Books Master and Apprentice, a Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan novel by Claudia Gray

I've had some time to digest this book so I'm going to post my thoughts. First, what I thought about Claudia Gray's other books. I absolutely loved Lost Stars and Leia: Princess of Alderaan. A big part of that was they provided unique perspectives: Lost Stars really dived into what exactly would make someone support the Empire, and POA showed Leia's formative teenage years. I didn't really care for Bloodlines, because I thought that it was a bit too unsubtle with repeatedly hammering home the whole "New Republic is ineffective" message, and that while it tried to show nuance with both of the NR's political factions having valid points, it still came down very hard against the Centrist faction.

This book? While I have an overall very positive opinion of the book, there are a few parts that did affect my enjoyment. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but that's just how I feel. Don't mistake me though: It's a really great book, but it has a few things that hold it back from being as good as Lost Stars or POA.

Spoiler

Let's get the cons out of the way first.

• One of the thing's I've noticed is that Claudia Gray sometimes introduces technology that should have bigger implications, but dosn't. In POA it was a shield that stops fall damage, which you'd think would come in handy with all the bottomless pits in Star Wars. In this book, it's the introduction of slicer darts. It's basically Borg nanoprobes from Star Trek. A droid shoots a dart and your head, it injects nanobots, and they temporarily take over your mind and make you attack allies. Now, later on it does try to say that this technology is rare and "unreliable", if a criminal is within shooting range of you it's probably a safer bet for them to kill you than to do a coin flip with this dart. But this seems like the sort of thing that would be a game changer in the SW galaxy. If Palpatine gets a hold of these, improves them, he won't even need to use Order 66 to take down the Jedi.
  • This technology serves the plot because a big part of Rael's character is that he made a bad call and had to kill his former apprentice when she was under this technology and he regrets it. But I feel there are tons of other ways you could get the story in that direction. Maybe his apprentice is just killed because he's too busy to help her during battle. Maybe his apprentice is under the influence of Sith artifacts, or the Dark Side in general, or the criminals have drugged her up. Maybe she was taken hostage and he needs to let her die to save others. Maybe she's trapped in a room full of radiation while he's busy in the fight. Maybe he gets caught up in the heat of battle and accidentally kills her. There are other options besides mind control nanotechnology.
• A major plot point is the introduction of Kohlen crystals, which can be used to make personal shields that block lightsabers. The characters make a huge logical leap to assume that these new crystals are related to the new shield technology. They turn out to be right, but there's no reason for them to jump to the conclusion. Especially when later on in the book during a space battle Qui-gon manipulates a Czerka rep to get him to do a similar leap.
  
• Wow, ANOTHER technology related gripe. There's a character who escaped slavery from Czerka, and when she goes to a Czerka base a security droid does facial recognition on her and recaptures her. First of all, IIRC this was about 15 years ago, Rahara was a teen/preteen when she escaped. Second, it's not like she's on a Most Wanted list of escaped slaves to make an example of, it's specifically stated that it has a database of "millions" of slaves. All that info can be packed into a renta cop droid, and is constantly updated as new slaves come along? Man when the Empire comes along they should have no trouble finding rebels, they can put these droids in every space port.
  
• I mentioned that in Bloodline it bugged me that the message about the NR's problems seemed kind of like beating a dead horse. A similar thing happened with the whole "Obi-wan and Qui-gon have trouble getting along" plot. It's otherwise very well handled as you can see both teacher and student have valid points, and they do learn to understand each other and get a stronger bond by the end. But at some points it just feels like the same story beats again and again.
• The Republic's slave laws are pretty plot specific, as even in Republic space Czerka can openly hold slaves and have them perform slave labor. (IDK, maybe there was an equivalent of the Dred Scott decision). But then at the climax Qui-gon pulls a vague law out of thin air that means in an emergency they can free anyone found to have been imprisoned unfairly. Seems like this loop hole could also be used by villains during a planetary civil war, but whatever.
  
• They make a poop joke about Dooku's name, with a character calling him "unfortunately named".

On to the positives.

