Scan barcode
book_nerd_1's review against another edition
3.0
Not much to it but a nice quick read and it was interesting to see the perspective of someone being recruited into the rebellion.
rogue_leader's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
jaredkwheeler's review against another edition
1.0
Star Wars Legends Project #272
Background: The Ruins of Dantooine was written by [a:Voronica Whitney-Robinson|35065|Voronica Whitney-Robinson|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Haden Blackman W.|7651874|Haden Blackman W.|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and published in December 2003. It is Whitney-Robinson's only Star Wars work. The amount of Blackman's involvement in the book is unclear, but as project lead for Star Wars Galaxies, he presumably consulted on story elements relevant to the tie-in with the game.
The Ruins of Dantooine takes place one year after the Battle of Yavin. The main characters are Dusque Mistflier and Finn Darktrin, but also features appearances by Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, Threepio, Artoo, Lando, Wedge Antilles, and Darth Vader. The story takes place on Naboo, Corellia, Lok, and Dantooine.
Summary: Dusque Mistflier has experienced her share of family tragedy since the rise of the Empire, but all she wants to do is keep her head down and do her job as an Imperial bioengineer, a field she is truly passionate about. But her entire life is upended when she is approached by a dark, handsome Rebel spy with a plea that she can't get out of her mind, and nothing will ever be the same.
Review: I just realized why Voronica Whitney-Robinson was such a familiar name . . . I've read and enjoyed some of her Forgotten Realms stuff. So, when I say that this is one of the worst professionally-published novels I've ever read, I know it's not because she's a bad writer. The style of writing, though, feels like a very poor match for a Star Wars novel at almost every point. The characters speak in stilted, almost high-fantasy phrases (which I guess makes sense?). A lot of this reads like mediocre fan fiction. I'm loathe to blame Whitney-Robinson for that entirely, because I'm sure a lot of the awkward cramming in of movie characters and references was part of her mandate.
The worst thing about the book is that the story takes an almost slavishly-literal approach to adapting an MMORPG, down to including irrelevant side-quests and random encounters. Most of the time, in addition to not being written well (because how COULD you write them well), these episodes defy all logic and destroy any sense of verisimilitude. They also occasionally just outright violate the consistency of the characters.
At one point, for example, our heroes get passage to a world where a pirate lord owes the Rebel spy a favor. He wants to trade his favor in for a ship that they can take to the secret Rebel base on Corellia (yeah, I knooow). When they arrive, the pirate lord doesn't feel he owes quite that much, but he's willing to part with a ship if they'll run a small errand for him. It's something a Rebel spy and one additional person with zero combat experience can easily accomplish, but this *pirate lord* apparently lacks the resources to do it himself. But he does have an armory that he lets them raid to equip themselves (again, this is like watching someone play a video game).
The job he sends them on is to retrieve something that he wants that someone else has. It isn't his mind you, he just wants it. And the people who have it are just guarding it out in the middle of nowhere for no understandable reason. And our heroes just drop in and assassinate them and take it. And sure, this is a boilerplate MMORPG quest, but committing casual murder-for-hire on behalf of a criminal boss isn't exactly typical for the heroes of the Rebel Alliance.
So, anyway, they return to find Han Solo and Chewbacca standing by to escort them to Corellia in the Millennium Falcon . . . but not in the Falcon, you understand. They'll just be flying escort on the ship the pirate is loaning our protagonists. But wait, this is a Rebel agent, on a mission of vital importance. Why does he need to do shady murder favors for a pirate just to get a ride? Can't he call the Rebellion for a ride? Can't he just go with Han?! And this is of course ignoring why they couldn't have just booked passage to Corellia to begin with, or why they need to go to Corellia at all since they literally just go there to tell the Rebel leaders, "Hey, we're going over here." Which the Rebel leaders already knew, too. Just. What is this story.
The cherry on top is an utterly maddening final "twist" that I saw coming way in advance but thought I must be wrong, because "surely they wouldn't write something that dumb." Oh, also, this isn't the book's fault, but it was very distracting to have this nothing, throw-away character named Finn throughout the book when that name has picked up very different connotations within Star Wars in recent years.
I do have to give some real credit, though, for one particular element of this book: Whitney-Robinson really did write herself the perfect device to explain why her nobody character is crucial to everything that happens in the story. That worked, and worked well. And I would never have thought that a biologist character would turn out to have so many diverse and useful skills within a Star Wars story. Props for that. I see from her bio that Whitney-Robinson has a background in biology, which explains why this is the one element of the story that genuinely worked.
But it's not worth it. Don't read this.
F
Background: The Ruins of Dantooine was written by [a:Voronica Whitney-Robinson|35065|Voronica Whitney-Robinson|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Haden Blackman W.|7651874|Haden Blackman W.|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and published in December 2003. It is Whitney-Robinson's only Star Wars work. The amount of Blackman's involvement in the book is unclear, but as project lead for Star Wars Galaxies, he presumably consulted on story elements relevant to the tie-in with the game.
The Ruins of Dantooine takes place one year after the Battle of Yavin. The main characters are Dusque Mistflier and Finn Darktrin, but also features appearances by Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, Threepio, Artoo, Lando, Wedge Antilles, and Darth Vader. The story takes place on Naboo, Corellia, Lok, and Dantooine.
Summary: Dusque Mistflier has experienced her share of family tragedy since the rise of the Empire, but all she wants to do is keep her head down and do her job as an Imperial bioengineer, a field she is truly passionate about. But her entire life is upended when she is approached by a dark, handsome Rebel spy with a plea that she can't get out of her mind, and nothing will ever be the same.
Review: I just realized why Voronica Whitney-Robinson was such a familiar name . . . I've read and enjoyed some of her Forgotten Realms stuff. So, when I say that this is one of the worst professionally-published novels I've ever read, I know it's not because she's a bad writer. The style of writing, though, feels like a very poor match for a Star Wars novel at almost every point. The characters speak in stilted, almost high-fantasy phrases (which I guess makes sense?). A lot of this reads like mediocre fan fiction. I'm loathe to blame Whitney-Robinson for that entirely, because I'm sure a lot of the awkward cramming in of movie characters and references was part of her mandate.
The worst thing about the book is that the story takes an almost slavishly-literal approach to adapting an MMORPG, down to including irrelevant side-quests and random encounters. Most of the time, in addition to not being written well (because how COULD you write them well), these episodes defy all logic and destroy any sense of verisimilitude. They also occasionally just outright violate the consistency of the characters.
At one point, for example, our heroes get passage to a world where a pirate lord owes the Rebel spy a favor. He wants to trade his favor in for a ship that they can take to the secret Rebel base on Corellia (yeah, I knooow). When they arrive, the pirate lord doesn't feel he owes quite that much, but he's willing to part with a ship if they'll run a small errand for him. It's something a Rebel spy and one additional person with zero combat experience can easily accomplish, but this *pirate lord* apparently lacks the resources to do it himself. But he does have an armory that he lets them raid to equip themselves (again, this is like watching someone play a video game).
The job he sends them on is to retrieve something that he wants that someone else has. It isn't his mind you, he just wants it. And the people who have it are just guarding it out in the middle of nowhere for no understandable reason. And our heroes just drop in and assassinate them and take it. And sure, this is a boilerplate MMORPG quest, but committing casual murder-for-hire on behalf of a criminal boss isn't exactly typical for the heroes of the Rebel Alliance.
So, anyway, they return to find Han Solo and Chewbacca standing by to escort them to Corellia in the Millennium Falcon . . . but not in the Falcon, you understand. They'll just be flying escort on the ship the pirate is loaning our protagonists. But wait, this is a Rebel agent, on a mission of vital importance. Why does he need to do shady murder favors for a pirate just to get a ride? Can't he call the Rebellion for a ride? Can't he just go with Han?! And this is of course ignoring why they couldn't have just booked passage to Corellia to begin with, or why they need to go to Corellia at all since they literally just go there to tell the Rebel leaders, "Hey, we're going over here." Which the Rebel leaders already knew, too. Just. What is this story.
The cherry on top is an utterly maddening final "twist" that I saw coming way in advance but thought I must be wrong, because "surely they wouldn't write something that dumb." Oh, also, this isn't the book's fault, but it was very distracting to have this nothing, throw-away character named Finn throughout the book when that name has picked up very different connotations within Star Wars in recent years.
I do have to give some real credit, though, for one particular element of this book: Whitney-Robinson really did write herself the perfect device to explain why her nobody character is crucial to everything that happens in the story. That worked, and worked well. And I would never have thought that a biologist character would turn out to have so many diverse and useful skills within a Star Wars story. Props for that. I see from her bio that Whitney-Robinson has a background in biology, which explains why this is the one element of the story that genuinely worked.
But it's not worth it. Don't read this.
