This is for those who've read it, and want to praise or vent. In case you clicked here by accident, I'll use spoiler tags for the first few lines of this post only. The first, and for me the biggest, spoiler is:

I'm of mixed mind about that. On the one hand, it's a tale of redemption. I like tales of redemption, and lots of SW characters are redeemed that way. On the other hand, well:

As one of my favourite characters, that's somewhat hard to take.

I can sum up what I liked about the book in one line: I got to find out how the story went. Otherwise, some rambles:

I thought the writing itself would fit right in with the EU, which isn't saying much. SW writers do an awful lot of "telling, not showing", which is the opposite of what a good writer does. It's almost like they're in such a hurry to jump from one action scene to another, they can only take a few words to reveal a character's state of mind. It makes these books a yawnfest, and as a reader all you can do is distill the basic plot and imagine the rest yourself.

(This is why I'm looking forward to Wendig's Aftermath, I've really enjoyed his Miriam Black series, he's a capable writer.)

I did end up skimming a lot. I really despise books that give me a total play-by-play of martial prowess...endless pages of "he dodged left" or "she swung her big toe around to jab his cheek, then poked his 5th rib with her little finger...but he was expecting it and countered with his thumb and a different rib..." As much as these writers try (and try they do!) you just can't translate 5 seconds of action into 3 pages of words and expect to not lose total momentum and excitement.

The plot was...difficult for me, in large part because of how absolutely poorly the Jedi Council acted, and how completely ineffectual, blind, and corrupt they had become.

Open spoiler time: the Jedi Council sends Quinlan Vos to recruit Ventress and assassinate Dooku. Obi wan doesn't like it, but he's overruled, and even Yoda goes along. I'm sure the intent here was to show just how bad things were with the Council, but it does make one wonder how they lasted "1000 generations" at all. Surely even in canon they had experienced trials and difficulties in the past...Darth Bane is now canon after all...and assassinating somebody is a big red moral hazard even a youngling would understand.

The other part that was difficult was how nobody could really detect anything and use those fabulous senses they were supposed to have. The Council was completely blind to Vos' turn to the dark side, while Ventress saw right through it. Except for Yoda (and maybe Obiwan) the Council doesn't trust Ventress when she's trustable, but trusts her when she isn't. Later Ventress can't about Vos, but the Council is suspicious again...and the lame explanation for Ventress not detecting his darkness was that Vos himself didn't believe it. That's a take on the Force I find hard to swallow. And when Vos is finally rescued (I can't say "redeemed"), everybody assumes he's back on the light side...but they never could tell all along, so I have no idea why they would believe anything one way or another.

And speaking of Vos' rescue and non-redemption: I don't quite get how you can turn to the dark side, murder your friends, lay waste to planets and cause untold death...but if you say you're sorry, and "seem" to mean it, and you're a Jedi, apparently it's a free pass. They did the same thing with Bastila Shan in the KOTOR game. Heck, even Vader got to be a Force ghost, although that's sort of in a different judgement realm. For non-Force users it has to look like an Illuminati clique with no accountability.

I could imagine a pretty strong and vocal NGO advocating the outlaw of Force users, pre-birth testing for midi-chlorians, and mandatory abortions....because if one of these mystics ever loses his mind, billions of sentients will be at risk.

Again, maybe that was the intent, to show that they didn't feel the need to be accountable. But I have a hard time squaring it with how such a group lasted 1000 generations and was so highly regarded, then went in a few short decades to pariahs.

Not much more I can say about this. It's morally confused and written with a bare minimum of skill. It's too bad, because I'm sure the TCW episodes would have been great. The Maul arc (Son of Dathomir comic) was a great adaptation. There's so much more subtlety they manage to convey that is never expressed in this book, and might have helped me feel better about the choices they made for the story.

How does it compare to the other new canon books? Because as a TCW add on it didn't interest me really, but if it was as good as the others, maybe it would be worth it.

How does it compare to the other new canon books? Because as a TCW add on it didn't interest me really, but if it was as good as the others, maybe it would be worth it.

I haven't read the Luke one, but the others were "barely passable" imho. This was close to, but not quite as good as the others.

I only read it because it had Ventress in it. Vos could potentially be an interesting character (I liked his cameo in TCW), but when I read the comic books of him it went in one eye and out the other, so I wasn't predisposed to read it on those grounds.

Thank you for the thorough review and the follow up.

