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3.19 AVERAGE
3.19 AVERAGE
This was better than I was expecting!
This book is marketed as a prelude to Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, but it really doesn't connect to the story hardly at all. The main through-line is simply the Separatist secession, and the Corporate Alliance is featured as opposed to the Trade Federation like normal, so that's a nice change.
While the characterizations of Luminara and Barris certainly don't carry over into modern canon (looking at you, Season 5 of CW), but it's still fun to see a story featuring them. I'm not sure that any one character had any significant amount of noticeable development, but they discuss repeatedly Anakin's impulsivity, which tracks with the pre-Clone Wars Anakin storyline.
The story itself is paced pretty slow, so I definitely get how some people would find it boring, but I found myself really enjoying the journey through the desert, along with the side characters they pick up along the way.
Definitely, a skippable book, but not bad by any means, especially if you are a fan of the Clone Wars era or Luminara and Barris. I would give it somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4.
This book is marketed as a prelude to Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, but it really doesn't connect to the story hardly at all. The main through-line is simply the Separatist secession, and the Corporate Alliance is featured as opposed to the Trade Federation like normal, so that's a nice change.
While the characterizations of Luminara and Barris certainly don't carry over into modern canon (looking at you, Season 5 of CW), but it's still fun to see a story featuring them. I'm not sure that any one character had any significant amount of noticeable development, but they discuss repeatedly Anakin's impulsivity, which tracks with the pre-Clone Wars Anakin storyline.
The story itself is paced pretty slow, so I definitely get how some people would find it boring, but I found myself really enjoying the journey through the desert, along with the side characters they pick up along the way.
Definitely, a skippable book, but not bad by any means, especially if you are a fan of the Clone Wars era or Luminara and Barris. I would give it somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4.
adventurous
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is a bit of a nothing book; meant to be something of a prequel to episode 2. Because the book can't reveal anything too much about the plot of episode 2, nothing really happens, it's just a whimsical jedi adventure through an alien planet. Which honestly makes it sound better than it is.
It does set up the political situation of the republic of this time relatively well.
However this book does really show its age in the treatment in some of the native inhabitants anda kidnapping plot involving mentally handicapped people who are then healed by the jedi .
It does set up the political situation of the republic of this time relatively well.
However this book does really show its age in the treatment in some of the native inhabitants and
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Kidnapping
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
funny
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
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
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I enjoyed this story, but it really didn't move the needle for me...with the characters.
I kept waiting for that moment, where I was "with" our heroes, as they fought the evil antagonists (whoever they may be). In waiting for that moment (or moments), I felt the pace linger too long on scenes, and the weight of the scenes didn't have the impact that I wish it had.
It is not a bad book/story, but I felt it was uneven. I usually love the banter between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, BUT...I felt that tension and brotherly love wasn't up front and personal in this book. There were glimpse, but nothing well crafted.
I don't think the author is the best in the business, but I don't think this was his finer work.
Well, moving on to the next story.
I kept waiting for that moment, where I was "with" our heroes, as they fought the evil antagonists (whoever they may be). In waiting for that moment (or moments), I felt the pace linger too long on scenes, and the weight of the scenes didn't have the impact that I wish it had.
It is not a bad book/story, but I felt it was uneven. I usually love the banter between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, BUT...I felt that tension and brotherly love wasn't up front and personal in this book. There were glimpse, but nothing well crafted.
I don't think the author is the best in the business, but I don't think this was his finer work.
Well, moving on to the next story.
adventurous
medium-paced
it was good, entertaining, but it didn't have as much obi-wan and ani as i would have liked.
Seeing this unexpected review drop from me may come as a surprise to some of you, since I’m mainly known on Goodreads for my review of historical fiction and non-fiction. But as a pre-teen and adolescent, I was a Star Wars Expanded Universe fiend. I discovered my parents’ first edition copy of “Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker” on a bookshelf one day, aged about 10 or 11 years old, and it went from there. Soon I was saving up my pocket money to buy another Expanded Universe book every two weeks, arranging my bookshelves according to a strict EU chronology, and, if any copy got too ratty and worn, buying a brand new one so that I could have a pristine edition sitting prettily on my shelf. I read these books more times than I kept track of. I would have Expanded Universe marathons where I’d read through the whole chronology, and then when I finished, read through it again, because in the time it took me to do one marathon, I’d probably acquired enough new additions to shed fresh light on the whole.
Why haven’t we seen these reviews from you on Goodreads? And why are you posting them now? Honestly, by the time I joined Goodreads, the Expanded Universe was beginning to wind up, plus I was being kept busy by a never-ending stack of academic textbooks which I figured might as well contribute to my reading challenge. But I’ve never been able to shake the sense that I really should get back to my reading roots and post reviews here of the Expanded Universe. Plus, it has been enough time now that I can revisit the books, and I can’t help but wonder if my adult perspective will change my previous opinions of them. Finally, now seems like the ideal time to do this given the current state of Star Wars. Let’s just say I disagree with Disney making the Expanded Universe non-canon, but their doing so has provided an interesting opportunity. The Expanded Universe now has a clearly defined beginning and end, and can be reviewed as a completed whole. Moreover, since I’ve never been one to let a self-interested corporation tell me what stories to cherish, I am free to cherry-pick my own canon, retaining the best of the Expanded Universe and removing those unfortunate entries that are best forgotten (Crystal Star, anyone?).
So – The Approaching Storm. I remembered liking this one back in the day – not as one of the best entries into the Expanded Universe, but likable enough. Re-reading it I initially wondered why. I hated Barriss’ capture by Bulgan and Kyakhta. As others have pointed out, if employing aggressors of limited intellectual ability was a way of fooling the Jedi danger sense, why has it never been done in other stories before? This was way too contrived and implausible as a universe-building rule because we never see it as a rule anywhere else! Also, Barriss goes down way too fast for a Padawan on the verge of knighthood, but my biggest gripe with this plot point was how easily it was resolved. You’re telling me that an apprentice, even one talented in healing, can cure a brain injury in an unfamiliar alien species just like that? I suppose some might say this is plausible given that we are in a sci fi universe here, but I primarily have issue with this from a storytelling perspective. Resolving such daunting obstacles too quickly and easily doesn’t feel satisfying to the reader, and feels like too much deus ex machina. And oh, goodness, those political scenes. I’m not someone who turns off automatically at the topic, in fact I enjoy a well-written political thriller. But any time Shu Mai or her secessionist confederates appeared in a scene I felt the urge to go to sleep or the temptation to skim rising. My advice would have been to cut those scenes out entirely. They were an unnecessary drag, and doing so may even have worked in the book’s favour, leaving the threat more mysterious.
And yet, despite this rough start and occasional dull scene throughout, this book began to win me over, and showed me why I had enjoyed it in the past. There are many examples of Star Wars media that take its audience hopping all over the galaxy, and sometimes this is done well, creating a gripping tale of grand scope, whereas in other places a hurried and confusing mishmash of blurry busywork is produced, leaving no time whatsoever for the moments of reflection and the philosophical core that has been at the heart of Star Wars from the original trilogy. The prequels come to mind as prominent illustrations of the latter category. I find I actually appreciate the few stories that focus on a limited number or even just a single planet, as The Approaching Storm does. Let’s face it – alien worlds are the guest stars of any sci fi; we want to explore these strange, distant, and awe-inspiring places. The galaxy hopping story has the danger of sketching them too thinly, creating a galaxy that is a mile wide and an inch deep. Being given the space to actually discover one planet in depth can be a welcome change of pace. Far from making the story feel small, with the characters confined to the one location, it realises the galaxy’s epic scope by demonstrating the size and detail of just one planet.
Ansion is a prairie planet, covered in vast grasslands, rolling hills, the occasional lake and river. Sounds peaceful. But it surely can’t be as exciting as dangerous locales like the ice planet of Hoth or the volcanic world of Sullust, right? Okay, maybe not, but I was pleasantly delighted by the number of hazards, obstacles, and interesting features that Alan Dean Foster managed to cram in to what you’d think would be a boring biome. At no point on the Jedi’s journey did I feel the story sagged for lack of an obstacle to overcome, and I was particularly fascinated by the alienness of the kyren swarm, a flock of herbivores dangerous by their sheer unstoppable numbers, and the chawix encounter, carnivorous plants blown about by the planet’s winds and sinking deadly thorns into any animal prey they contact. I found the ideas genuinely interesting. Foster’s prose is for the most part competent, but he really seems to come alive when delving into these alien environments, and I enjoyed the vividness with which those scenes were rendered on the page. Ansion offered me the opportunity to become engrossed, and I appreciated it.
A cursory glance at other reviews tells me I’m in the minority, and even going against the opinion of a close friend who frequently shares my reactions to books – but I loved the Yiwa campfire scenes and I’m not sorry. So often we see the Jedi grounded in the cool of consummate professionalism, or strung out on high emotion choosing between galaxy-changing good or evil. Seeing them do something so individual and quietly personal made the characters feel more human. Excuse the misnomer, but you know what I mean. It gave them add authenticity and reality instead of being inscrutable stock stereotypes on the page. And I don’t think they chose the wrong talents either. It would have been mind-numbingly predictable had Barriss performed a healing and Anakin a display of martial forms. Instead, I found their choices to add unexpected depth to the characters, allowing them to break out of conventional moulds; Barriss is not just the caring, nurturing healer, and Anakin demonstrates surprising softness which was a much-needed contrast to his whiny selfishness and thoughtless aggression. Obi-Wan’s story fit perfectly with his existence as the guide – almost the storyteller himself – of both original and prequel trilogies, giving the book a certain self-awareness, and I experienced Luminara’s display of Force powers to be a wondrous, awe-inspiring moment reminiscent of Yoda raising the starfighter on Dagobah. To me, this scene might well be my favourite in the entire book; in the thick of an alien world, a tiny speck in a vast, breath-taking universe, characters experiencing a moment of profound personal reflection. That’s what has always made Star Wars great in my eyes; moments like Luke and Leia’s farewell conversation on Endor, or Han and Leia’s tender reunion on Tatooine. Are their personal relationships and unique forms of expressiveness important to the life and death struggle between the Empire and the Rebellion? No. And yet – yes, they’re the most important factor. How can we care for these characters and their stories if what they’re fighting for doesn’t ring true for us, or if they don’t come across as believable human beings?