F
darkside1523's review against another edition
3.0
Good overall story. Some pacing issues throughout and some characters who make some very quick changes and adaptations that don’t feel entirely earned. But way better than the cover suggests.
itcamefromthepage's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I had an absolute blast with this book!
Unique perspectives, good character writing, and some fantastic action sequences
Unique perspectives, good character writing, and some fantastic action sequences
hstapp's review against another edition
2.0
This story is a bit too obvious. We the reader realize quite early on what is going on, but the main character doesn't and I believe that this works against what the Author is intending. The Author is trying to portray a strong woman in a man's world, but the obvious clues make her seem unintelligent in a way. I disagree with some of the other portrayals in the story since the author was clearly going for a feminist slant. I assume that's the fault of the men that she had to work with, but that's just a guess.
I did start enjoying the book more, and liking the main character the more I got into the story, but overall I think that it's pretty poorly crafted.
I did start enjoying the book more, and liking the main character the more I got into the story, but overall I think that it's pretty poorly crafted.
rhubarb1608's review against another edition
4.0
Not gonna lie, I've been avoiding this book for years. I didn't like the cheesy cover, I was ambivalent about SWG being a legitimate source of canon, and seriously, what kind of name is "Voronica"? But if a book that disappoints me can fill me with more passionate hatred than one I simply didn't like, a book that takes me by surprise and impresses me deserves all the love I can throw its way!
I was initially skeptical of a protagonist named "Dusque Mistflier," but the book is absolutely worth four stars. Dusque is an Imperial scientist who travels the galaxy capturing and studying creatures the Empire might find of interest. When she finds herself wrapped up in a rebel plot, including the handsome agent Finn Darktrin and a holocron hidden away on Dantooine, all her quiet anti-Imperial doubts begin to explode.
Naturally the Empire is out to get this holocron as well, which is why the rebellion's got agents trying to get there first. It's a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style race for the artifact where there can only be one winner. Loam Redge is an Imperial Inquisitor whose job is to track down Force-sensitives; he's also after the artifact and I enjoyed his character very much.
I never got a chance to play SWG, but I gather the whole premise was very much how this book feels: Who is the Star Wars Everyman? The laypeople? The Joes and Jainas? This book gives rather regular people at regular jobs: concerts, paychecks, gas stations. Family drama. And all worked in with the bigger theme of galactic intrigue and spy games.
In many different ways, The Ruins of Dantooine is a great book that I found in the perfect location and which got me through a tough week. Good job, Voronica! Too bad there weren't more in this series.
I was initially skeptical of a protagonist named "Dusque Mistflier," but the book is absolutely worth four stars. Dusque is an Imperial scientist who travels the galaxy capturing and studying creatures the Empire might find of interest. When she finds herself wrapped up in a rebel plot, including the handsome agent Finn Darktrin and a holocron hidden away on Dantooine, all her quiet anti-Imperial doubts begin to explode.
Naturally the Empire is out to get this holocron as well, which is why the rebellion's got agents trying to get there first. It's a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style race for the artifact where there can only be one winner. Loam Redge is an Imperial Inquisitor whose job is to track down Force-sensitives; he's also after the artifact and I enjoyed his character very much.
I never got a chance to play SWG, but I gather the whole premise was very much how this book feels: Who is the Star Wars Everyman? The laypeople? The Joes and Jainas? This book gives rather regular people at regular jobs: concerts, paychecks, gas stations. Family drama. And all worked in with the bigger theme of galactic intrigue and spy games.
In many different ways, The Ruins of Dantooine is a great book that I found in the perfect location and which got me through a tough week. Good job, Voronica! Too bad there weren't more in this series.
blancwene's review against another edition
2.0
More like 1.5 stars ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For 2022, I decided to go back in time and reread all the Prequels Era novels published between 1999 and 2005, plus a smidgen of other novels (like [b:Survivor's Quest|46623|Star Wars Survivor's Quest|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1330605305l/46623._SY75_.jpg|1197542] and the Dark Nest trilogy) released during that time frame. This shakes out to 21 novels, four eBook novellas, and at least thirteen short stories.
This week’s focus: the first (??) Star Wars video game tie-in novel, Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine by Voronica Whitney-Robinson with W. Haden Blackman.
