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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

"Jedi Search," by Kevin J. Anderson [Bantam, 1994]

Discussion in 'Archive: Literature Review Forum' started by dp4m, Feb 7, 2003.

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"Jedi Search," by Kevin J. Anderson [Bantam, 1994]

Poll closed Mar 25, 2012.
  1. 10 (Excellent)

    9.9%
  2. 9

    28.2%
  3. 8

    25.2%
  4. 7

    8.4%
  5. 6 (Average)

    6.1%
  6. 5 (Average)

    0.8%
  7. 4

    2.3%
  8. 3

    3.8%
  9. 2

    5.3%
  10. 1 (Poor)

    9.9%
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  1. GeithJiseo

    GeithJiseo Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 13, 2003
    I give Jedi Search an 8.

    Very enjoyable book, and also the first EU book I've ever read. My favorite parts of the book were the Kessel segments, and Han, Chewie, and Kyp escaping from the spice mines.

    The only negative aspects of this book are the bumbling Admiral Daala, and the utterly clueless Qwi Xux. But other than that, this is a very worthy SW book. :)
     
  2. Chiss_Imperial

    Chiss_Imperial Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Feb 10, 2004
    This was my first ever Eu book, borrowed from my cousin, and it hooked me. It's not the best of the books i really enjoyed it. Rating 8/10
     
  3. Jbrewster1012

    Jbrewster1012 Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    May 9, 2003
    I gave it a 9. I thought it was a good book. I really liked Han's adventure on Kessel and enjoyed seeing Luke finally start getting an academy together.
     
  4. MyEternalRest

    MyEternalRest Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Mar 24, 2002
    Who else liked the hinted romance that existed between Tarkin and Daala?
     
  5. crashdown

    crashdown Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2003
    I gave it a 7.

    It was a bit hard for me to get into this book. I thought it when kind of slow in places. But I did like the other two books of the trilogy a bit better.
     
  6. cleveland1000

    cleveland1000 Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Mar 15, 2004
    i gave this book a 7 it was good but some parts were just a little hard to read through or in other words Daala's boring.
     
  7. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 1999
    Ah, the good memories, I really liked this series, despite teh number of superweapons in it. Anderson did an interesting job with the characterizations and all that, plus put in an interesting storyline. He did mess up Mara Jade a bit.
     
  8. DarthShona

    DarthShona Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 29, 2003
    9.

    This book is awesome and I can't wait to get to the next two!
     
  9. Darth-Seldon

    Darth-Seldon Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    May 17, 2003
    Never before has a book had so many good scenes and so many dreadful scenes.

    Things I loved
    1. Kyp Durron's introduction
    2. The Spice Mines
    3. Introduction to the Maw
    4. the background on Daala/Tarkin

    Things I disliked
    1. They introduced Daala far too late in the novel. In my opinion they should have had her much earlier then they did.
    2. I did not like the frog guy on kessel I thought he was a weak character.
    3. I hated how The henchman on Kessel was always refered to as "the scarecrow" I just don't like how it is used. I mean I'm trying to think of an alien who is supposed to be mean to Han and all I can think of is some nice little scarcrow on a corn field. It kind of took away some of the good mood of the book.

    I liked the book on a whole

    -Seldon
     
  10. GenOochy

    GenOochy Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 8, 2003
    Personally, my favorite Star Wars book so far. Daala was awesome in it, Kyp was very cool. I do have to complain about the realism, as well with this one, KJA should really look at physics of an impact with to star craft. Even if the ship is indestructible, the impact would still creat enough G-forces to crush the pilots inside the Sun Crusher as it went through the Star Destoryer, but I did like how KJA protrayed the Imperials as human in this one.
     
  11. homer_of_the_sith

    homer_of_the_sith Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Sep 23, 2004
    EEEEEEEE Daala/tarkin romance!!!! NONONONO Very bad!
    lets just say MOST of the background on daala was done very well!

    I gave it an 8.
    It was extremely well written IMO and went on to be a cracking trilogy.

    Not as good as the thrawn tril mind you :D

    By the way everyone seems to find kyp

    i just find him damn annoying ;)
     
  12. homer_of_the_sith

    homer_of_the_sith Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Sep 23, 2004
    I meant to say evryone seems to find kyp "interesting"
    but he just annoys me
     
  13. Koohii

    Koohii Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 30, 2003
    Kevin J. Anderson cannot write a novel. The Best he can accomplish is a paragraph or two describing a scene or setting. He might be OK for comic books, but not for novels.
    Someone needs to point this out to him, and to his publishers.

    Everything in this novel is totally predictable. There are no surprises, and nothing interesting.

    The entire trilogy is shallow and childish work, and deserves to be discarded as such.
     
  14. Sniper_Wolf

    Sniper_Wolf Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 26, 2002
    I give the novel an 8. It was a lot better than I thought it would be, and is better than any Zahn/Stackpole/Allston works.
     
  15. Cloned_Sidious

    Cloned_Sidious Jedi Knight star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2004
    It was excellent.
     
  16. DaRonin

    DaRonin Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2005
    okay, I know there isnt supposed to be any Author bashing, and I will try to avoid it, but to review a contribution by kevin J anderson to the star wars universe, its difficult not to sound like your author bashing. Espescially considering the rumor lucas himself banished anderson from writing for star wars ever again.

    Star Wars, Jedi search. Oh merciful heavens, following up Zahns Thrawn Trilogy is a difficult enough task, Zahn Invested so much thought, creativity, and fondness for the franchises when he wrote the original trilogy. So much so that over the years, Ive been able to dust of the hardcovers I have, and still read em from cover to cover and enjoy every page and syllable.

