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jess_terrazas's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
depizan's review
2.0
It might qualify as so bad it was good, or at least entertaining in the all the wrong ways. On the plus side, at least it wasn't so bad it was terrible.
The art was fairly good when it came to backgrounds and technology, and fairly terrible when it came to faces. Youngblood's disease is apparently alive and well, and not limited to Liefeldian art; people's appearances weren't consistent (most problematically, Theron's deus ex machina cybernetics were almost never drawn in); and the art was sometimes distractingly awful. (It's difficult to maintain proper focus and investment in the story when the main characters can periodically be mistaken for rakghouls.)
The story was a rambling mess, even before the magic cybernetics and villain stupidity ending. The Republic SIS wants information about what happens in the Empire, so they send agent Theron Shan after random things like slavers who may be selling to the Empire and a Jedi who may have been a prisoner in the Empire for an unspecified amount of time. (The slavers never come up again, and at one point Theron encounters people likely to have information about the Empire and...has apparently forgotten that the SIS might want that.)
The Jedi was his mother's old master and apparently raised him as if he could become a Jedi, despite the fact that he's not Force Sensitive (something he didn't learn until he was a teen.) And the Jedi, who has memory problems, knows about some terrible Imperial plot that must be stopped.
So we get confusing angst (Exactly why did the Jedi lead Theron to think he could be a Jedi? Why was he raising Theron? ???) and a standard spy movie plot: destroy the villain's horrible device.
The later wouldn't be too bad, except that the pacing is odd, events are implausible (how do you spend several days in a star system and not notice the giant Imperial construction "eating" the sun?), and the villains spend a week explaining their plan in detail to Theron after he, the Jedi, and the prisoner he just randomly took on his secret assignment are captured. A WEEK. All because Theron is such an amazing agent that the Empire wants him.
Okay, it's Star Wars meets ridiculous spy movie, of course everyone thinks the hero is all that, and of course the villains are going to monologue. FOR A WEEK??? I can only assume that either Theron's dialogue was supposed to be "one hundred fifty-six minutes" not "hours" or we really, really weren't supposed to do the math.
And the villains make both the standard mistake of leaving the hero unguarded (so he can use his cybernetics to hack their base and let himself go) and of giving the hero a chance to off them - in this case, the Darth in charge gets up in Theron's face when he admits to being a Jedi's son and he's able to shoot her with a poison dart. Which leads the rest of the villains to...accidentally kill each other? The art is seriously unclear.
Despite it all being very silly (yet taking itself, as far as I could tell, quite seriously), I'd probably have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd liked Theron. At all. He makes James Bond look like a sensitive and kindly person. And I know he's supposed to grow over the course of the story, but I really didn't see it. And a character who dismisses the importance of the Republic doing something about a slaving operation needs a hell of a lot of growth for me to consider accepting them as a "hero."
Theron Shan: "Anyway, if these gangsters are selling slaves to the Empire, it's hardly a Republic Security concern." That line, early in the book, probably cost it a whole star in my ratings. Apparently he thinks slaves grow on trees. Or he doesn't care if they are selling Republic citizens to the Empire. I mean, I just can't parse out how that isn't a Republic Security concern. Not to mention a basic humanity concern.
But if you can get past that, the book's sort of fun to read in an MST3K kind of way.
The art was fairly good when it came to backgrounds and technology, and fairly terrible when it came to faces. Youngblood's disease is apparently alive and well, and not limited to Liefeldian art; people's appearances weren't consistent (most problematically, Theron's deus ex machina cybernetics were almost never drawn in); and the art was sometimes distractingly awful. (It's difficult to maintain proper focus and investment in the story when the main characters can periodically be mistaken for rakghouls.)
The story was a rambling mess, even before the magic cybernetics and villain stupidity ending. The Republic SIS wants information about what happens in the Empire, so they send agent Theron Shan after random things like slavers who may be selling to the Empire and a Jedi who may have been a prisoner in the Empire for an unspecified amount of time. (The slavers never come up again, and at one point Theron encounters people likely to have information about the Empire and...has apparently forgotten that the SIS might want that.)
The Jedi was his mother's old master and apparently raised him as if he could become a Jedi, despite the fact that he's not Force Sensitive (something he didn't learn until he was a teen.) And the Jedi, who has memory problems, knows about some terrible Imperial plot that must be stopped.
So we get confusing angst (Exactly why did the Jedi lead Theron to think he could be a Jedi? Why was he raising Theron? ???) and a standard spy movie plot: destroy the villain's horrible device.
The later wouldn't be too bad, except that the pacing is odd, events are implausible (how do you spend several days in a star system and not notice the giant Imperial construction "eating" the sun?), and the villains spend a week explaining their plan in detail to Theron after he, the Jedi, and the prisoner he just randomly took on his secret assignment are captured. A WEEK. All because Theron is such an amazing agent that the Empire wants him.
Okay, it's Star Wars meets ridiculous spy movie, of course everyone thinks the hero is all that, and of course the villains are going to monologue. FOR A WEEK??? I can only assume that either Theron's dialogue was supposed to be "one hundred fifty-six minutes" not "hours" or we really, really weren't supposed to do the math.
And the villains make both the standard mistake of leaving the hero unguarded (so he can use his cybernetics to hack their base and let himself go) and of giving the hero a chance to off them - in this case, the Darth in charge gets up in Theron's face when he admits to being a Jedi's son and he's able to shoot her with a poison dart. Which leads the rest of the villains to...accidentally kill each other? The art is seriously unclear.
Despite it all being very silly (yet taking itself, as far as I could tell, quite seriously), I'd probably have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd liked Theron. At all. He makes James Bond look like a sensitive and kindly person. And I know he's supposed to grow over the course of the story, but I really didn't see it. And a character who dismisses the importance of the Republic doing something about a slaving operation needs a hell of a lot of growth for me to consider accepting them as a "hero."
Theron Shan: "Anyway, if these gangsters are selling slaves to the Empire, it's hardly a Republic Security concern." That line, early in the book, probably cost it a whole star in my ratings. Apparently he thinks slaves grow on trees. Or he doesn't care if they are selling Republic citizens to the Empire. I mean, I just can't parse out how that isn't a Republic Security concern. Not to mention a basic humanity concern.
But if you can get past that, the book's sort of fun to read in an MST3K kind of way.
aughadan's review
4.0
Well, after the first and second volumes, one of them had to be good. This was a perfectly good story about your friend and mine, Theron Shan. I liked the opening flashback about the Jedi Order's dream team of Satele Shan, Syo Bakarn, Bela Kiwiiks, and Jaric Kaedan at the Battle of Rhen Var. The art was nice and it was a fun romp overall.
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