journal are great writing, and make for great reading, I'm just not sure they feel authentic. I'm also not sure that I care. There are certainly things he gets right: Mace's steely determination, his undisputed sense of authority, and his general lack of a sense of humor.
The most important thing that this book does, though, that so few other Star Wars novels do (despite the title of the franchise) is treat war seriously and realistically. Shatterpoint is brutal and violent and full of senseless casualties of huge numbers of good people and innocents. What's more, it's about cycles of violence and how they create no-win situations, despite Mace's constant search for a victory. In the end, he can barely save himself, let alone anyone else.
What's really impressive is the fine line Stover has to walk here. Having an extremely powerful Jedi as your main character is like operating with a constant built-in deus ex machina. That's fine if you want to tell a rollicking, action-packed adventure story, but it's much trickier if you're trying to deal with the themes this book touches on. This is far from the first story I've read where a Jedi or a superhero or someone else with extreme powers encounters a situation where they can't save everyone. But usually, the ultimate ending is somewhat victorious because these individuals are almost always triumphant in some sense. Stover, by contrast, is continually pulling the rug out from under Mace in unexpected ways, forcing him to peel back layer after layer and dig down to the core of who he is as a leader, as a Jedi, and as a person, and get to what his values really are and what they amount to in a galaxy where 1000 years of relative peace has just come to an end. What is the difference between the law enforcement Mace has spent his whole life pursuing, where people can be brought to justice before a shared authority, and waging war?
I also particularly appreciated Stover's obvious debt to his source material, which is primarily the film Apocalypse Now. But it's pretty clear that, if he didn't also read Heart of Darkness and study the Vietnam War and the Belgian colonization of the Congo, then he's just unbelievably intuitive in his understanding of human nature and historical realities. Star Wars is a lot about big, fun good vs. evil adventure and escapism . . . but this is a Star Wars book that has something to say about us as people, and that's pretty cool. Any quibbles I have with the book are minor to the point of insignificance. I don't know what more I could reasonably have expected it to embody or accomplish. Brilliant.
A+
“But… you can’t fight the way things are.”
“But we do. Every day. That’s what Jedi are.”
Tears streamed from her reddened eyes. “You can never win—“
“We,” Mace corrected her gently, “don’t have to win. We only have to fight.”
—
mace windu is the best jedi, hands down. also in a modern universe, he would absolutely wear one of those t-shirts with a wolf howling at the moon. 10/10, would be traumatized by the horrors of war again.
“But we do. Every day. That’s what Jedi are.”
Tears streamed from her reddened eyes. “You can never win—“
“We,” Mace corrected her gently, “don’t have to win. We only have to fight.”
—
mace windu is the best jedi, hands down. also in a modern universe, he would absolutely wear one of those t-shirts with a wolf howling at the moon. 10/10, would be traumatized by the horrors of war again.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes