Title: The Ruins of Dantooine
Author: Voronica Whitney-Robinson
Pages: 286
Time: 1 ABY

Introduction
A novel based upon a videogame, what can you expect from that? Will it only be fun for fans of the game, will it have an interesting storyline? It certainly looked like it. The cover said that our main character receives help from well known characters such as Han, Luke and Leia. Unfortunately that statement is quite misleading, we only see our favorite characters a couple of times during the story. I did however enjoy this novel and will explain to you why.

Novel quality
Having never played the game "Star Wars Galaxies" I can't say whether or not it ties into the game. What I can say is that there are at times very game-like explanations of some of the equipment and locations in the novel. I got the feeling that players of the game will feel right at home in the story.

The story itself revolves around an Imperial bio-engineer named Dusque Mistflier, who is more or less forced into the Rebel Alliance by the events that take place in the beginning of the novel. Once she, reluctantly, decides to join the Rebel Alliance she is teamed up with a Rebel spy named Finn Darktrin. Dusque and Finn are to recover a crucial lost Holocron. The story is pretty basic and the infatuation Dusque and Finn develop for each other is terribly predictable. This would have made the story incredibly dull, but Mss. Whitney-Robinson made up for this by creating an interesting view in the mind of Dusque. The cover of the novel tells us: "that the hardest part of all is figuring out whose side you are on - and how far you are willing to go to win." This sentence presents why this novel is worth reading. The writer does an excellent job at creating the thought patterns of Dusque and she also pulls some good surprises out of her bag of tricks at the end of the novel.

There is only one real issue that I have with this novel and that is the misleading introduction. You would expect to see a lot about Han, Luke and/or Leia, but you only come across them a couple of times in the novel and it is pretty superficial. The scenes in themselves are actually pretty good to read, but the enormous and misleading overstatement in the introduction spoils a lot of the fun. Overall however this novel provides for a good read and will probably keep you interested. It's a whole different look on the period between ANH and ESB. There are basically two different forms of advice I can give you: If you love reading Star Wars and wonder whether or not this novel is worth your time, you should get the novel. You'll probably have a fun time with it. If you are on a budget or if you only want to read the best novels, skip this one. It doesn't provide anything really new to the Star Wars galaxy and it isn't a good enough read to justify a purchase on novel quality alone.
Rating 72/100

Personal tilt
I enjoyed reading this novel quite a bit. Sure the story isn't that interesting and at some points it can be a little predicable, it does however provide a fun read. Especially interesting for me is the way Dusque feels about herself, Finn, the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Her mental issues are shown quite realistically and do add a lot to the story. There is just this one sentence in the introduction that takes away a lot from the feeling the novel provides:"Despite help from Han, Luke and Leia..." Oh please! We hardly see anything about the well known and loved characters. This is a gross overstatement and I believe it to be misleading. It takes away some of the positive feelings I had towards the novel and it is really a shame. It would have been better if Han, Luke and Leia weren't mentioned in the introduction at all. That way I would have been pleasantly surprised by their appearance. Now I just wondered why the publisher deemed it necessary to overstate their involvement. Oh well, forget about Han, Leia and Luke and just enjoy the novel for what it is: A fun and entertaining story which doesn't necessarily add that much to your Star Wars galaxy.
Rating: 65/100

Overall rating: 69.2/100

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For more of my reviews and second opinions see my Book review summary