Heir to the Jedi: Star Wars

With a nudge-nudge here and a wink-wink there, 'Heir to the Jedi' takes every opportunity to remind you of its connection to the original Star Wars film, without ever truly earning that distinction. Hearne's awkward prose, full of cheaply made callbacks to any scene or line of dialogue from A New Hope that one may recall, may suffice for teenage readers, but science fiction fans with any love for a well crafted novel, in the Star Wars universe or any other, should simply pass this one by. This is a formulaic story wearing the superficial trappings of a Star Wars product.

The book was good, it kept me on the edge of my seat most of the way through.

This book isn't perfect, but it's prolly the most fun I've had reading a Star Wars story.

With the recent EU retcon and all, I think the new Canon books have had a lot prove and a lot of empty space to fill. This isn't a good entry unfortunately. The plot is quite dry and non-essential and I never felt like it expanded anything into the larger . It doesn't feel like a good story on its own nor does it feel like it added anything interesting in the new Canon. Really the only interesting part was them describing the inner workings of a lightsaber, which was mainly unrelated to the main plot anyways. I will say that the first person perspective is and you get little decent bits here and there but too little to make the overall read or price worthwhile. Nakari is vaguely interesting I suppose but they never do anything too noteworthy with her. I can't help but feel that they were really trying to play it safe with this book by not doing anything interesting that may affect some future plans related to the Canon timeline, thus tip-toeing doing anything that may affect other more expensive productions.

There’s a place in the Star Wars universe for a first-person Luke Skywalker adventure. Heir to the Jedi, while entertaining and sometimes humorous, is not perfectly executed. I won’t make excuses for its shortcomings, but will say that this novel was a close mix of enjoyable and puzzling. This story is, in my opinion, best served in the audiobook format, playing in the background and receiving marginal attention while living life. The fact of the matter is that it is a light-hearted look into the first steps of a fledgling Jedi, and when it is focused on that, Heir to the Jedi is quite good. The biggest problem with this novel is not that every word seems to originate from the trash compactor; the problem is that there are a handful of issues that distract and detract from the story. Those elements are the first-person perspective, the constant focus on food, the awkward attention to math, as well as the absurdly goofy tone that pervades the narrative. If you are able to overlook those issues (or if they had been removed editorially), Heir to the Jedi would have been much more palatable. All in all, Heir to the Jedi’s strongest elements grapple with its weaknesses, and at best I found it to be slightly entertaining. One thing’s for sure: the cover is incredible, and I’m glad to have it on my shelf. Secondly, walking with Luke on his path to becoming a Jedi is a walk I’m (mostly) glad I went on. Finally, Heir to the Jedi survives my criticism because quite frankly I believe that not every Star Wars book has to be one that makes me jump for joy. It’s good every now and then to pick up a light and silly read about a young Jedi-in-training just figuring things out, rather than saving the galaxy from superweapons and Sith Lords.

This book is in the first person. A bit strange for a Star Wars novel. Once you get past that it's an easy read. Good way to pass the time if you're a Star Wars fan.

A poorly-written, dull first encounter with Disney's vision for Star Wars. It's just as well that the Expanded Universe has been relegated to its own entity: this book doesn't deserve to stand alongside the works of Zahn, Stackpole, Allston, Stover, Luceno, and so many others who made the Expanded Universe so vibrant and engaging over the last twenty-plus years.

With the notable exception of "Dark Disciple," there seems to be a running trend within these latest Star Wars novels of not delivering on the promise. Well, I suppose I could say this differently. How about not delivering what was expected. That sounds less harsh. I keep cracking open these books expecting to get something I was told to expect by the publisher and marketing hype and end up with a completely different story altogether. "Heir to the Jedi" was another title that did not deliver what I was led to expect. That doesn't make it a bad book - it was an okay read - but it wasn't the missing link we were told it would be. "How did Luke go from farm-boy to fledgling Jedi in that span between Episodes IV & V?" Statements like this were the lead-ins to this novel. Well... it turns out we still don't know the answer after reading it. Because that's not at all what this book was about. We don't see much in Luke except someone who's trying his best but is clearly in over his head and more than a bit adrift. There's no guidance found here or uncovering of ancient teachings there - only a small (very small) bit of self-discovery. He only reaches for his lightsaber a couple of times throughout the book. In short, this is not the Jedi book you're looking for (forgive a guy for using the cliché). My thought was, "How do we ever get to a point where this kid becomes the grand master of the new order?" Then I had the shocking idea that maybe he never does. This is the new canon, after all, and history doesn't have to repeat itself. What if Lucasfilm is going a completely different direction with this and Luke is going to end up like Obi-Wan - this knight errant who lives a solitary existence for the rest of his days? I find myself very sad at the thought. This book wasn't bad. It was, in fact, entertaining at several parts, poignant even once or twice. But, it just felt episodic - a bunch of escapades that were loosely tied together by an overall plot thread. Yes, it keeps the story moving, but it seems to leave things unresolved. CAUTION - slight spoilers ahead. Questions remain after the story moves on from these little episodes: "So who DID that guy work for?" "Whatever became of that weird moon?" "What happened to the lightsaber after he dismantled it?" "Was her mother REALLY dead?" Plot devices are just sort of abandoned. And perhaps my biggest critique of this novel is that it tried too hard to be something it shouldn't be. For decades (that's right - DECADES) the books of the Star Wars E.U. had a distinctly Star Wars-y feel to them. They shared a common vibe or mood - call it ambiance if you will. This book seemed like it was trying too hard to change that mood. Nakari, while very likable and engaging, was a character that just felt out of place to me. She seemed like she was dropped into the Star Wars galaxy as opposed to being a native. Frankly, she seemed American and that's a bad thing for a girl from Pasher. And maybe this is nit-picking, but there's a certain vocabulary that establishes the world of the Star Wars written word - language that we know and love. Yet I've noticed with some of these new canon works that liberties are being taken with those comfortable terms. Suddenly we have "paper" instead of "flimsiplast." We have "concrete" instead of "duracrete." We have "glass" instead of "transparisteel." In this particular novel we find the horror of "bathroom" and "restroom" instead of "refresher." What gives?! I thought the whole point of this new Story Group was to firm up the inconsistencies and make sure that everything flowed seamlessly from one work to the next (regardless of medium). I'm seeing the opposite of that and I don't much like it. In summary, "Heir to the Jedi" was alright. Nothing special happens in it. Other than Luke and a brief cameo or two by Leia, you don't know the people in it. Really it could be a story that would slot in just about anywhere in the entire timeline with a few adjustments to detail. Honestly you could have made Han or even a young Wedge the main character in this and it wouldn't have altered the story all that much. It really felt like more of a Wraith Squadron plot than anything else. To me, this tells me that perhaps the title was ill-conceived. But hey, it was a Star Wars story and, to me, that's never a bad thing. I'll take any Star Wars tale you throw at me and kindly thank you for it. I am the quintessential "Shut up and take my money" kind of Star Wars fan. So I enjoyed the book, but it didn't wow me. It never had that "I can't put this down" feeling to it. I didn't really look forward to picking it back up again. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but it didn't suck me in like so many other Star Wars works have. So... it was alright.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. I liked the story being told from Luke's point of view and thought it gave some great introspective to his character. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get more into the inter connective tissue in Luke's head and that this book didn't lead or hint at the empire strikes back as I thought it would have been a great bridge. Unless of course they are planning more stand alone Luke adventures then I could understand but feel like it a missed opportunity to give some cohesiveness to the SW universe. Overall I still recommend.

This is a biography of Tarkin. It's like looking at a blueprint of an X-wing. Interesting, but superficial. An X-Wing zipping through space and blasting away at TIE fighters is much more exciting, and so is a book with some character development. There is no "spoiler alert" because nothing actually HAPPENS in this book. We find out that Tarkin had a childhood and became a man and that his development process involved no higher thought or reasoning process than Pavlovian conditioning. Also, Tarkin worked his way up to Grand Moff. And finally, Tarkin and Vader get together to chase some rebels. The most interesting part of this is that Tarkin suspects Vader was once Anakin. This is like Lois Lane finally suspecting Clark Kent is Superman (except, you know, with a good guy, instead of the dark lord of the sith). The events of this novel have almost nothing to do with the Clone Wars tv series or the movies with the exception of the fact that they fit in the timeline. I could use one fourth of the 5120 characters remaining for this review to summarize the relevant parts of this novel, but I think those characters would be better spent encouraging readers to implore Disney Publishing to commission Timothy Zahn to write novels for the official Star Wars Canon.