The book plays with it too a little, in the dynamics between Obi-Wan and Luminara, and Anakin and Barriss. It explores the question of romance, without ever actually going there. There’s a mutual appreciation club going on between the two masters, and as for their apprentices, Anakin feels protective of Barriss while she actually calls him out on his shit. To be honest it actually makes me think that Barriss would’ve been a far better match for him, because she can hold her own and doesn’t placidly accept his nonsense for a second. But that’s getting besides the point – I’m not actually saying that I want there to be romance in this book. What I’m saying is that I appreciate the fact that the book acknowledges that people can feel drawn to someone else, mutually recognise it, and then not do anything about it. It isn’t the be all and end all of their priorities, it isn’t something they have to act on otherwise they’ll be tormented forever, they’ve chosen a path for themselves, but there’s no stigma around simply feeling a natural reaction. Hurrah. I’ll take it over the awkward, ham-fisted romance of Episode II any day.
Now, to be clear, I’m not claiming that The Approaching Storm is as good as The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. The significance of events is on a lesser scale, and the opportunities for character growth are fewer. As aforementioned there are some aspects of the book which really would have been better drastically overhauled or cut out entirely. But I think the book contains a solid amount of good stuff, such that I can honestly say I enjoyed it. And I think I am going to keep this one in my personal canon.
7 out of 10
Why haven’t we seen these reviews from you on Goodreads? And why are you posting them now? Honestly, by the time I joined Goodreads, the Expanded Universe was beginning to wind up, plus I was being kept busy by a never-ending stack of academic textbooks which I figured might as well contribute to my reading challenge. But I’ve never been able to shake the sense that I really should get back to my reading roots and post reviews here of the Expanded Universe. Plus, it has been enough time now that I can revisit the books, and I can’t help but wonder if my adult perspective will change my previous opinions of them. Finally, now seems like the ideal time to do this given the current state of Star Wars. Let’s just say I disagree with Disney making the Expanded Universe non-canon, but their doing so has provided an interesting opportunity. The Expanded Universe now has a clearly defined beginning and end, and can be reviewed as a completed whole. Moreover, since I’ve never been one to let a self-interested corporation tell me what stories to cherish, I am free to cherry-pick my own canon, retaining the best of the Expanded Universe and removing those unfortunate entries that are best forgotten (Crystal Star, anyone?).
So – The Approaching Storm. I remembered liking this one back in the day – not as one of the best entries into the Expanded Universe, but likable enough. Re-reading it I initially wondered why. I hated Barriss’ capture by Bulgan and Kyakhta. As others have pointed out, if employing aggressors of limited intellectual ability was a way of fooling the Jedi danger sense, why has it never been done in other stories before? This was way too contrived and implausible as a universe-building rule because we never see it as a rule anywhere else! Also, Barriss goes down way too fast for a Padawan on the verge of knighthood, but my biggest gripe with this plot point was how easily it was resolved. You’re telling me that an apprentice, even one talented in healing, can cure a brain injury in an unfamiliar alien species just like that? I suppose some might say this is plausible given that we are in a sci fi universe here, but I primarily have issue with this from a storytelling perspective. Resolving such daunting obstacles too quickly and easily doesn’t feel satisfying to the reader, and feels like too much deus ex machina. And oh, goodness, those political scenes. I’m not someone who turns off automatically at the topic, in fact I enjoy a well-written political thriller. But any time Shu Mai or her secessionist confederates appeared in a scene I felt the urge to go to sleep or the temptation to skim rising. My advice would have been to cut those scenes out entirely. They were an unnecessary drag, and doing so may even have worked in the book’s favour, leaving the threat more mysterious.
