Reviews Books The JC Lit Reviews Special: DAWN OF THE JEDI: INTO THE VOID (spoilers)

Welcome the new earliest novel on the timeline and our second novel released in collaboration with Dark Horse's comics, Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void!

Some rules: rate Into the Void on a scale of 1 to 10, supplementing your rating with a review, if you want to (It's not necessary but is highly encouraged). However, please do not rate or review the book until after you've read the whole thing. Thanks.

Go for it.

 

Where can we review Into the Void, though?

 

Tim Lebben is the best new prospect to hit Del Rey since John Jackson Miller. DOTJ:ITV is a great novel, packed with interesting and well-drawn characters, full of fascinating concepts, written in great prose, and generally compelling. The cast of characters is diverse, and each is unique and thought-through. OC protagonists in one-off stories these days have tended toward the bland: not so here. Lanoree Brock is a woman, which is a huge plus, and has an interesting take on the Force thanks to the new-to-us Je'daii philosophy. She has a backstory with the villain, her brother, whom I'll get to in a moment, and we get inside her head and see her thoughts and emotions, which are compelling and make her stand out. She's not just another plug-and-play Jedi hero. Dalien, her brother, is an even more intriguing character, a madman who hates, resents, and rejects the Force as a controlling, invasive presence, and turns instead to try to reclaim the birthright outside the Tython system he feels he was denied by the Tho Yors bringing the Je'daii to Tython. We see him primarily as a child in the ongoing flashback element of the narrative, as he and Lanoree go through their Je'daii training, and it's just fantastic to have this kid slowly revealing just how twisted and increasingly sociopathic he is.

The ending could stand to be a little meatier and deliver more about Dalien's plan, but in general it's a very well-written thriller that totally works, and it's the best novel we've had since Knight Errant. You all need to go out and read this now. 9.2/10

 

7,75.

I really liked it, it had intresting concepts and characters. I felt there were too many flashbacks and kind of lagged at middle but i would totally read an another Lanoree adventure by the same author.

I also found an obscure Lebbon interview:

 

It's hard for me not to write something with a lot of extraneous details and excessive praise but I'll try to be quick. To say that this is one of the best EU books in a long while will probably suffice. Lanoree's an interesting enough character and as a Jed'aii, she has just enough moral ambiguity to make us look at the times before the Jedi with a little distrust. She's an alchemist and the scene of how she manages to heal herself should give readers pause for a moment. Overall, she's a very strong protagonist, if a bit rash, in a time where the EU is ever slowly giving us quality female protagonists again.

Dalien himself is a fascinating villain, a character who outright denies the Force and wants nothing to do with it. It's a question I don't think we've seen explored before and because the Jed'aii are a bit stricter in pushing their initiates and family members especially to continue their heritage, the idea of someone who not just feels trapped by expectations but by the very power they can wield is a very smart.

Another great things is that the cast and supporting characters are diverse, even if Lebbon gives us quite a bit of Cathar. In the dramatis personae alone we have three women (one Cathar). The rest are men but they include a Sith, a Twi'lek, and a Talid. Lebbon clearly cares about the setting and understands the universe enough to give us things like this. Heck, the Gree never appear but they play a big part in the plot.

Overall, it was a brisk, great read. The parallel story lines working very, the setting feeling very much different but still recognizable, and the character being truly interesting.

9/10.

 

Average score: 25.95/3 = 8.65

 

'Into the Void' is a strong story that suffers from a weak ending and the need to tie into larger story. SPOILERS FOLLOW.

I was surprised when I first began reading how brooding this story was. From the get-go, it establishes a somber tone that reflects its protagonist's mood in a palpable way. Lanoree is everything that Jaina Solo should be, a strong warrior and prominent Je'Daii who has touches of darkness to her. She's a mix of light and dark that reflects the Ying/Yang nature of the Je'Daii better than any other character I've yet seen in this era (disclosure: I'm one of Dark Horse's Stockholm Syndrome-afflicted TPB-readers so I've only read the 'Force Storm' arc of the comics), and I found that her actions reflected that consistently and clearly. She's almost an anti-hero in feel, and yet she's adherent to a moral code that she doesn't fail. It makes for an interesting character who carries the book very well despite working against the protagonist mold that most Star Wars readers have been trained to expect.

