Reviews Books The JC Lit Reviews Special: ORDER 66 (Spoilers!)

Average score: 89.6/13 = 6.89

 

I think this is the worst entry in the RC series, which is a shame considering how psyched up I was for it. Oh and I had to pay almost 30 dollars to read it. I felt this book had a bit too much soap-opera-like feel. It really started to drag around page 200 or 250. Nothing was really happening they're just preparing, and preparing, and preparing, oh and then they prepare some more. I've always liked Karen's writing and all her books but this one was just a bit too preachy even for me. It probably could have done without several of the side-character threads to streamline the thing more. Jilka could have been easily cut out of the book, she was a total waste of time. Omega's first mission probably could have been cut too, yeah it was semi-exciting and sort of built tension that anyone could die but overall I'd say it was fluff. You could say that about several of the things that happened as well.

I have no problem with the discussions over clone army morality, or Jedi moral relativism it's nice to have a different view of the Jedi and I think the universe as a whole needs it. I'm tired of Jedi-centric stories and the constant whining and worrying about the dark side it's nice to hear views that are more practical and contrary to the run-of-the-mill at this point. I still don't think Karen hates Jedi, in terms of her characters I think the views expressed are pretty fair.

The end of the book is where it really fell flat for me. The book did a great job of building tension the entire time making me think I was in for a major culling and what happens? Well not much. Etain dies in probably the most pointless and stupid ways I could possibly imagine and beyond Sev no one is really touched. It's like the ultimate happy ending but it ended up feeling really bitter anyway. Still the last bit left me hungry for Imperial Commando. I have no idea how Karen will be able to keep the Darman/Niner liberation interesting for more than one book but we'll see I suppose. Should be interesting seeing how the clones feel when the Imperials are running the show.

I still love the quotes at the start of the chapter I think Karen more than any other EU author does such a great job of painting a large picture with just those quotes. She does so well building tension and presenting different viewpoints I find it impossible not to give anything she's done so far a glowing review. This book is probably her worst so far but besides the pacing issues and a fairly unsatisfying ending I still think it was a great book.

8/10

 

Double post.

 

Average score: 97.6/14 = 6.97

 

I agree with those who felt that the book was a bit slow at first and that some early scenes simply didnt feel necassary. I dont know, maybe that was because of the anticipation of Order 66 itself had me impatient early on. Nevertheless, that took very little away from what I thought was just a great book. The forty or so pages leading up to Etain's death were brilliantly written, the tension palpable as she and Dar commed back and forth. Even though it was a given since probably the first book that Etain would die it was still very sad when it happened. That made the last forty or so pages hard to read, but everything with Kal at the end was great, cementing his status as one of the best characters in the EU. Lastly, the anti Jedi sentiment was probably a bit over the top, but its easy to understand the Mandos hatred of the Order.

Traviss delivered another well written book, and I am very much looking forward to the Imperial Commando series next summer.

9 / 10

 

Average score: 106.6/15 = 7.11

 

I must be somewhat masochistic to keep diving into these books like I do. I think it's the morbid curiosity of how and what Karen will preach this time. Also, like 'em or hate 'em, now that I've started it, I want to see how the characters' respective stories end. Other than the ones we've already seen in LOTF, that is.

Like her past books, this one was rather preachy yet again. I get her feelings on the Jedi, her apparent admiration of the Mandalorian culture, the view that the Clone Wars didn't make sense since it wasn't a war in the traditional sense, and that the clones are men not soulless drones built for the will of their masters. But when it's part of every written POV and every single one is having that same perspective it just gets repetitive and irritating. And yet I'll keep coming back when the library gets them in because I'm a completist and the aforementioned curiosity.

I have to say that in spite of my general dislike for the character, Kal had some fascinating moments in this one. I do kind of like that as everyone tells him what a great man he is, that he's a hero, and we even have Jusik reflecting on Kal's unconditional love making up for his life of atrocities, he knows it's not true. He knows he's that all of the negative terminology put to him by others is very true. I like taht we get him seeing the truth in that, though to be fair he's had reflections like that throughout the RC series. One exchange I found to be most interesting at all is a conversation with Ordo where he says that Ordo and Sull will have to disguise themselves as "clones", which Ordo of course points out that they are. And it's that point that Kal, the man who consciously believes all clones are worth saving and that he would rescue them all if he could, notes that by "clones" he meant the "white jobs". I don't know if it's flawed aspect of Kal's humanity or just a throwaway line, but it caught my attention.

