This is the third book in what is, at least to this point, a trilogy of Padme-focused novels. The stories have all been ancillary to the main storylines from the movies, telling side stories involving Padme and the handmaidens and fleshing out the main storylines from Episodes I and II.
This book is set just after the events of Episode II when Padme and Anakin get married on Naboo, and details how they have to figure out how to keep their marriage under the radar of the Senate and the Jedi. It also tells the story of Padme and the original handmaidens growing up and growing apart, which is hard for all of them. And, then the book weaves in a couple of different missions for Padme, one that was intended to bring a sort of truce with the Trade Federation. Of the other main characters, Palpatine, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Bail Organa all appear in the novel, but of those only Bail has a significant role. The others are mostly there in the background until the end when Palpatine has a larger presence.
This book is set just after the events of Episode II when Padme and Anakin get married on Naboo, and details how they have to figure out how to keep their marriage under the radar of the Senate and the Jedi. It also tells the story of Padme and the original handmaidens growing up and growing apart, which is hard for all of them. And, then the book weaves in a couple of different missions for Padme, one that was intended to bring a sort of truce with the Trade Federation. Of the other main characters, Palpatine, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Bail Organa all appear in the novel, but of those only Bail has a significant role. The others are mostly there in the background until the end when Palpatine has a larger presence.
The hardcover version of the book is relatively short at just under 300 pages. If you are a fast reader you should be able to finish it in a couple of days or less. I would say that overall, the book is good, but not as good as the prior novels in the trilogy. What made the prior books work as well as they did were the relationships between Padme and the other handmaidens. The point of this novel is to show how those relationships changed, as all relationships tend to do as people get older, but that made the character dynamics from the first two novels just feel off. Yes, there are a lot of LGBT references in the book and tying real-life issues into the Star Wars universe. Personally, it did not bother me, but as you can tell if you read through the other reviews on Amazon, it made some people apoplectic. It is not exactly a new phenomenon for the Star Wars Universe as each new film and novel has tried to make that universe look more like the real world and not just full of white males. But, if that is something you get triggered over, then you definitely want to stay away from this. I have read most of the canon novels and I would say that this one is better than some, but definitely not as good as others (or even most).
No comments:
Post a Comment