Tuesday 11 August 2009

SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: Star Wars: Clone Wars: No Prisoners - Karen Traviss


BOOK BLURB:

The Clone Wars rage on. As insurgent Separatists fight furiously to wrest control of the galaxy from the Republic, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine cunningly manipulates both sides for his own sinister purposes.

Torrent Company’s Captain Rex agrees to temporarily relieve Anakin Skywalker of Ahsoka, his ubiquitous–and insatiably curious–Padawan, by bringing her along on a routine three-day shakedown cruise aboard Captain Gilad Pellaeon’s newly refitted assault ship. But the training run becomes an active–and dangerous–rescue mission when Republic undercover agent Hallena Devis goes missing in the middle of a Separatist invasion.

Dispatched to a distant world to aid a local dictator facing a revolution, Hallena finds herself surrounded by angry freedom fighters and questioning the Republic’s methods–and motives. Summoned to rescue the missing operative who is also his secret love, Pellaeon–sworn to protect the Republic over all–is torn between duty and desire. And Ahsoka, sent in with Rex and six untested clone troopers to extract Hallena, encounters a new and different Jedi philosophy, which shakes the foundation of her upbringing to the core. As danger and intrigue intensify, the loyalties and convictions of all involved will be tested. . . .


REVIEW:

As we have mentioned previously with Karen’s work you fit into one of two categories, either you love her, or you cannot stand her. It is a real shame but she does do first person warfare pretty well and in the Clone War’s series, it is a damn good thing that she does. Whilst her characterisation is a little hap hazard at times, the fact that when it comes to the nitty gritty of down in the mud entrenched warfare, there’s very few who bring the scene to life in quite the same way. That said the novel is quite short which lets the novel down quite a lot as we know that she has to rush a lot of the things that we feel would build the universe up to a greater height.

Perhaps Karen should branch out on her own and create a universe that she can get behind to take the time to produce the type of book that many of her fans are crying out for. After all, were she to develop characters to their full potential and back it up with her style of warfare, the result would win a legion of additional fans to take on the Sci-Fi genre on their own.

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