And the continuity issues, egads! Now there's a whole new army and fleet that for some reason no one thought fit to mention in Episode III. The History of the Mandalorians discarded. The plot of the game changed for reasons I felt unnecessary (I'll remember you, Advisor!!). And a completely muddled ending with the Battle of Coruscant/Kashyyyk/Chancellor abduction/66. It just got a bit sloppy for my tastes at the end.

It has its upsides, but for once the negatives drag it down too much for me. Etain's arc may be the saddest one of all for me. After all the potential she had at the end of HC, it just seemed so squandered in the following three books. She might have been better off not knowing Kal.

I was going to rate this higher than my rating for TZ, but then I remembered that there were some parts of TZ that I did like quite a lot. So I'll give it the same score. 4/10

 

Probably the finest piece in the RC novels. The plot was well thought out, the battles and Skirata's plans were brilliant. A few odd drops of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos helped to tie the novel into the entire overlaying Battle of Kashyyyk. Delta's infiltration of Kashyyyk was better than the game. The only down side was the last two chapters of the novel. Other than that, it was a great read.

9/10

 

Pros:
KT giving up on the constant 1 million clone figure.

Cons:
Lack of focus on the titual event/time.
Mando worship, as usual.
Near-butchery of the game events.

 

7/10
It was a good book, but it has the wrong title I think. If a book is going to be called Order 66, it should mainly be about Order 66, not just the last couple of chapters. I understand that the clone characters weren't in the battle field to deal with actually killing a Jedi so there wasn't much she could of added to what we have. It was my second favorite RC book, I liked Triple Zero better. At least we have the Imperial Commando novels to look forward to.

Good Stuff

 

Average score: 134.1/19 = 7.06

 

I'm going to give this book a 8.7/10.

It was by no means perfect, but it was one of the few recent Star Wars books that I have literally been unable to put down once I started it. I know that not everyone agrees with the whole "Mandos > Jedi" POV, but to be perfectly honest, I didn't mind it, especially considering that that POV only came across when told from the POV of a character who held that POV. Jusik still remains one of my favorite characters from this era, and it was interesting to see what happened to him and the others as the Clone Wars came to a close.

I am eagerly awaiting the next entries to this series. (Yes, I know technically it'll be a different series, but you all know what I mean.)

 

Average score: 142.8/20 = 7.14

 

I really enjoyed this book, I think Karen did a great job with characterization and it fits in very nicely with the rest of the RC books.

The only things that I disliked were the how fast Order 66 happened in the book, how it was handled, and how Etains death scene just seemed ... very rushed.
I'm looking forward to Imperial Commando.

9/10

 

Average score: 151.8/21 = 7.23

 

I normally fangirl at Star Wars books right after I read them and it's only later that the honeymoon period wears off, but this one was kind of off even right after. It's a shame, because I've been liking this series, anti-Jedi sentiment or not.

I still like most of the characters. I'm glad that one of the characters I felt was more or less marked for death lived, and I liked seeing Callista and the mention of Scout from "Dark Rendezvous" right at the end. On the other hand, some of the characters were acting weirdly, to my mind. Let's get it out of the way first thing, the part of the book that I was most disappointed with was the reactions of Bardan and Etain to the destruction of the Jedi Order. What I had most been looking forward to in this book was seeing the gray area that I've been used to seeing in the Clone Wars era books, how the clones who had gotten friendly with their Jedi would deal with either "Oh man, I don't really want to shoot them but orders are orders" or "Wow, could you believe that despite appearances when we thought we were saving everyone those Jedi were really poisoning the water supply? You think you know a person." What I got was, "Grr arg they got what they deserved," even from the Jedi and former Jedi characters. Not so much with the gray area there. Order 66 was handled in a downright anticlimactic way, at least to me. Just suddenly, everyone was running around and things were on fire and oops, Etain's dead. And there's hardly a thought from Bardan or Etain about, oh, the people that they grew up their entire lives knowing.

Anyway. Back to the book. I think my favorite parts were everything from Ordo and Fi's POVs. Particularly Fi, I always liked him and I was interested to see his path to recovery and how he was dealing with no longer being in the military and having all of his abilities at their peak. And I did like the end, with everyone grieving in their own ways. That part made me look forward to Imperial Commando and seeing what happens next... just not as much "must know what happens next" as I felt after True Colors.

So, I was overall fairly entertained but for poor pacing and a huge event being glossed over (it was like if someone was writing a book about, say, the JFK assassination and as soon as the car turns the corner... you cut away to a diner five blocks away and have people talking about it for five pages and the weather for the last two hundred pages instead), I can't put it up with the other RC books. 6.5/10.

