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A review by galacticvampire
Brotherhood by Mike Chen
adventurous
medium-paced
3.75
Brotherhood had two jobs: tell the audience what exactly happened in Cato Neimoidia and explore the Anakin - Obi-Wan relationship. Both tasks were executed, but none really felt fulfilling enough.
I don't really have complaints about the Cato Neimoidia plot outside of personal taste. The shining point really was the discussion about grief and war and anger, how they affect perspective and what to do in front of evil. But the plot itself happened, the story is there, I didn't care as much as I could have about it.
But the relationship between those two...felt stilted. I'd say Chen was a bit too heavy-handed on the insecurities on both sides, making it very dissonant from all the others characterizations we have from the characters. Yes, they banter and disagree, but they are still very found of each other! This book is called brotherhood, it should have leaned into that.
A lot of it is caused by the incessant mention of Qui-Gon. Why. It makes sense, specially for Obi-Wan, to remember his teachings and wonder what would have happened if he had survived, but the name-drop was so frequent it felt out of nowhere. Anakin relying so much on a vague memory of him for guidance over Obi-Wan full decade of training was very strange.
It also takes on aspects of the jedi order portrayal that I am not comfortable with, and have to wonder if these authors are getting cues from the storygroup or it's just an effect of them being a Legends generation. Mace Windu being framed as "very mean" and Yoda almost aloof is something I'm personally pretend is a narrator bias from the characters.
Now. I'm still rating ot 3.75. Because the other half of the book is spent with Anakin and the youngling Mill and it was so well executed! Anakin is a great master to Ahsoka later on, and seeing glimpses of it here was spectacular. It shows how much Anakin was good, that he was indeed a great Jedi. It makes his fall more heartbreaking. It contrasts a lot with his insecurities regarding Obi-Wan, and by the end I wish this more lighthearted portrayal of his had settled with the former Master as well.
I don't really have complaints about the Cato Neimoidia plot outside of personal taste. The shining point really was the discussion about grief and war and anger, how they affect perspective and what to do in front of evil. But the plot itself happened, the story is there, I didn't care as much as I could have about it.
But the relationship between those two...felt stilted. I'd say Chen was a bit too heavy-handed on the insecurities on both sides, making it very dissonant from all the others characterizations we have from the characters. Yes, they banter and disagree, but they are still very found of each other! This book is called brotherhood, it should have leaned into that.
A lot of it is caused by the incessant mention of Qui-Gon. Why. It makes sense, specially for Obi-Wan, to remember his teachings and wonder what would have happened if he had survived, but the name-drop was so frequent it felt out of nowhere. Anakin relying so much on a vague memory of him for guidance over Obi-Wan full decade of training was very strange.
It also takes on aspects of the jedi order portrayal that I am not comfortable with, and have to wonder if these authors are getting cues from the storygroup or it's just an effect of them being a Legends generation. Mace Windu being framed as "very mean" and Yoda almost aloof is something I'm personally pretend is a narrator bias from the characters.
Now. I'm still rating ot 3.75. Because the other half of the book is spent with Anakin and the youngling Mill and it was so well executed! Anakin is a great master to Ahsoka later on, and seeing glimpses of it here was spectacular. It shows how much Anakin was good, that he was indeed a great Jedi. It makes his fall more heartbreaking. It contrasts a lot with his insecurities regarding Obi-Wan, and by the end I wish this more lighthearted portrayal of his had settled with the former Master as well.