The story itself is fairly dark in tone, with Lanoree traveling from one wretched hive to another, and there's a sequence where one of those hives is completely destroyed and millions of people are killed. In this, I feel like book fails to connect to the Ying/Yang nature of the era, and the Ying and Yang work against each other. The main plotline of 'Into the Void' is a "cartoon" in the style of a James Bond movie, with just enough violence and darkness to convince adults that they're reading something for them while the actual content reflects more of a pulp adventure, and the destruction of a whole city is pretty much forgotten once Lanoree has moved on to the next planet. Such a moment feels much darker than it's treated, and put me off in the same way so much Fantasy does these days, with childish stories heaping on the violence and sex to cover up the lack of maturity. The fact that her brother later shoots Lanoree lethally is given more weight to her eventual decision to kill him than the near genocide he committed, and on a more practical storytelling level, I'm kind of sad that we lost both the setting that had been given so much description and the crime lord character to whom we had been introduced. It's a testament to how vividly Tim Lebben is able to bring the character to life in just two scenes that a glorified THIS WAY sign plotpoint is able to make me sad for his off-screen departure, but it still feels like a waste when we're barely getting started in this era and should be filling it up with people who can contribute to future stories.

Sadly, although Tim is good with more minor characters, the sidekick character of Tre Sana feels under-developed. Perhaps it's a function of how solidly the story stays in Lanoree's head, but it feels like we get more summaries of her thoughts towards him than we really get chances to know the character ourselves. Lanoree will frequently deliver summaries like, "She could sense that there was more to him than he was letting on," or, "He had revealed a strange mix of honor and ruthlessness that intrigued her," (not actual quotes) that made it feel like I was being told how to think of the character. He very much stays in the function of a sidekick, and he basically disappears from the book just before the final meeting of Lanoree and her brother, so it almost feels like we get a shorthand sketch of his character without getting the chance to really know him. I'm sure everything author and her brother is sick of being compared to Matt Stover around here, but I couldn't help but compare the sense we got of sidekick Nick Rostu in Shatterpoint, who started so mysteriously and yet came to show a very strong and clear character by his tragic finish in that story. He was intrinsically involved in Mace Windu's story and decisions, and I can't imagine how the story could have happened without him. Tre, however, is merely a guide for Lanoree, and the story breezes along in such a way that we only get a handful of looks at his character with nothing that ever really surprises us about him. We don't even get firm confirmation of Tre's fate, but that perhaps reflects a larger problem with the story.

The end, really, falters after such a strong character journey for Lanoree. I haven't spent much time talking about it yet in this review, but Lanoree goes through a great journey across most of the novel where she slowly and with great reluctance comes to recognize the danger represented by her brother and her duty to stop him even if it means killing him. There's a parallel story that shows Lanoree and her brother's apprentice journey to the various Je'Daii temples, and it does a magnificent job of showing the way that being a "caretaker" to her brother affects Lanoree, while clearly illustrating how her brother's mental illness (and it does feel like a true mental illness and inability to process reality rather than 'evil craziness') was poorly handled by a Je'Daii community that was not equipped or willing to deal with such a thing. After so many stories that tried to examine the flaws of the Republic-era Jedi Order and how out of touch it was with the needs of its members, it's refreshing to see an intelligent examination of such a failing that leaves the reader free to draw conclusions from the realistic events as presented. The past and the present plotlines intertwine in a way that makes for a wonderful overall mystery, but it is notable that the flashbacks stop short of the book's true resolution.

By the time Lanoree is ready for the final meeting with her brother, the flashbacks have ended. The setting has been taken over by references to the first comic arc ('Force Storm') with the storm itself dictating the circumstances of the final confrontation and Xesh randomly appearing to Lanoree in a way that most likely would confuse anyone who hadn't read the comic. Fortunately, I had refreshed myself before reading this book, but it seems like an odd choice to make what should be the most intense part of the story be so reflective of another story. I don't have a problem with a Force Storm isolating Lanoree and her brother for their final meeting, but shouldn't that have been the result of their own story?

Another problem is that, although we get to see Lanoree and her brother's conflict play out to the tragic conclusion, there's still so much that is left unexplored. We never know if his scheme could have worked. We never know the nature of the technology he tried to use, or whether it was truly Gree in nature. (Side note: I love that Gree technology is playing the part of mysterious ancient Indiana Jones-style Ark of the Covenant style stuff.) We get hints that he was manipulated and enabled by more dangerous foes, but they all escape and their true plans are left unknown. As noted, Tre is basically left behind by the story, and we only hear about what happened to him in a vague way from a second-hand source. Lanoree's dark affinity for bio-alchemy leads nowhere but to vague hints that it may be trouble for her in the future. Lanoree's master is an interesting mix of dutiful but overly enthused with the extremes of bio-alchemy, but we don't get a clear view whether she is destined for a fall.