 

Average score: 158.3/22 = 7.20

 

8.7/10

The only part of the book I didn't like at all was Etain's death. Not that she died, but HOW she died. It's already been talked about though so I won't add any more. I loved Karen's continued excellent characterizations. Fi's recovery was nice. I absolutely loved the backstory of Palpatine's ordering of more clones and how he was able to grow them so fast but they weren't as good. Great stuff! It was a tad slow at times, though, and I wasn't able to read through it as quickly as Rule of Two. Of course, it was a different type of novel and the slower pace left time for characterization so that I actually cared about all the characters as individuals.

 

Average score: 167/23 = 7.26

 

Is it possible to give a book a review score of 0/10? If not, can I give this book a 0.01/10?

There isn't a single redeeming quality to this book; and I am by no stretch a Traviss hater/Talifan/whatever term she/others use.

Pacing of this book = ridiculously boring/slow. Typically, I can read 100-120 pages paperback per day; this book took me 9 days to read. (3 of which were off days, 1 of which I spent in a hospital waiting room for an entire day nearly - WITH THIS BOOK).

Battles... were there even battles in this novel?

Order 66 happens on page 380+.

Who all dies in this novel? Etain, Zey. POSSIBLY Sev; but not a 100% gurantee and with how SW is - prolly means he'll be in the IC series.

2 people die. One is an off-screen basic nobody Jedi. The other is Karen's Mary-Sue (not going to touch this subject; but seriously, c'mon... its such a sure-fire lock that she is). Literally every character gets into their deep-philosophy/anti-jedi/pro-clone mode on from page 1 to page 465 (or whatever the last page # is). Even Zey. Vos is mentioned only to reinforce/cite previous anti-Jedi purposes; to try and make the universe look bigger, and for Karen to show us fans that she's not the only anti-Jedi SW collaborator.

I will give Karen some props for the fact you can definitely tell between now and HC she's done some researching and is putting other people's works into her own.

The retconning in this book is a bit miffy/but it works and I like it __SOMEWHAT__. The second clone army is a good retcon with Zahn's TTT; and it works to explain how many of the Stormies in EP4-6 can still be clones (cuz otherwise the AOTC clones would be like 40-60 dependingly). The Kashyyyk battle was just off; and basically used as a cop-out - same with the character Enacca; oh, how convient that Skirata's has a wookie on his "payroll"/"clan membership" and the last major battle happens at Kashyyyk.

There is just too many convient happinings in the story to make me not get disgusted. There is 4 (maybe 5?) marriages. There is 3 break-ins and rescuings; which had ZERO SUSPENSE to any of them because they were all obvious and easy. Not a single government operation in this book has any experience. "oh you handed me a datachip, ID, it must be truthful, yea, you look like clone ####, obviously, proceed, take a random prisoner and ship them to random prison ####, yea, we don't care." "Oh, we think you and your BF Null infiltrated our system, so we'll use you to rat it out" "Oh, your a Mandalorian Merc who may/may-not be buddies with Skirata. Why don't you spy on him for us?"

Etain's death is horrible. Its also another convience. Oh, she just happens to die in front of Obrim who is able to get her out with nobody noticing and scooping up, not 1, but 2 lightsabers, so nobody notices....

Her death is also another way for Karen to sow in more anti-Jedi rabble-rabble. "Oh look at how the Jedi are mowing down civilians just to escape." uhh.... what would anybdoy do in that situation? You just got betrayed. Your Republic/Government that you basically worked for is GONE, and the army that you commanded/used who was working with you for your government just turned against you, general populace turned against you... and oh yea,.... your getting shot at. I'd sure as ** fire/shoot/do whatever it took to get the hell outta there.

This entire day I've been thinking about this write-up and how many little plot-holes I've thought up thats in the novel. Even from the small daily things to the very large. I forget the one (I'm sure I'll re-remember it later), but its something Karen does with all of clone novels (the RC series, Clone Wars, No Prisoners, etc.) and it revolves around the clones - I forget what it is; but its the general nuances of the day and what-not that is just so illuminating to how off she is with not only this universe but the general SW feel; let alone how much of a gloryhound she makes her characters.

Too much to nitpick, too little time.

If asked/questioned, I'm sure I could write up another 50 pages on what could have made this bet

 

Fine, make it a 1/10.

 

Whoops. Double review.

 

I finally got around to nabbing the paper back the other day. I really dug the book. Yeah it's a bit Mando-heavy, but I knew it would be going in just like the other RC novels and so I was prepared for it. Plus I'm a big fan of all the Mandalorian stuff. Basically everything I have to say, good or bad, has been said. So I'll just sum it up and say I give the book an 8/10.

 

Average score: 176/25 = 7.04