• The twist at the end was well done, I was not expecting the Queen to be behind everything. And the way she's defeated, with her former slave friend turning on her when she's about to kill a bunch of slaves is well done.
• I didn't really care for Qui-gon's character, but this book helped improve him in my eyes. Qui-gon feels regulations get in the way of doing what's right, chafes under the Council, and is fascinated by prophecies. Obi-wan feels the rules are rules for a reason, defers to the Council, and sees Qui-gon as being blinded by obession with the prophecies. Unlike Bloodlines, it seems like both sides really do have valid points.
  
• There are some really good call forwards with Obi-wan. He starts the book loving piloting, but after an incident at the end of the book he now claims he hates it. The people on the planet Pijal have imported bogas from Utapau, and Obi-wan bonds with one. There's even an explanation for why in ESB Obi-wan implies he used to be reckless like Luke even though we never saw that side to him. Apparently youngling Obi-wan was a rebellious rule-breaker, and in a clever move Yoda paired him with Qui-gon. The only way for Obi-wan to rebel against a master like Qui-gon was to start doing things by the book!
  
• Rael is a very good character. He drinks, he gets laid, he seems like the cool, less uptight Jedi. But from his backstory and from his actions during the main plot, we see that there's a dark side (pun not intended) to his character.
  
• There's a neat character named Pax who was raised by protocol droids, so he has issues connecting with people and finding the right things to say in conversation. It's kind of like a parallel to autism, but it's open ended and you could interpret it many ways. This is results in interesting character interactions, especially with his partner/potential love interest Rhanna.
• We have artsy terrorists/protestors (well, the terrorist part turns out to be untrue), which reminds me of "Are We Cool Yet?" from the SCP wiki.
  
• Claudia Gray always does a good job of making the Star Wars galaxy feel like a lived in universe, that's home to not just Jedi and super soldiers but regular people of different species and different walks of life.

[spoiler/]

 

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I just finished this novel today.

Anyone else expect

Spoiler

Rael to become a villain and duel Qui-Gon? I know they sparred, but they weren't angry at each other. At least not really. My expectations were subverted when Fanry had a massive power trip at the end.
I'm also shocked at how young Qui-Gon is. In Legends, he died at the age of 60. If we take him saying that's he's 40 literally, that would mean he was born around 79 BBY. Meaning he was only 47 during the Phantom Menace. I always pictured him in his 50s, at least.
I do think it is probably a good idea to have Dooku leave the Order well before the events of The Phantom Menace. I never really found it that interesting that he left right after the Battle of Naboo in Legends. I mean surely he and Obi-Wan would've interacted if that were the case.

Just some of my initial thoughts. I enjoyed the book, and hope for plenty of more pre-Phantom Menace content. I would also really like some novels in between Episode I and II.

 

Spoiler

I considered that he was dangerously on the precipice of becoming a villain.
One of my favorite parts of this book is the way it portrays the Jedi Code in general, yes we get Quigon criticizing the rules quite a bit, yet through Rael was also see the dangers of taking the code too loosely.
His attachment to Pijal prevented him from rationally considering the implications of the terrorist activities, and the actions of Czerka.
His attachment to Fanry prevented him from looking beyond the surface, and realizing her true motives.
He was blinded by emotion, and struck out when presented with facts that conflicted with his views.

I believe Rael was very close to the dark side throughout the events of this book, which is brought to the forefront when it is revealed he was considering an offer from Dooku to abandon the Jedi Order.
His actions before hand proved that he lacked reason, but it is at that moment that it becomes fully apparent how close he came to truly falling.

Ironically I think Fanry's actions were what allowed him to see how irrationally he was acting. When the girl he was raising like a daughter turned out to be a budding psychopath it clearly hit him hard, but it also opened his eye's to how foolish he was acting. It offered him some much needed hindsight, that just may have saved him from a very dangerous path.

 

You already have Queen's Shadow?

 

I just bought this book from amazon. and I will be buying queens shadow soon.

 

I'm currently reading it, and it's interesting that...

Spoiler

Dooku has already left the Jedi order, and this is about 5-7 years before The Phantom Menace. Yet, it jives with what he says to Obi-Wan in AOTC about their paths not having crossed before.

 

I just got it in!!!!!! Will be reading very soon.

 

Little late to the party but I just finished this one up. Blown away, definitely my favorite novel of the new cannon, and right up there with my favorites from the EU.