Yes, these are all intriguing hooks for future stories, but that's the problem. 'Into the Void' seems like the first story in a series, a premiere episode of a killer television series. I probably wouldn't have been as disappointed with this, if the rest of the story weren't so tightly woven and reflective of its themes. That the tight binding comes loose at the end leaves for a disappointing feel. I'm left wanting more, but not in a good way. It feels like something is missing, some greater point to it all. Yes, Lanoree comes to the point where she kills her brother, but thanks to the well-realized and vivid characterization up to that point, the moment itself feels like a foregone conclusion, and I was left wanting some further catharsis to feel like I got a true ending.

Short review of the included short story: Lanoree teams up with Hawk Ryo (from the comics) to save a kidnapping villain and solve a rivalry between two family-run factions on a mining world. It's a fairly straight-forward adventure that executes functionally but without surprise. Lanoree's lack of tolerance for troublemaking was the most amusing part, but after I spent a whole book brooding with her, it felt strange just to see her in a regular day at work. This feels more like a prologue to further team-ups, or else a teaser meant to promote this book or the Dawn of the Jedi era in general, but either way I'm not quite sure why it was included here.

All in all, we need more stories like 'Into the Void' and I hope that the Dawn of the Jedi era is further explored in both novels and comics, but it should have been focused more on its own story and a little more "show don't tell" was truly needed for Tre. If we get further adventures of Lanoree or follow-ups to the hooks presented at the end of this story, I'll definitely be along for the ride because this book's strengths were very strong, and the weaknesses easy to address.

8/10

 

Average score: 33.95/4 = 8.49

 

I later heard it was Xesh, but I thought it was Darth Vader

 

I have only read Force Storm. Do I need to have read the second arc of DOTJ to understand Into the void? I know they are separate stories but they share the same series name so.....

 

No.

 

Just as quick question... does this book pick up speed somewhere done the line? Because I swear nothing has really happened so far and I am already 1/5 done with it and the setting, and brooding, are by no means that interesting that the book can just life from that alone.

 

It has been a few weeks since I finished this, so my impressions are a bit faded. I liked this book, something I can't say for many EU products these days. I haven't read any of the DOTJ comics, but I didn't need to. Despite having less than 300 pages, there is a more than sufficient introduction to Tython and the rest of the system. It's not really an action story, being more character driven. I think Lanoree and Damien Brock are very interesting characters. Damien has a view on the Force similar to Kreia (he hates it), and is a sympathetic antagonist. On the other hand, Lanoree is not that likeable. She is arrogant in a way that the PT Jedi never were, flippant with her use of the Force and mundane violence, and practices alchemy (something only seen before in a Sith context). The EU could stand to do with more complex characters like these.

9/10

 

Average score: 42.95/5 = 8.59

 

A decent in depth introduction into the era that I didn't feel lived up to its potential. It actually reminded me of Scourge in its planet hopping, world building, and previously unknown and ultimately compelling central character. I feel that it was better than Scourge, which to my mind suffered from lack of editing oversight and paper-thin supporting characters, and it establishes and expands quite a lot on a new era to which we have just recently been introduced.

I think one of the book's greatest assets is its world-building, taking what we've seen thus far in the comic arcs and the zero issues and embellishing that, giving us a deeper view on this system's locations, culture, and the Je'daii Order and its ways. We get, what, four planets in this one? And each feels unique and individual, with Tython as a typical fantasy-like world, the second world probably the most Earth-like, toxic Nox, and Mercury-like Sunspot with its added perk of the occasional gravitation war with Malterra. Throughout we get hints of the Je'daii's view of itself through Lanoree as well as the shaky place they have in the rest of Tython society, a relationship that makes sense following the Despot War but also reflects the view the successive Order often takes in later eras.

Unfortunately, the characters are a mixed bag. Front and center, and in my opinion the most interesting and well drawn, is Lanoree herself. She gives us an intimate look at a lone Je'Daii Ranger, traveling throughout the system, seeking justice in a way that I'm sure many of us imagined Jedi would. It's a different era and Lanoree is more martial than later Jedi, sure of herself and her righteousness, reluctant but willing to take a life, possibly a little more quickly than her successors. Might help that she doesn't have a lightsaber with its convenient cauterization. I enjoyed seeing her change slightly but not drastically during her mission, while paralleling that with the flashbacks to her adolescence and the beginning of her training. That was one of the more brilliant areas of the books, giving us a background on Lanoree and her brother as well as a look into this ancient Je'daii training tradition. I enjoyed its convergence with the modern tale, though that also brought out what I thought was one of the book's flaws.