The Luke book almost feels like it breaks canon, but it is a "fun" story. Don't expect a lot from it.

The others were hit and miss. It sort of depends on what you are aiming at from the books.

I finished it up last week. On your second spoiler tag, that was my biggest problem with it too. At least I have Cad Bane. For now.

I mostly agree with your points on why the counsel went with the idea in the first place, but my biggest problem was the pacing. The book is based on a series of episodes written for TCW that never got produced. And you could tell. The pacing had so many ups and downs that when I reached one climax, I was able to look to how much was left in the book and easily predict what was going to happen next. I wish the story could have been adapted to a novel better than it was.

Over all, I liked it. I think the ending you described in your first spoiler tag was very satisfying. If it had to end like that, I was very happy with what they did with that character.

I was really hoping for a novel or comic about Ahsoka and Asajj having all sorts of adventures during the dark times.

I think this story is best read with the mindset that it's an extension to the TCW cartoon. Once I nailed that in my brain, I started to enjoy the story a lot more.

This was supposed to be a series of TCW episodes and for the first 3/4ths of the book, it really read like more of a screenplay than an actual novel. My overall review was that it was a so-so novel with a few bright spots shining through. I enjoyed it, but it could have been better.

I'm only half way through the book (more or less - they just caught up with Dooku at his party), but I cant say that I'm shocked by that death. I knew Doomed Love was in the cards once Vos and Ventriss started falling for each other. I knew that one or the other wasnt making it out of the book alive.

My big problem with the book? So, the plot is to kill Dooku. . . but we know that the Count is still around in Episode III, so the whole thing is really just a big waste of time. The two are doing all this plotting and maneuvering and falling to the dark - and it's all for nothing. So I'm having a hard time getting engaged with the book. I'm really just going through the motions here until Aftermath drops.

How does it compare to the other new canon books? Because as a TCW add on it didn't interest me really, but if it was as good as the others, maybe it would be worth it.

So far the Neo Canon has really been lackluster.

Lords of the Sith had potential to get into Vaders mind. . .but totally dropped the ball.

Heir to the Jedi was just boring.

Tarkin was interesting just to see the re-writing of history in action, but even that was only a "meh" book.

New Dawn was the best, mostly because it was all new territory with new characters (well, at the time) that we knew nothing about. Of everything thusfar, it's the only one I'm inclined to re-read. And even then, that's only faint praise, since it's not a voratious re-read like Zhan's books.

some things are better left vague. adding too much detail to such an impalpable concept as the force is bound to end in failure.

My big problem with the book? So, the plot is to kill Dooku. . . but we know that the Count is still around in Episode III, so the whole thing is really just a big waste of time. The two are doing all this plotting and maneuvering and falling to the dark - and it's all for nothing. So I'm having a hard time getting engaged with the book. I'm really just going through the motions here until Aftermath drops.

This has been nagging at me too. I understand the reasoning why everything that's dropped so far has been about the main cast (Aside from A New Dawn), and it's entirely frustrating for all the reasons you cited.

I desperately want some new characters that have their own adventures and not rub against anyone with plot immunity.

Don't worry too much, characters are resurrected periodically in the SW EU. May be your favorite character will appear again in the future with some new cybernetics or in another body, or they will explain how avoided death in the last moment.

Regarding the style, are the new books, how to say it mildly..., as "properly" written as the predecessors?

I guess this seals it. I have no interest in reading any of the new stuff, other than a little bit of A New Dawn that I read at the bookstore, until Aftermath arrives. I'm getting the feeling that one will be very meaty.

I wouldn't write of the whole new canon just yet, I think it's still finding its legs and will hopefully dramatically improve over the next few novels

Funny, you wouldnt think that a 35 year old franchise would need to find it's story telling legs.

Funny, you wouldnt think that a 35 year old franchise would need to find it's story telling legs.

How about when the new boss takes a giant sledgehammer to the old legs?

EDIT: And yeah because no series has ever needed a breath of fresh air, cause that trend is absolutely -not- popular these days.

Funny, you wouldnt think that a 35 year old franchise would need to find it's story telling legs.

How about when the new boss takes a giant sledgehammer to the old legs?

This wouldn't affect the author's ability to write well or poorly. Dark Disciple didn't suffer from a clarity of vision, I just didn't particularly enjoy the vision they chose.

Funny, you wouldnt think that a 35 year old franchise would need to find it's story telling legs.