    However, Jedi search, and the whole jedi academy series as a whole, is just a travesty of poor writing, and a dirth of any real love for the series. I have not read any more of andersons storis outside of the Star Wars Universe, but if he is getting awards for most talented author, then I have to assume he really didnt care much for the franchise to invest any real creativity.

    First of all, the superweapons. Yet ANOTHER death star, and the sun crusher. Lazy, lame, and just boring.

    Next, the characters. Qwi was just a rediculous character, brilliant enough to design the death star, world devestators, and sun crusher, yet dense enough not to realize she was creating weapons of destruction. Talk about a contradiction in terms. Admirral Daala was, and still is to this day, the Wil. E Coyotee of the star wars universe. Incompetent, stupid, stereotypical, vain, unimaginative, and thoroughly unappealing. She has what is arguably the strongest and largest, most well maintained starfleet in the galaxy at this time, not hard to imagine after the dark empire/Empires end series. And her greatest accomplishment is razing a small, unprotected colony on dantooine. I half expected kyp and han to let out a heaty "beep beep" every time they met up with her. Then there was Kyp, Take one part han solo, one half luke, and one part Exar kun, add in an inexplicably incompetent jedi master, and you got a character that has no originality, and whose character arc I could see ten miles off. Gee, kyp wants vengence, has more jedi potential then even luke, and the preview for Dark apprentice, heck even the title forshadows a student going to the dark side and challenging luke. I wonder which one of his students THAT could be?

    The main characters arent written much better, The lando/mara pairing that takes place in Dark Apprentice, and continued until Zahn returned, after stating in interviews he doesnt like writing romance and would prefer to let future artists handle luke and mara's pairing, had me screaming. She's a borderline dark jedi, fully trained asassin, former servent of the most ruthless dictator in the universe, and she's hooking up with a gambling addict who so happens to have the brightest smile in the universe? Leia who showed so much development as a jedi in Veitch's series all of a sudden shows so much distaste for jedi training.

    And then there's the writing. To paraphrase Qui-Gon, "The ability to quote does not make you intellegent" Anderson. In Zahns, and in Truce At Bakura, there were genuine insights and developments of character, and looks into peoples heads, and refferrences to past events that had not appreared in either book or movie format at that time. Yet here, anderson develops his character by referring again and again and again to prior occurances, hans recalling of the rancors from Courtship of princess leia, lukes recollections of the emperor, his time as a dark jedi, and so forth. Ive seen the films, read the comics, read the novels, can we please actually have some ORIGINAL and creative insight into thier characters? And the idea of the maw installation, while interesting, is ultimately flawed after some thought. Are we really expected to believe that for over a decade, a large imperrial garrison has stayed locked behind the cluster of black holes, not so much as making grocery, supply, or
     
  17. EwokStromboli

    EwokStromboli Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2004
    I'll give _JS_ a 4/10. (This score, when combined with my scores for _DA_ and _COTF_, gives the trilogy a 4/2/6 in my book.)

    I gave _DA_ a particularly unpleasant review earlier, and I think the review directly above this one, while probably a little more uncharitable toward KJA than I would go for this trilogy, does an excellent job of dissecting just how absurd the entire trilogy is. _JS_ isn't as bad as _DA_, nor is it as entertaining as _COTF_. It's sort of in the middle. I tend to "score low" compared to others here, I think. Thus, I regard _JS_ as something better than "awful" but something less than "mediocre."
     
  18. Jedi-Queen

    Jedi-Queen Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 16, 2005
    I was not very impressed with the book as well.
    However, I did like Kyp and am looking forward to seeing more of him.
    I didn't like the way the book presented Leia most of the way through the story and I didn't like the whole Admiral Daala thing. Who's gonna sit in space for 11 yrs waiting for news from the rest of the fleet and never once contact to say "uh, it's been years, anyone still out there??". Gimme a break.

    I will read the next 2 volumes to see if they're any better.
     
  19. fett 4

    fett 4 Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 2, 2000
    Could not stand the book. The dark tone was quite decent but that was about it and could not keep pace with the terrible writing and charachterisation complete with walking on Lava!!!!!
    1 out of 10 and thats being generous.
     
  20. Mangifera

    Mangifera Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Jun 18, 2005
    4/10

    1. I know it's been mentioned in almost every previous post, but Anderson's writing is really really really poor.

    2. When they realized they could take out a Destroyer by smashing it up with the Sun Crusher why didn't they turn around and take them all out?
     
  21. Carnor_Jaxson

    Carnor_Jaxson Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Jun 24, 2005
    My first EU read. 10/10. Spice mines of Kessel yes!
     
  22. DarthJango978

    DarthJango978 Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2005
    Unlike TTT,which focuses on strong storylines,good characters,and military sci-fi action suffers from a lack of colorful environment. JAT is,in my opinion,a vacation in SW. We have enough books with strong plots and not enough where the characters can just chill out a bit! So Death Stars and Sun Crushers aside,it deserves an 8.
     
  23. padawanlissa

    padawanlissa Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2005
    I would have to give this book about an 8.
     
  24. Teegirloo

    Teegirloo Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    May 26, 2005
    I give this book about 6.5 the best thing about this book is the introduction of Kyp Durron.
     
  25. Darth_Plageus09

    Darth_Plageus09 Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 20, 2005
    I didnt like this book all that much. The non-stop chatter and bashing of kevin J naderson ahs been proven solidly to me first hand . There was no action suspense and total engulfment of my mind as TTT provided., The JAT seems to be important for the introduction of certain characters and rebuilding of the jedi but I am trying to sped my through it to get it ove with. I give it a 4/10 it has barely held my attention but yet I have finsished it as appossed to completley trashing it so that warranst something higher than a 3 or lower lol
     
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