And that flaw came in her brother, Dalien. Dalien had one of the more fascinating arcs in the flashbacks, as we see the evolution of this sociopathic kid, refusing every gesture of compassion and outreach as long as it involved the Force. His establishment made one of the more compelling reasons to keep reading, which was why I was a little let down by him when Lanoree finally caught up in present story. What we basically got was that by this point he was simply insane and ruthless, hatching a plan to cause enough chaos to cover his escape (a horrifying but effective section of the book) and willing to execute his sister. His present self was not as deeply drawn as I had hoped and the payoff never came. There are a few intriguing elements that perhaps Lebbon sets up for a future story, such as what Dalien saw in the Rift (though I'm guessing he'll leave that to our imagination), Lanoree's temptation to activate his device, and just what it might actually do. If that's the case, I think it detracts from this story by itself.

Our last major character, Tre Sana, also ended up a little thin by the end. On one hand, it was nice to get away from the cliche of the conflicted former criminal who might stab you in the back at any second and instead get a character who seemed truly reformed. Tre also gets the role of the character in way over his head who does eventually step up to save the hero. It got to the point that I was sad at the end when Lanoree believed him dead. Still, for much of the book he seemed little more than someone to bounce dialogue off of and to be the object of Lanoree's dry humor.

It's a good, enjoyable read, but falls well short of great. 6.5/10

 

Average score: 49.45/6 = 8.24

 

Oh yeah should still score this.... this book was not for me... and I mean it the Jedi Dawn era is already hard pressed to interest me in the comic from and there it clearly has a overarching story it is building up to and stunning visuals... I can usually picture settings, characters etc. for novels as well, but in this case it just never clicked. The novels idea certainly is nice and the characters work, but I just could not really get into it.

6 of 10 It is by no means bad and I can see why others like it but there really was just not all that much in the book to peek my interest and I think it would actually have worked better as a multi part short story or novella, or comic, because as it is it is just to long to keep me interested.

 

Average score: 55.45/7 = 7.92

 

It's very good, but not great, fuller details of how I got on are in the main discussion thread.

8/10.

 

Average score: 63.45/8 = 7.93

 

7.5

Sent from my Secure-A3 comlink

 

Average score: 70.95/9 = 7.88

 

I think Dawn of the Jedi is the most interesting thing to happen to Star Wars in years. For the longest time, I actually considered the Jedi story well to be tapped. It wasn't so much I'd gotten sick of the Jedi Knighthood, it's that I'd gotten sick of certain kinds of stories. The Jedi Knights, IMHO, had degenerated to something of a joke. Fans have referred to the New Jedi Order as the Justice League of the GFFA, which is not that far from the truth. For a long time now, the Jedi have been more about waving lightsabers than displaying wisdom.

Kathy Tyers mentioned that she wasn't allowed to use the term 'soul' when writing the New Jedi Order. It's an odd thing but symptomatic of what I consider to be a larger issue: the people behind Star Wars don't want to get beyond escapist fair. Religion is a heavy topic for people in their reading and very easy to offend people. Never mind that Star Wars is all about religion. Well, religion, samurai, smugglers, Space Nazis, and pew-pew.

Dawn of the Jedi brings a lot of the mysticism back to the Jedi Knighthood by dumping us in a time when all of the questions regarding the Force weren't answered. The comic book series is wonderful and I recommend everyone pick up the trades. There is a truly staggering number of Jedi characters with my favorite being a cocky ladies man Jedi (who just happens to be a member of the Sith race).

Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void chronicles Je’daii Ranger Lanoree Brock and her assignment to track down her missing-presumed dead brother Dal. Dal has gotten it into his head he has found a hypergate and that will end the Je'daii's ten-thousand year imprisonment in the Tython system. Without access to hyperdrive, the hundreds of races populating the Jed'aii's home system are stuck in the system they were dumped in by a mysterious godlike race. Just the very fact this story is restricted to one (admittedly well-populated) solar system is kind of interesting. It forces the author to develop the location, which he does with aplomb.

The depiction of the Jed'aii is fascinating because they don't seek to become one with the Light Side. This version of the Jedi Knighthood practices the philosophy of Balance--neither leaning too close to the Dark Side or the Light. It results in a very interesting sort of Jedi Order, one unafraid to laugh and aware that people get killed during wartime. They're serene and dangerous in equal parts.

It also means the Jed'aii protagonist is free to be less than perfect. Lanoree has some serious character flaws despite being devoted to law and justice, primarily her arrogance and willingness to cross ethical boundaries in the name of science. She's also fairly ruthless and a bit of a hermit, which adds character to an order which has been rather monolithic for a while.

