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mynameisnemo 's review for:
Dark Disciple
by Christie Golden
I was categorically unimpressed with a number of things about this book.
First of all, characterisation. While most of the dialogue of the main characters is extremely spot on, note for note perfect, the council especially, and other characters to a lessor extent, all suffer from poor characterisation. The author trots out the same tired trope of jedi being unfeeling, of jedi not being allowed to have sex, of jedi not being allowed to have best friends. She makes Mace a judgemental and hot headed character who is willing to jump straight to murder, despite it being 'not the jedi way'. She does fairly well with Ventress until the end of the book when the entire 7 seasons of Ventress's characterisation in TCW is suddenly thrown in the trash compactor and she become unrecognisable.
Speaking of the end of the book, it was all around a trash fire on a scale with Lotho Minor. There were a number of times where I thought the book would take the off-ramp from the non-sensical and out of character and frankly ridiculous ending that it was headed for, potentially with a double or triple agent switch that would have at least been entertaining. Alas, this was not to be. Instead it hurtles right through the last 50 or so pages with the characters making decisions that make less and less sense with each passing page. Characters who, in the space of only a few chapters, become utterly unrecognisable. Characters who die in a a way that is utterly unbecoming of the actual character from TCW. Not to mention how much I don't want to see male characters redeemed through the fridging of their female love interests in this year of 2021, especially from a book that was published only 6 years ago.
There were a few good things that I did enjoy, I enjoyed the flirting, I enjoyed the hints of Obi-Wan and Ventress, of Obi-Wan and Quinlan, the parts of Ventress and Quinlan that weren't making me want to bounce my head off my desk while I was reading it. I enjoyed some of the dialogue and will probably even refer back to the book in the future to study how some of the characters speak. But other than that I am annoyed and have developed a small army of fix-it ideas that will probably devour my brain whole one day.
First of all, characterisation. While most of the dialogue of the main characters is extremely spot on, note for note perfect, the council especially, and other characters to a lessor extent, all suffer from poor characterisation. The author trots out the same tired trope of jedi being unfeeling, of jedi not being allowed to have sex, of jedi not being allowed to have best friends. She makes Mace a judgemental and hot headed character who is willing to jump straight to murder, despite it being 'not the jedi way'. She does fairly well with Ventress until the end of the book when the entire 7 seasons of Ventress's characterisation in TCW is suddenly thrown in the trash compactor and she become unrecognisable.
Speaking of the end of the book, it was all around a trash fire on a scale with Lotho Minor. There were a number of times where I thought the book would take the off-ramp from the non-sensical and out of character and frankly ridiculous ending that it was headed for, potentially with a double or triple agent switch that would have at least been entertaining. Alas, this was not to be. Instead it hurtles right through the last 50 or so pages with the characters making decisions that make less and less sense with each passing page. Characters who, in the space of only a few chapters, become utterly unrecognisable. Characters who die in a a way that is utterly unbecoming of the actual character from TCW. Not to mention how much I don't want to see male characters redeemed through the fridging of their female love interests in this year of 2021, especially from a book that was published only 6 years ago.
There were a few good things that I did enjoy, I enjoyed the flirting, I enjoyed the hints of Obi-Wan and Ventress, of Obi-Wan and Quinlan, the parts of Ventress and Quinlan that weren't making me want to bounce my head off my desk while I was reading it. I enjoyed some of the dialogue and will probably even refer back to the book in the future to study how some of the characters speak. But other than that I am annoyed and have developed a small army of fix-it ideas that will probably devour my brain whole one day.