SOME HISTORY:
Voronica Whitney-Robinson wrote very fast. Star Wars Galaxies (often abbreviated SWG), the massive multiplayer online role playing game was set to come out in the summer of 2003, and Lucasarts and Del Rey decided that maybe a tie-in novel would be the way to go. So they reached out to Whitney-Robinson, who had previously written novels for Wizards of the Coast; she submitted an outline of the story in August, and by early September she had already written half the story. Considering that Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine was published on December 30, 2003, I would say that Whitney-Robinson is a very speedy author indeed!
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
This novel was one that I might have heard about, but I never saw in the flesh and never felt compelled to seek it out—mostly because I had never played SWG, and had no interest in doing so. It wasn’t until I started compiling my list of prequel releases that I realized that this was a Star Wars book at all
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Hidden within the Jedi ruins on Dantooine is a holocron that contains the names of Rebel sympathizers—and if this information were to get into the hands of the Empire, it would cause innumerable deaths. So former Imperial bioengineer Dusque Mistflier and Rebel operative Finn Darktrin are dispatched to retrieve the holocron. But Dusque will learn that the hardest part of this mission is figuring out whose side you're on, and how far you're willing to go to win…
STAR WARS GALAXIES: THE GAME:
Some background on Star Wars Galaxies: it was a Star Wars-themed massive multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG, developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by Lucasarts for Windows computers. There was originally a plan to also release it for consoles, but that never panned out. The base game titled Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided was released on June 26, 2003 in the USA and later in the rest of the world, and the base game was upgraded with three major expansions between 2003-2005. (In addition to the initial cost of the software, there was also a monthly subscription fee of 14.99 USD, but there were discounts if you subscribed for long periods of time.)
A combat upgrade was released in April 2005 that was a major rewrite of the combat armor and weapons systems—basically meaning that only certain professions could use specific weapons and armors—and this resulted in a lot of controversy from players who criticized the changes and canceled their subscriptions. Another set of game changes dubbed the New Game Enhancements (NGE) began testing in November of 2005 and went live later that month. These changes reduced the number of 34 original professions to nine, and once again there was lots of criticism of these changes. But people were still playing this game up until 2011, when Sony Online Entertainment announced that they would permanently shut down Star Wars Galaxies in December 2011. However, even after that shutdown people still play SWG in emulator form, so even though it's an old game at this point, there's still a lot of nostalgia surrounding it.
THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS:
I guess Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine was an attempt to get book readers interested in this online game, but I think that if you have played SWG in the past, you’ll get more enjoyment out of this book than a complete newbie would. There are easter eggs of locations and items that appear within the game, but someone unfamiliar with the game won’t pick up on them at all.
I feel like Del Rey really did this story dirty by giving it such a bad cover. It's obviously artwork from the game, but it's that sort of middling-to-low quality CGI stuff from the early 2000s—and I think that an actual illustration would have done a lot better to sell me this as a legit SW book.
The Ruins of Dantooine follows our heroine Dusque Mistflier, an Imperial bioengineer from Talus. As the story progresses, she becomes frustrated with both her role as well as what the Empire is doing, and she ends up joining the Rebels and helping them with this fetch quest. She's joined for most of the journey by Finn Darktrin (not that Finn), a Rebel operative who’s been dispatched to get Dusque and convert her to the Rebel cause because she has the right credentials to get them on Dantooine to retrieve the holocron for Princess Leia and the Rebel leaders.
I did wonder why they were retrieving a holocron, because my understanding was that Jedi holocrons and Sith holocrons could only be accessed by someone with Force abilities, but I guess that within the game holocrons are used to store information? Maybe there's a third kind of holocron that anyone can access? Because if not, the climactic ending really couldn't have worked out.
When we first meet Dusque, she's on Nabooaccompanied by a fellow bioengineer who is an Ithorian (you know, these guys). She attends some sort of animal fight-to-the-death coliseum event and is disgusted by it, then goes into a casino. There's a one-page cameo appearance by Lando Calrissian which really felt like a video game move, and then she meets Finn. He makes her question things about the Empire, but she makes no decisions and heads off on a side quest with her Ithorian companion in search of these giant bats on one of Naboo's moons.
They head back to Naboo and the Ithorian is arrested and executed by the Imperials. This is what initially converts Dusque to the Rebel cause, because she wants to get revenge for her colleague. Dusque and Finn head to Lok, complete a fetch quest, meet Han Solo….and are not transported in the Millennium Falcon to the Rebel base, but instead just follow Han? They crash on Corellia, walk with C-3PO to the secret Rebel base, meet Luke and Leia, and are given their mission.