The book doesn't quite reach its full potential, however, because well--it's kind of boring. Dal's plan to open a hypergate is said to be potentially world-threatening but our heroes don't know this for sure. It's not until the end of the book we get any real sense of threat from our villains. For the majority of the book, we're just getting the story of a woman troubled by the fact she's being forced to hunt down her brother. Which is fine, really, but not the sort of thing you expect from a Star Wars novel. I would have tightened up the plot and added higher stakes.

Really, the best moments in Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void are the flashback sequences to Lanoree and Dal's Jed'aii training. We get a sense of how Jedi are trained in the distant past and it's very different from both the Yavin IV Praxeum and Coruscant Temple. For one, it's done by multiple masters and involves lengthy journey between distant temples. Members of the Jed'aii Order have to really work to become knights and that's fine by me. We also get a reason for why the Jedi Knighthood is so leery about force-sensitive bloodlines. Jedi Knights exert heavy pressure on their kids to join the family business and this can breed incredible resentment. Resentment capable of corrupting an otherwise normal boy into becoming a lunatic.

In a weird way, Dal's reaction to Jedi training reminded me of boot camp in Full Metal Jacket. He's not cut out for being a Jed'aii and any objective observer could see that. Hell, all they'd have to do is ask him and he'd tell you he doesn't want anything to do with the Force. Because he's the son of two Jed'aii, though, their order's masters keep training him.

Unfortunately, the book drags when it should be picking up steam. The cult of the Stargazers never really appears as a major threat to the Jed'aii or Tython as a whole. Even their big moment seems oddly glossed over, less important than the struggle between siblings. The fact the Stargazers have a reasonable goal and are just stuck with an insane leader undermines their menace. If future books make use of the group, I hope they get a bit more bite.

In conclusion, the Dawn of the Jedi time period is quite exciting and Into the Void has some some really good character scenes. Unfortunately, the book isn't very exciting. It's far from the worst Star Wars book I've read but I think I would have preferred to read about the sibling's conflict in a book with more pew-pew and less introspection.

My .02.

8/10

 

Average score: 78.95/10 = 7.90

 

5/10
To me SW: DotJ: Into the Void was a letdown, maybe because I had heard good things about it and I don't think it lived up to the praise. A big part of the problem for me was the lack of any introduction to the era/setting. I have not jet read any of the DotJ comics and I have tried to stay away from spoilers but I have gotten an understanding that there is an explanation of the setting in the comics and why we have all those specie that should not meet jet together.
So I entered it book without any real knowledge of what to come and was quickly confused: Wookies? And then there was that important plot point of that the setting take place in one solar system and all the species that are there was transported there by something - in the book they blame the Gree - that was not really explained. I did not really get it until sometime after half the book.

My biggest problem with the book is that it, unlike Tales of the jedi, don't feel like a longer, longer time ago. The technology feel to much like the one we see in the move era and it took me some time to understand that we were actually moving in just one solar system so the space travel read just like the one we seen on more modern eras. I am also a bit peweed by some of the species they chose to be in this world: wookies and twi'leks are the two most over used non-humans in SW and why did they chose to use noghri?

I do like most of the characters: Lanoree is naively self-righteous in her mission and arrogant in her abilities and control. Her inner conflict about Dalien is well made – she know that he could be endangering the whole solar system and use evil methods but he is still her brother: her brother that Lanoree feels she failed.
Tre is in many ways the traditional scoundrel partner but unlike the most he truly wants out of the business, something that gives him character. I also like that having three lekku marked him as a freak, having while multiple lekku is considered a great status symbol in “modern” time, which shows that society have changed.
I am a bit disappointed in Dalien, mostly because we are shown that he was not just troubled before he disappeared but actually twisted. I lost most of my sympathy for him when he draws his gun while blindfolded on Stav Kesh. I would also like to know what he promised the Stargazer Sect members to make them so fanatic.
I would also like to mention that I image Ironholgs to look like the drones in Silent Running

Some other things –
I would have preferred that the short story Eruption had been used as a kind of prologue instead of being placed after Into the void since it shows Lanoree in her normal mode instead of the troubled one she is in the main story.
I also have some trouble with the short time it took for Knool Tandor to mobilize for war against Greenwood Station and that Greenwood was so surprised by the attack since it was not some small force that Knool Tandor sent
EDIT: and I am also surprised that there seems to bee unexplored parts on some of the planets. They have been in that system for over 3000 years, why have they not excavated every ruin and mapped every catacomb by "now"?


Also: Wookipedia need to update their page on Lanoree Brock