Spoiler

So many great passages in this book, but "he sometimes wondered whether anyone truly believed out of pure faith, or whether people believed whatever they had to, in order to keep going." really resonated with me.

 

Can we just get Claudia Gray to write all the canon novels? Seriously this book along with her other entries are all excellent.

Loved this book fron start to finish. I especially loved how she characterized Kenobi wan and Jinn.

 

Still reading here too.

 

Finished it last week. Meant to post my thoughts but I forgot and haven't had time.

Jonathan Davis is probably my favorite Star Wars narrator. Well him and Daniel Davis.

Another solid entry though not surprising since I've liked all of Gray's work so far.

Spoiler

I liked how it explored the differences in Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. One is the rebel Jedi and the other is usually more by the book. Though yeah, as one pointed out in the novel, if Obi-Wan had been with a more by the book Master he probably would have been more rebellious. Anyway besides maybe the Jedi Apprentice series I don't recall many exploring that in Legends. Then again, there weren't that many things on Qui-Gon from what I recall.

I loved how they also mentioned Qui-Gon liked studying old languages along with the prophecies. It made me think of the old Clone Wars series where Obi-Wan knew what the natives were saying. "When you travel the Galaxy with Qui-Gon Jinn, you tend to learn a few things."

As for the prophecies, some of them are pretty obvious: Anakin/Vader, the fall of the Republic/Jedi, etc and then one seemingly mentioning Leia and Ben or it could be Shmi and Anakin too I suppose.

Loved the flashbacks with Dooku and young Qui-Gon. It was surprising how he left the Order prior to TPM, but I suppose the change makes sense. It could be part of the reason why we don't see him in TPM.

While listening I got spoiled and read about the Princess revelation. So not sure how much I can comment there. I guess makes sense given the monarchy was losing much of its power.

Surprising to know that Qui-Gon was offered a seat on the Council. If he had who knows, maybe he could have made a difference. Maybe not. Also would Anakin have been found? Makes one wonder.

Had some Legends connections. Nice Yaddle cameo.

I liked Rael. Another different/rebellious Jedi, much like his Master and his Master's later student, Qui-Gon. I don't know, so much attention gets put on female characters these days. It's nice to see the guys aren't forgotten.

Also I recommend anyone who's read this to go listen to Dooku: Jedi Lost after reading/listening to this.

 

Finally read this, it was brilliant. Don't have a negative thing to say, Claudia Gray is getting better with every chance she gets to write SW and I hope she gets the opportunity to do it regularly going forward. She's one of the few real successes of the last few years in SW literature IMO. So many great tie-ins to the films & even some easter eggs for the old EU. She clearly did a lot of research on this novel.
Great that we're getting more of the prequel era too. Everything has been very "Empire v Rebels/First Order v Resistance" in SW lately, this makes for a nice change.

 

Anyone who likes this needs to consider checking out Dooku: Jedi Lost as well.

 

Where is it available?

Amazon says no longer available

 

Here's for Amazon USA:
Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Dooku-Jedi-Lost-Star-Wars-Audiobook/0593102819

 

Look for more from her soon. She's part of Project Luminous:
http://outerrimnews.com/reading/what-is-project-luminous/

 

Partway through this book it has dawned on me that:

Rael = Davos
Fanry = Shireen
Dooku = Stannis

Can't get this out of my head now.

 

Spoiler

This was a great book. I expected it to be, but it exceeded my expectations. I love Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, as well as the pre TPM era. This book didn't disappoint in any of those regards. Claudia Gray handled Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon very well and her expansion on their characters was phenomenal. I love how the story occured during a pivotal point in their relationship, allowing us to see their character development. I loved watching them develop a real friendship.

The flashbacks into Qui-Gon's past were handled well and provided good character insights. I hope we see more of his apprenticeship to Dooku some day.

I enjoyed the portrayal of the Jedi as well and thought the book handled world building well. I loved the political plotline and the new planet, Pijal. The central conflict was engaging.

Rael Aveross was a great new character. He's an interesting Jedi and I thought making him another of Dooku's former Padawans was a good choice. He had a good character arc and I hope to see more of his story.

 

I'm getting near the end of this book, and I honestly don't know what's going to happen. A lot of my theories at the beginning and middle have been made void by now. If anything, this book gets better as it goes along.