This is a third series by Jude Watson and picks up about a year or so after Ep III. It is being discussed in the BC&T forums here and there is more information about the titles and blurbs here.

At the time of writing only three books in the as yet uncertain number to be written have been released. I have only read the first book so far, but hope to read books 2 and 3 soon.

My thoughts about the first book from here:

Well, I've finished and I'm very impressed ... and I can't wait for the next book which unfortunately does not arrive until August (I thought it was meant to be July, but this "first look" indicates August):
http://www.starwars.com/eu/lit/young/news20050414.html

As for the book itself - it is impossible to really talk about it without giving away some aspects of RotS given its setting...

I assume that it is set roughly 9 months after RotS as the sort of things that Luke is doing - the type of crawling and responses that are described seem typical of this age (give or take a couple of months).

The opening with Ben watching Luke from a distance is rather poignant as is the description of his continuing numbness and pain resultling from the events of RotS.

It is interesting to read that Ben was not aware of Vader's survival until months after his exile, and to have it confirmed that contact with Yoda was forbidden. It was good to read the early contact with Qui-Gon, including counsel as to what he should do before being ready for his training.

As I've already said, I was not previously aware of Ferus Olin, but there was enough explanation of his background for the purposes of the book - and it was particularly interesting to have it come out near the end that he had left the order in part because of his issues concerning Anakin.

In this regard, I liked the way that Ben was portrayed giving his first "certain point of view" version of the loss of Anakin - saying that he had been hunted by the Empire and killed. It will be interesting to see if he reveals the truth in the next or other subsequent books.

The basic story, or rescuing Ferus, was very engaging and whilst it was written in the same limited perspective that has gone with all of Jude Watson's children's books (ie, there is no writing from the perspective of anyone other than the good guys) it continued in her style of treating her readers with respect in terms of language and detail.

Towards the end there were more references from the movie regarding Padme and Polis Massa which I did not expect, confirming the Visual Dictionary version of Padme's death at the hand of a Jedi during the Rebellion. It raises interesting possibilities for the future directions of this and other books set in this era.

The inclusion of Boba Fett would have been totally unexpected had it not been for me reading this thread (but I don't mind knowing...). In some respects it's a bit of a shame that we only get the Jedi perspective in these books because it could be nice to get a look at what he's thinking through all of this, but his inclusion was well done nonetheless. And it's not over.

All in all, I highly recommend this book to all readers - it is a magnificent first look at what happens to Ben and others after the movie.


I'll add more about the subsequent books as I read them.


Links to all of my reviews/overview blogs can be found in this blog.