Reviews Books The JC Lit Reviews Special: JEDI: BATTLE SCARS (Spoilers)

In between Jedis Fallen Order and Survivor Cal and co. suddenly get way more introspective. Here's the review thread for Jedi: Battle Scars by Sam Maggs. Go ahead and give it a score on the 1-10 scale, as long as you have read or listened to the entire book. You don't have to include a review, but hey why not you have nothing better to do.

 

Well time for me to bring the average down.

Often the hardest wounds to heal are emotional ones, and for one small band of freedom fighters the emotional wounds are in full force, along of course with physical wounds, as one is likely to accrue fighting the Empire. The crew of the Stinger Mantis go from one job to the next helping the little guys, but a fateful meeting with a stormtrooper brings many simmering emotional issues to the surface. Set between Jedi: Fallen Order and its sequel Survivor, this book follows Cal, Cere and their found family as they try to do what they can to help those in need under an oppressive regime.

This is a very light novel, which is good as it wastes no time getting right into the action and setting up the main plot involving the defecting stormtrooper, but it also means there’s barely any meat to what’s ostensibly a full adult novel. There’s a lot of introspection for each member of the crew, which is nice as Maggs takes a deep dive into all of their psyches, but, again, it means there’s not much room for action. There’s three major action pieces and they can be rushed at times. That said, they are all fun sequences, with a cool lighthearted heist to start off, then a more chaotic exfiltration mission where an Inquisitor throws a major wrench into things, finishing up with a quick and satisfying con to ensure the safety of the stormtrooper and her lost lover. And as I said Maggs does a great job showing the varied perspectives of the Mantis crew, building off their arcs from Fallen Order and moving them forward a bit as they become a more cohesive team. The action is very clearly conveyed and each crew member gets a solid if short arc throughout the book.

The only character I think Maggs went a bit far with was Merrin. I haven’t played the games, but I can’t imagine a Nightsister who survived the slaughter of her people and lived basically alone for years to fall loopy in love with a random stranger just because she’s attracted to them. I liked her struggle with her magicks, that was a solid aspect of her arc, but her romance with Fret just seems like a complete left turn for her character as established in Fallen Order. Maybe I see where Maggs was going with it- she’s still getting used to the galaxy at large and being around people in general so maybe it’s down to naïveté, but in an already short book she focuses a little more time than is ideal on Merrin crushing on this woman she barely knows. In an otherwise fine book, it’s just a distraction. The focus on the romance means the rest of the story doesn’t get a ton of room to breath, making the whole book feel more like a novella than a full novel as is usually expected from Star Wars publishing.

So I give Battle Scars an 8.25 out of 10 for an enjoyable but perfunctory story. Maybe with an extra hundred pages or so this would have stuck the landing, but as is it feels rushed, though it does get plenty of points for the characterizations that did work well.

 

I have a bit of a weird grading curve, but for me an 8.25 is around 3/5 stars. I was a bit more negative in my review than I intended- it was a solid read with high highs, but just some nagging issues here and there. And the language didn't bug me, especially when "great balls of fire" was used as an exclamation in a far worse SW book 20 years ago.