How about when the new boss takes a giant sledgehammer to the old legs?

This wouldn't affect the author's ability to write well or poorly. Dark Disciple didn't suffer from a clarity of vision, I just didn't particularly enjoy the vision they chose.

That doesn't make it a bad book, it just means it wasn't for you.

Okay, finished the book off last night. It's not the worst Star Wars book I've read, but it's pretty **** close. I liked Vos and Ventress - a very entertaining pair, and a very inspired choice - but man oh man Golden's prose was pretty lackluster and the dialogue atrocious in places - poor Dooku, falling apart at the end like he does. (Minor addendum - I thought that Ventress mouthing off to the council was actually pretty good.)

The idiocy of the final chapters on the part of the council astounds me.

"We've captured these guys we've been after all book long. What should we do?"

"Execute them?"

"That's not the Jedi way."

"What is the Jedi way?"

"Not to fight in wars!"

"So what do we do with these prisoners now that we've caught them?"

"Bring them in!"

"Oh, by the way, they just killed a bunch of clones and ran off."

"Oh ****. Go kill them!"

Seriously, you have the objective helpless in your grasp, the whole point of everything that's been going on thusfar, why you risked Vos in the first place, and you don't finish the job? Okay, they had an epiphany a few moments later that assassinating a head of state is wrong (which it is), but don't be a Bond supervillian! Don't be stupid with your captives.

They're not the only idiots on the planet. Ventress should have never taken Vos to Christophsis, and once it became clear that he wasn't going to kill Dooku, she should have either run like hell or finished the job herself.

And man, that mood whiplash at the end, Vos as a Karma Houdini and everything (aside from Ventress) is back to status quo. Yeah, the more I think about it the more the book belongs at the bottom of the Neo Canon pile.

That doesn't make it a bad book, it just means it wasn't for you.

Actually, I could make a pretty solid case that Dark Disciple was a bad book.

you mean you can make a compelling argument for why you didn't like it, to which most people would agree. Semantics maybe, but they are important.

This wouldn't affect the author's ability to write well or poorly. Dark Disciple didn't suffer from a clarity of vision, I just didn't particularly enjoy the vision they chose.

That doesn't make it a bad book, it just means it wasn't for you.

Regardless of whether I liked the vision or not, it was still poorly written, i.e. a bad book.

you mean you can make a compelling argument for why you didn't like it, to which most people would agree. Semantics maybe, but they are important.

Bad prose, inconsistent pacing, dialog that was is clearly just an adaption of a pile of scripts, illogical characterization - no, it wasn't just that I didn't like it (the truth), but that was indeed a poorly written book.

Removing major characters from play through a novel strikes me as a little callous. Story lines and the final fates of characters left over from The Clone Wars could be easily wrapped in episodes of Rebels.

Thanks for reminding me why I haven't read a media-tie in novel in over 20 years.

you mean you can make a compelling argument for why you didn't like it, to which most people would agree. Semantics maybe, but they are important.

Bad prose, inconsistent pacing, dialog that was is clearly just an adaption of a pile of scripts, illogical characterization - no, it wasn't just that I didn't like it (the truth), but that was indeed a poorly written book.

What this discussion will eventually come down to is "Do you consider writing to be art?" and I'm guessing you do not.

Of course writing can be an art - however like any creative process, art can fail. You could make an argument that the worth of art is subjective - but with art comes criticism. You can look at a piece of work, a photo, a painting, a movie, a book with a critics eye - and these criticisms can be quantified, a work of art could be judged bad or good.

And yes, bad art exists. There are loads of pieces of art - Potato Jesus, Moon People, Birdemic - that are complete creative fail. The artists may love the work (and sometimes bad art has it's place), but that doesn't stop it from being bad.

Now, I'm not saying that Dark Disciple is Plan 9 From Outer Space levels of bad, but I can easily point out a host of flaws with the prose that indicate "Yes, this is a bad book. With some more polish, with a stronger editor, these flaws would be eliminated."

We'll have to agree to disagree. The majority of viewers/readers may agree on a certain point of view, that does not automatically make that view correct for everyone who looks at the piece of art. So yes your examples are widely criticized but that does not make them failures, or bad. (With the exception of Potato Jesus which was a failed restoration and therefore most definitely failed in its goal to restore the original painting.)

So I'm having a hard time getting engaged with the book. I'm really just going through the motions here until Aftermath drops.

Speaking of . . . .