It's not until chapter 10 (of 15) that they finally leave for Dantooine—there's a lot more traveling, they get the holocron, they make it off Dantooine, and then So as the book ends, Finn is back with the Imperials, still in their good graces, and Dusque is alive and 100% on the Rebel’s side.
You think “okay, they're probably going to show up in some other story and interact again” but unfortunately that's it for these characters. Whitney-Robinson wrote a short story prequel to The Ruins of Dantooine that was published in Star Wars Insider, but that's really it as far as I could tell. She didn't write anything more in the Star Wars universe, or really anything more at all. Her author bio says that she's a marine biologist who lives in Washington state, so maybe she decided she didn't like writing tie-in novels and just wanted to focus on her real job.
ISSUES:
The Ruins of Dantooine is like a spy/intrigue story with a stealth romance plot. I had no idea going into it that the romance between Dusque and Finn would play such a huge part in the story, but it does. It’s OK, I guess? It’s not the best romance, but since I was not expecting any romance I was rather thrown by it.
I was also not expecting the sheer number of side quests that appear here. They don’t even head to the titular planet until two-thirds into the story, mostly because of all these useless side quests and fetch quests—many of which have no relevance to the greater plot, and seemed more like an opportunity to show the different worlds that appear in SWG.
And there are a lot of descriptions of different creatures on every planet they visit. Dusque is a bioengineer, so it makes sense that she would note them all, but there are so many different creatures, their eating habits, their temperament, their prey and their predators, and I found most of them uninteresting additions to the story.
I also wish that the appearance of Original Trilogy characters had been a little better integrated into the story. Because as it stands, they feel like unnecessary cameo appearances. Lando didn’t need to be there at all; I thought that Han would give them a ride, but he didn't; and Leia’s behavior with Dusque seemed to indicate a closer relationship than they actually had. Even the fact that Luke rescues Dusque at the end felt like an illogical reach.
But most of all, the novel felt very fanfiction to me. Characters like Dusque Mistflier and Finn Darktrin sound like something thrown out of a Star Wars name generator. It's hard to get a grasp on Finn, because he never talks about himself—and then he ends up being an Imperial agent anyway. Dusque was nice, but I wish that Whitney-Robinson had not used the trope of Dusque being not like other girls, because if she truly doesn’t care about her appearance why does she have waist-length hair?? As someone who has had very long hair in the past, that is not a no maintenance hairstyle.
I also felt like there were a lot of mentions of the fact that since Dusque is a woman in Imperial service, she’s never considered for promotions and no one pays attention to her. It’s probably true, but it felt clunkily integrated into the story. I wish that could have played a bigger role into why she chooses to side with the Rebellion—not just her family history, and the Ithorian being executed in front of her, but the realization that she's never going to accomplish anything within the Empire, that her morals and ideals do not align with the Empire, and that she doesn't see herself with a future there.
IN CONCLUSION:
I sometimes see The Ruins of Dantooine described as the worst Star Wars novel, or one of the worst SW novels, and I don't think it is…I do think that the amount of time Whitney-Robinson spent on the story is reflected in the quality of the plot and characterization. I wish that The Ruins of Dantooine wasn't so heavily dependent on knowledge of Star Wars Galaxies, because all the video game aspects like cameos by Original Trilogy characters and endless side quests took away from the story. Since we never revisit these characters again, they don't get a chance to develop and grow—it's just generic Imperial agent masquerading as a Rebel, and generic Imperial scientist who realizes the wrongs of her ways. Whitney-Robinson obviously had a lot of fun with all the creatures and locations visited, but it's a mediocre intrigue/quest story, and not really important for your understanding of anything in Star Wars. (And yes, I still wish that it had gotten a better cover!)
Next up: an eBook about the stormtroopers from [b:Survivor's Quest|46623|Star Wars Survivor's Quest|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1330605305l/46623._SY75_.jpg|1197542], [b:Fool's Bargain|2056957|Fool's Bargain (Star Wars)|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1215545924l/2056957._SY75_.jpg|2062136] by Timothy Zahn
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/heAz2GPMdJ8
Voronica Whitney-Robinson: The Fastest Pen in the Galaxy? (February 2004): https://web.archive.org/web/20090718194041/http://www.starwars.com/vault/books/0201004news.html
Homing Beacon #96 - Exploring the Ruins of Dantooine (June 2003): https://web.archive.org/web/20050205105355/http://www.starwars.com/eu/lit/novel/beacon96.html
For 2022, I decided to go back in time and reread all the Prequels Era novels published between 1999 and 2005, plus a smidgen of other novels (like [b:Survivor's Quest|46623|Star Wars Survivor's Quest|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1330605305l/46623._SY75_.jpg|1197542] and the Dark Nest trilogy) released during that time frame. This shakes out to 21 novels, four eBook novellas, and at least thirteen short stories.