And yet, despite this rough start and occasional dull scene throughout, this book began to win me over, and showed me why I had enjoyed it in the past. There are many examples of Star Wars media that take its audience hopping all over the galaxy, and sometimes this is done well, creating a gripping tale of grand scope, whereas in other places a hurried and confusing mishmash of blurry busywork is produced, leaving no time whatsoever for the moments of reflection and the philosophical core that has been at the heart of Star Wars from the original trilogy. The prequels come to mind as prominent illustrations of the latter category. I find I actually appreciate the few stories that focus on a limited number or even just a single planet, as The Approaching Storm does. Let’s face it – alien worlds are the guest stars of any sci fi; we want to explore these strange, distant, and awe-inspiring places. The galaxy hopping story has the danger of sketching them too thinly, creating a galaxy that is a mile wide and an inch deep. Being given the space to actually discover one planet in depth can be a welcome change of pace. Far from making the story feel small, with the characters confined to the one location, it realises the galaxy’s epic scope by demonstrating the size and detail of just one planet.
Ansion is a prairie planet, covered in vast grasslands, rolling hills, the occasional lake and river. Sounds peaceful. But it surely can’t be as exciting as dangerous locales like the ice planet of Hoth or the volcanic world of Sullust, right? Okay, maybe not, but I was pleasantly delighted by the number of hazards, obstacles, and interesting features that Alan Dean Foster managed to cram in to what you’d think would be a boring biome. At no point on the Jedi’s journey did I feel the story sagged for lack of an obstacle to overcome, and I was particularly fascinated by the alienness of the kyren swarm, a flock of herbivores dangerous by their sheer unstoppable numbers, and the chawix encounter, carnivorous plants blown about by the planet’s winds and sinking deadly thorns into any animal prey they contact. I found the ideas genuinely interesting. Foster’s prose is for the most part competent, but he really seems to come alive when delving into these alien environments, and I enjoyed the vividness with which those scenes were rendered on the page. Ansion offered me the opportunity to become engrossed, and I appreciated it.
A cursory glance at other reviews tells me I’m in the minority, and even going against the opinion of a close friend who frequently shares my reactions to books – but I loved the Yiwa campfire scenes and I’m not sorry. So often we see the Jedi grounded in the cool of consummate professionalism, or strung out on high emotion choosing between galaxy-changing good or evil. Seeing them do something so individual and quietly personal made the characters feel more human. Excuse the misnomer, but you know what I mean. It gave them add authenticity and reality instead of being inscrutable stock stereotypes on the page. And I don’t think they chose the wrong talents either. It would have been mind-numbingly predictable had Barriss performed a healing and Anakin a display of martial forms. Instead, I found their choices to add unexpected depth to the characters, allowing them to break out of conventional moulds; Barriss is not just the caring, nurturing healer, and Anakin demonstrates surprising softness which was a much-needed contrast to his whiny selfishness and thoughtless aggression. Obi-Wan’s story fit perfectly with his existence as the guide – almost the storyteller himself – of both original and prequel trilogies, giving the book a certain self-awareness, and I experienced Luminara’s display of Force powers to be a wondrous, awe-inspiring moment reminiscent of Yoda raising the starfighter on Dagobah. To me, this scene might well be my favourite in the entire book; in the thick of an alien world, a tiny speck in a vast, breath-taking universe, characters experiencing a moment of profound personal reflection. That’s what has always made Star Wars great in my eyes; moments like Luke and Leia’s farewell conversation on Endor, or Han and Leia’s tender reunion on Tatooine. Are their personal relationships and unique forms of expressiveness important to the life and death struggle between the Empire and the Rebellion? No. And yet – yes, they’re the most important factor. How can we care for these characters and their stories if what they’re fighting for doesn’t ring true for us, or if they don’t come across as believable human beings?
The book plays with it too a little, in the dynamics between Obi-Wan and Luminara, and Anakin and Barriss. It explores the question of romance, without ever actually going there. There’s a mutual appreciation club going on between the two masters, and as for their apprentices, Anakin feels protective of Barriss while she actually calls him out on his shit. To be honest it actually makes me think that Barriss would’ve been a far better match for him, because she can hold her own and doesn’t placidly accept his nonsense for a second. But that’s getting besides the point – I’m not actually saying that I want there to be romance in this book. What I’m saying is that I appreciate the fact that the book acknowledges that people can feel drawn to someone else, mutually recognise it, and then not do anything about it. It isn’t the be all and end all of their priorities, it isn’t something they have to act on otherwise they’ll be tormented forever, they’ve chosen a path for themselves, but there’s no stigma around simply feeling a natural reaction. Hurrah. I’ll take it over the awkward, ham-fisted romance of Episode II any day.
Now, to be clear, I’m not claiming that The Approaching Storm is as good as The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. The significance of events is on a lesser scale, and the opportunities for character growth are fewer. As aforementioned there are some aspects of the book which really would have been better drastically overhauled or cut out entirely. But I think the book contains a solid amount of good stuff, such that I can honestly say I enjoyed it. And I think I am going to keep this one in my personal canon.
7 out of 10
adventurous
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced