So yesterday afternoon I got my copy of Republic Commando: Triple Zero and up until 1800 today, I spent the majority of my spare time reading. Overall, I read 260 pages yesterday (between 1330 and 0300) and the remaining 130 today (between 1400 and 1757). That's a lot of reading for two days (and I don't skim at all!), but it was worth it. So good!

And now comes the time to discuss! Except I haven't collected my thoughts together completely, so I highly expect I'll have more to say later. But as I read, I kept track of some impressions, thoughts, and quotes that jumped out at me, and made note of them. So I thought I'd just post those!

First I'd just like to say one thing: after looking at a book's cover only on a computer screen for many months (and on my countdown timer on my computer desktop), it is extremely weird to hold said book in one's hands. Every time I glance over to see the book, I'm like "dude, it's a real physical object!" ... very strange.

SPOILER WARNING... proceed no further if you haven't read the book and don't want it to be ruined for you!
Uh, and note that I don't really explain a lot of the spoilers, so if you're reading this hoping for spoilers, you may be out of luck. I'm mostly writing assuming that the reader will know what I'm talking about! (Which is always a longshot generally because I tend to ramble, but hey. )
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Alright, so I have a list of things I wrote out after I'd read the first 6 chapters of the book (pg. 1 - 145). This was at 1905 on Feb. 28.
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The tension between Delta Squad and Omega Squad = whoa. I was so not expecting that, but it does make sense. And that tension microcosmed with Atin and Sev... dude, this is a whole lot more interesting than I ever could have imagined, and that's not even the main plot.

There needs to be more Fixer! He's only been mentioned a couple times.

Ordo is indeed a very naughty boy. But I like him.

I love where Etain's character is going!

I dislike Walon Vau, though I suppose you're supposed to (at least so far). I hope I don't dislike him so much that I feel all violent toward him though, because that's distracting. I'm kinda hostile like that. I don't hate a lot of characters, but when I do, I hate them. Don't know if Vau will be one of those yet, so we'll have to see.

Fi is just as mouthy as ever. I love him.

I love that I know enough Mando'a to figure out what some of the untranslated insults and the drinking song mean. Hehe.

Poor Atin.

I was very very pleased to discover that the Deltas speak in the correct voices. Like, in my head, I hear them talk and they sound right. That doesn't always or even usually happen with books in which I originally 'met' the characters elsewhere. But yay, they talk right!

There's nothing like reading about Etain wasting droids and then my computer starts playing "The Droid Invasion" from Episode I. Awesome. (Yep, I have a "reading" playlist which is all instrumental stuff (lyrics are distracting when reading) - mostly Star Wars soundtracks and various game music.)
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I should probably talk about Page 187 as well. Ok, so I knew after Hard Contact that Darman and Etain would likely be getting together, but I had no idea it would happen so quickly! It's cool though, I like them. I have to comment on this though:
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Etain: So... how long does it take two squads to finish their meals in the bar?
Darman: Long enough, I think.
[end of chapter]
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Now I knew right away what the "enough" referred to, but I have to say I was amused when I was reading forum threads and some people apparently missed this. If that's not the book version of a "fade to black", I don't know what is! Hehe. I mean, come on, they'd just finished saying they loved eachother!

I have to say, I wasn't expecting the baby thing, but I think that's really really cool. Mostly because it's sort of paralleling what happened with my Omega Squad family in The Sims 2. (I made a family of the four clones of Omega and had them live out their simulated lives in my game!) Darman got married and had a kid. Of course, his kid in the game was a girl, and he didn't marry Etain (because I didn't make a sim Etain)... but still.

I did find one thing I think is a mistake though: on pg. 253 it talked about the people tagged by "Fi and Sev", but really it was Fi and Scorch who were doing the tagging. Darman and Sev had live rounds in their guns and didn't end up shooting, and Fi and Scorch dusted the people. Just a minor thing though.

I love Fi so much. It made me sad though, to see him all confused and sad when he saw Dar/Etain. Poor Fi. I'll have you! Fi also made me giggle a few times (though not as much as in Hard Contact - they've all grown up so much!). I especially loved when he said "So, did you have a good day at the office, dear?" to Ordo! LOL.

I have to say though, my favourite part of the book was pg. 285-288 - when the nature of "programming" with regard to obeying orders is discussed, along with the childhood of the Nulls compared to the childhood of Etain. I don't think any of that could have been done better. Wow.

I guess I should comment on the actual plot of the book too, right? It's so easy to concentrate on the characters. Anyways, I loved the plot! Urban warfare is so interesting. (I've been reading a bit about it online recently, along with sniper techniques, camo, and interrogation stuff (I didn't know there were ways to interrogate that didn't involve "beating the crap out of the interviewee" (thanks Shan in City of Pearl)... heh). Yeah, I'm a geek. But reading and learning is cool.) Though there were a few moral issues in the book that made me slightly uncomfortable, and there weren't any characters feeling uncomfortable about it that I could relate to. But overall, the plot was good - had its tense moments but also some moments where the characters could relax a bit. That was nice to see.

And as a final note, I'd like to share an anecdote. Today, 1545: I'd been reading for almost two hours straight, without stretching or getting up to walk around or anything. I was getting sleepy from lying around on my bed for so long, and my mind started wandering from the book. Then I heard a voice in my head say, "it's time you took a break, ner vod". ... My brain thought in Mando'a without any intention from me. I've crossed the line, and there's really no going back now!

I suppose that's it for now, as I'm getting tired and I have a headache. Awesome book, I highly recommend it to everyone! And to think, I didn't care about the Clone Wars era or AotC a year ago... ah, how things change.