This week’s focus: the first (??) Star Wars video game tie-in novel, Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine by Voronica Whitney-Robinson with W. Haden Blackman.
SOME HISTORY:
Voronica Whitney-Robinson wrote very fast. Star Wars Galaxies (often abbreviated SWG), the massive multiplayer online role playing game was set to come out in the summer of 2003, and Lucasarts and Del Rey decided that maybe a tie-in novel would be the way to go. So they reached out to Whitney-Robinson, who had previously written novels for Wizards of the Coast; she submitted an outline of the story in August, and by early September she had already written half the story. Considering that Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine was published on December 30, 2003, I would say that Whitney-Robinson is a very speedy author indeed!
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
This novel was one that I might have heard about, but I never saw in the flesh and never felt compelled to seek it out—mostly because I had never played SWG, and had no interest in doing so. It wasn’t until I started compiling my list of prequel releases that I realized that this was a Star Wars book at all
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Hidden within the Jedi ruins on Dantooine is a holocron that contains the names of Rebel sympathizers—and if this information were to get into the hands of the Empire, it would cause innumerable deaths. So former Imperial bioengineer Dusque Mistflier and Rebel operative Finn Darktrin are dispatched to retrieve the holocron. But Dusque will learn that the hardest part of this mission is figuring out whose side you're on, and how far you're willing to go to win…
STAR WARS GALAXIES: THE GAME:
Some background on Star Wars Galaxies: it was a Star Wars-themed massive multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG, developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by Lucasarts for Windows computers. There was originally a plan to also release it for consoles, but that never panned out. The base game titled Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided was released on June 26, 2003 in the USA and later in the rest of the world, and the base game was upgraded with three major expansions between 2003-2005. (In addition to the initial cost of the software, there was also a monthly subscription fee of 14.99 USD, but there were discounts if you subscribed for long periods of time.)
A combat upgrade was released in April 2005 that was a major rewrite of the combat armor and weapons systems—basically meaning that only certain professions could use specific weapons and armors—and this resulted in a lot of controversy from players who criticized the changes and canceled their subscriptions. Another set of game changes dubbed the New Game Enhancements (NGE) began testing in November of 2005 and went live later that month. These changes reduced the number of 34 original professions to nine, and once again there was lots of criticism of these changes. But people were still playing this game up until 2011, when Sony Online Entertainment announced that they would permanently shut down Star Wars Galaxies in December 2011. However, even after that shutdown people still play SWG in emulator form, so even though it's an old game at this point, there's still a lot of nostalgia surrounding it.
THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS:
I guess Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine was an attempt to get book readers interested in this online game, but I think that if you have played SWG in the past, you’ll get more enjoyment out of this book than a complete newbie would. There are easter eggs of locations and items that appear within the game, but someone unfamiliar with the game won’t pick up on them at all.
I feel like Del Rey really did this story dirty by giving it such a bad cover. It's obviously artwork from the game, but it's that sort of middling-to-low quality CGI stuff from the early 2000s—and I think that an actual illustration would have done a lot better to sell me this as a legit SW book.
The Ruins of Dantooine follows our heroine Dusque Mistflier, an Imperial bioengineer from Talus. As the story progresses, she becomes frustrated with both her role as well as what the Empire is doing, and she ends up joining the Rebels and helping them with this fetch quest. She's joined for most of the journey by Finn Darktrin (not that Finn), a Rebel operative who’s been dispatched to get Dusque and convert her to the Rebel cause because she has the right credentials to get them on Dantooine to retrieve the holocron for Princess Leia and the Rebel leaders.
I did wonder why they were retrieving a holocron, because my understanding was that Jedi holocrons and Sith holocrons could only be accessed by someone with Force abilities, but I guess that within the game holocrons are used to store information? Maybe there's a third kind of holocron that anyone can access? Because if not, the climactic ending really couldn't have worked out.
When we first meet Dusque, she's on Nabooaccompanied by a fellow bioengineer who is an Ithorian (you know, these guys). She attends some sort of animal fight-to-the-death coliseum event and is disgusted by it, then goes into a casino. There's a one-page cameo appearance by Lando Calrissian which really felt like a video game move, and then she meets Finn. He makes her question things about the Empire, but she makes no decisions and heads off on a side quest with her Ithorian companion in search of these giant bats on one of Naboo's moons.
They head back to Naboo and the Ithorian is arrested and executed by the Imperials. This is what initially converts Dusque to the Rebel cause, because she wants to get revenge for her colleague. Dusque and Finn head to Lok, complete a fetch quest, meet Han Solo….and are not transported in the Millennium Falcon to the Rebel base, but instead just follow Han? They crash on Corellia, walk with C-3PO to the secret Rebel base, meet Luke and Leia, and are given their mission.
It's not until chapter 10 (of 15) that they finally leave for Dantooine—there's a lot more traveling, they get the holocron, they make it off Dantooine, and then
Spoiler
it is revealed that all along Finn has been an Imperial operative deep undercover with the Rebels. He's able to send some of the names from the holocron to his superiors, but Dusque gets the holocron and jettisons it into space—and he stabs her! It should be fatal, but Luke Skywalker and some other rebels show up and save her just in time.You think “okay, they're probably going to show up in some other story and interact again” but unfortunately that's it for these characters. Whitney-Robinson wrote a short story prequel to The Ruins of Dantooine that was published in Star Wars Insider, but that's really it as far as I could tell. She didn't write anything more in the Star Wars universe, or really anything more at all. Her author bio says that she's a marine biologist who lives in Washington state, so maybe she decided she didn't like writing tie-in novels and just wanted to focus on her real job.
ISSUES:
The Ruins of Dantooine is like a spy/intrigue story with a stealth romance plot. I had no idea going into it that the romance between Dusque and Finn would play such a huge part in the story, but it does. It’s OK, I guess? It’s not the best romance, but since I was not expecting any romance I was rather thrown by it.
I was also not expecting the sheer number of side quests that appear here. They don’t even head to the titular planet until two-thirds into the story, mostly because of all these useless side quests and fetch quests—many of which have no relevance to the greater plot, and seemed more like an opportunity to show the different worlds that appear in SWG.
And there are a lot of descriptions of different creatures on every planet they visit. Dusque is a bioengineer, so it makes sense that she would note them all, but there are so many different creatures, their eating habits, their temperament, their prey and their predators, and I found most of them uninteresting additions to the story.
I also wish that the appearance of Original Trilogy characters had been a little better integrated into the story. Because as it stands, they feel like unnecessary cameo appearances. Lando didn’t need to be there at all; I thought that Han would give them a ride, but he didn't; and Leia’s behavior with Dusque seemed to indicate a closer relationship than they actually had. Even the fact that Luke rescues Dusque at the end felt like an illogical reach.
But most of all, the novel felt very fanfiction to me. Characters like Dusque Mistflier and Finn Darktrin sound like something thrown out of a Star Wars name generator. It's hard to get a grasp on Finn, because he never talks about himself—and then he ends up being an Imperial agent anyway. Dusque was nice, but I wish that Whitney-Robinson had not used the trope of Dusque being not like other girls, because if she truly doesn’t care about her appearance why does she have waist-length hair?? As someone who has had very long hair in the past, that is not a no maintenance hairstyle.
I also felt like there were a lot of mentions of the fact that since Dusque is a woman in Imperial service, she’s never considered for promotions and no one pays attention to her. It’s probably true, but it felt clunkily integrated into the story. I wish that could have played a bigger role into why she chooses to side with the Rebellion—not just her family history, and the Ithorian being executed in front of her, but the realization that she's never going to accomplish anything within the Empire, that her morals and ideals do not align with the Empire, and that she doesn't see herself with a future there.
IN CONCLUSION:
I sometimes see The Ruins of Dantooine described as the worst Star Wars novel, or one of the worst SW novels, and I don't think it is…I do think that the amount of time Whitney-Robinson spent on the story is reflected in the quality of the plot and characterization. I wish that The Ruins of Dantooine wasn't so heavily dependent on knowledge of Star Wars Galaxies, because all the video game aspects like cameos by Original Trilogy characters and endless side quests took away from the story. Since we never revisit these characters again, they don't get a chance to develop and grow—it's just generic Imperial agent masquerading as a Rebel, and generic Imperial scientist who realizes the wrongs of her ways. Whitney-Robinson obviously had a lot of fun with all the creatures and locations visited, but it's a mediocre intrigue/quest story, and not really important for your understanding of anything in Star Wars. (And yes, I still wish that it had gotten a better cover!)
