Book Review: Star Wars - Heir to the Jedi

 

Heir to the Jedi was the first canon novel after the Disney takeover of Lucasfilm to focus on a legacy character during the time of the original trilogy. This one specifically focuses on Luke during the time between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, written from Luke's point of view. He is sent on a mission by Leia and the Rebel leadership to rescue a cryptographer being held by the Empire. That is the main storyline with Luke trying to discover more about the Jedi and increase his ability to use the force and introduces a potential love interest for Luke, Nakari Kelen, daughter of a biotech mogul and member of the Rebel Alliance.

The book is a bit of an uneven read. There are a bunch of side missions that Luke and Nakari end up going on in order to locate the cryptographer. The best parts of the book involve Luke trying to develop his skill with the little training he has and the conflict between his feelings for Nakari and those he has for Leia (whom, at this point, he does not know is his sister). Overall, I would say that the book is not as bad as some make it out to be, but it is also not one of the canon novels I would put in the must-read category. Of course, that is all subjective, but I am much more looking forward to finding out what Luke did between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens as that gets revealed more in the novels.