Next up: an eBook about the stormtroopers from [b:Survivor's Quest|46623|Star Wars Survivor's Quest|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1330605305l/46623._SY75_.jpg|1197542], [b:Fool's Bargain|2056957|Fool's Bargain (Star Wars)|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1215545924l/2056957._SY75_.jpg|2062136] by Timothy Zahn
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/heAz2GPMdJ8
Voronica Whitney-Robinson: The Fastest Pen in the Galaxy? (February 2004): https://web.archive.org/web/20090718194041/http://www.starwars.com/vault/books/0201004news.html
Homing Beacon #96 - Exploring the Ruins of Dantooine (June 2003): https://web.archive.org/web/20050205105355/http://www.starwars.com/eu/lit/novel/beacon96.html
verkisto's review against another edition
1.0
Well, I thought I had hit rock bottom in the Expanded Universe with the L. Neil Smith books, but little did I know the worst was yet to come. The storytelling here is about as subtle as a brick to the head, and as exciting as watching Two-and-a-Half Men. It's terrible.
Neither the story nor the characters (or even the plot) in this book are that deep. It's part of the Star Wars Galaxies computer game, and having not played the game, I don't know how much of the story might relate to the game. I do know that it doesn't matter. The two main characters, Dusque and Finn (not the same Finn from The Force Awakens, mind you) are as flat as a dinner mint, with questionable motivations, and even if they do feature in the game, what the author does with them is criminal.
The entire book is told in a dry, clinical style, and relies far too much on telling. There's no emotion or feeling connected to anything that happens in the book, so we don't care much about what happens. Near the beginning of the book, Whitney-Robinson tells us that Dusque is a feminist, but she neglects to show us how she is. In fact, as much as she depends on Finn and becomes a damsel in distress, I don't know how the author expects us to believe her statement about Dusque.
She also telegraphs the truth behind Finn's character, enough so that part of me wondered if she were setting him up that way to play with our expectations of him. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, because there's nothing else in the story to suggest the author would do something this subtle. In the end, I can't say I was disappointed to find out that he was exactly the character she was leading us to believe he was.
The whole book feels like a juvenile book, which in itself is an insult to books like the Harry Potter series, or any of Jude Watson's EU books. Those books used subtlety of character and plot to make the stories more engaging and significant; The Ruins of Dantooine just barrels on through like a train determined to come into the station on time. It was a fast read, yes, but it certainly wasn't a good read. I can't say I'm surprised that Lucas only released one book in this particular franchise.
Neither the story nor the characters (or even the plot) in this book are that deep. It's part of the Star Wars Galaxies computer game, and having not played the game, I don't know how much of the story might relate to the game. I do know that it doesn't matter. The two main characters, Dusque and Finn (not the same Finn from The Force Awakens, mind you) are as flat as a dinner mint, with questionable motivations, and even if they do feature in the game, what the author does with them is criminal.
The entire book is told in a dry, clinical style, and relies far too much on telling. There's no emotion or feeling connected to anything that happens in the book, so we don't care much about what happens. Near the beginning of the book, Whitney-Robinson tells us that Dusque is a feminist, but she neglects to show us how she is. In fact, as much as she depends on Finn and becomes a damsel in distress, I don't know how the author expects us to believe her statement about Dusque.
She also telegraphs the truth behind Finn's character, enough so that part of me wondered if she were setting him up that way to play with our expectations of him. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, because there's nothing else in the story to suggest the author would do something this subtle. In the end, I can't say I was disappointed to find out that he was exactly the character she was leading us to believe he was.
The whole book feels like a juvenile book, which in itself is an insult to books like the Harry Potter series, or any of Jude Watson's EU books. Those books used subtlety of character and plot to make the stories more engaging and significant; The Ruins of Dantooine just barrels on through like a train determined to come into the station on time. It was a fast read, yes, but it certainly wasn't a good read. I can't say I'm surprised that Lucas only released one book in this particular franchise.
ehsjaysaunders's review against another edition
4.0
Another Star Wars Expanded Universe entry I'd never gotten around to reading before, honestly writing it off as a forced game tie-in...and it sort of is, I suppose. Still, it's a welcome change of pace from the excessive Luke/Leia/Han-centric stories of the era, actually providing a few solid characters of its own to follow. I honestly wouldn't have minded more Dusque stories, despite the clunky romantic prose and dialogue present here.
Takes a while to actually get to Dantooine, but okay.
Takes a while to actually get to Dantooine, but okay.