novels that I have ever read. IMO, it ranks down there with
. It reads like a bad fanfic, and it busts out every cliche possible.
Wow! What an incredible piece of crap. After all the hype, all the anticipation, and all the hope, this novel fell flat on its face and turned out to be what in my opinion is the biggest disappointment of the Clone Wars.
The description makes this novel out to be a real war drama, set in the midst of a great battle for the survival of the Republic, but what we get is more like a Tactical Manual than anything else. In fact, without Anakin Skywalker being a character, and the intermittent mention of some Star Wars technologies, I could have been reading just about any crap sci-fi book.
Let us begin with the characters:
Anakin Skywalker: Perhaps the only character in this book given some form of dimension. Unfortunately, the narrow-minded and warmongering Anakin in Jedi Trial does not match entirely with the passionate, clever, and headstrong Anakin depicted in the Republic comics. In this book, Anakin behaves as if he was a true military man, not a Jedi general. This has its strong and weak points. JT’s Anakin does not fall into the generic stupid Jedi commander typecast often depicted in the Clone Wars, but instead thinks out all his decisions on Praesitlyn in a military manner, coordinating troops as a proper general would. However, until the very end, his tactics seem to be limited to frontal assaults in which “attack” is the only goal. Anakin here lacks all the characteristics emphasized by the comics and films. He is not compassionate with his own troops, and instead he is presented as a cold-hearted commander with no care for the lives of his men. A huge jump from the padawan so conflicted with what to do on Jabiim and so determined to save the life of Jedi Tohno.
Neeja Halcyon: So after all the demand, DR finally decides to make Neeja the lead character in a Clone Wars novel. Tell me again, if this guy is supposed to be Corran Horn’s grandfather, why does he not share any characteristics with his descendant? The authors should have highlighted the similarities between the two characters, but instead, Neeja is really given no distinguishing traits. In truth, Neeja is given no real character at all, except for his history with Slayke and the fact that he has a wife and kids. I can’t even recall a single point where Neeja is physically described. Is he tall/short? Old/young? Hair colour? Physique? We get nothing. His opinions on the Force, his motives for breaking the Jedi code, and his military background are never touched, and so Neeja essential becomes an extra with a name. He could be just about any Jedi in the galaxy, and the only reason his name was used was to draw in some Corran Horn fans to read this (as a previous poster stated). Do we ever even see Neeja’s thoughts on how things progress in Praesitlyn? No, we do not. He is a character without depth or conflict, and thus is a poor character, one among many in this novel.
Zozridor Slayke: Slayke is yet another generic military commander in Jedi Trial. Unlike Anakin, Slayke’s tactics are limited exclusively to frontal assaults and hasty retreats. I certainly have no idea how he became leader of a private military as large as Freedom’s Sons, as he has no charisma (his numerous “motivating” speeches to his solders throughout the book couldn’t energize a bloodthirsty crowd of Iraqi insurgents in the real world). He has no defining character traits, and this book not had STAR WARS printed on the cover, I could have taken Slayke for just about any commander in any real-world army (except that his speeches suck).
Odie & Erk: This duo was the single most annoying aspect of this book. It seemed that less than an hour after they met, they wanted to screw each other like goats. Their subplot was one of the lamest in Star Wars history. We never see their motives, the reasons for their “love”, or what their characteristics are other than Odie = generic sensitive woman who hates death, and Erk = generic prodigious fighter jock who goes around banging women. Each scene with these two was a struggle, and by then end, I found myself skimming over their sections. It became apparent that these two characters were created in order to fill up pages with a generic love story, in a futile attempt to give this novel some emotion. This only served to worsen the reading experience.
Pors Tonith: Nothing in this book screams out “One-dimensional” more than Pors Tonith. Here we have your typical heartless, moustache-twirling, EVIL villain that is supposed to make us fear for our characters. Instead, at each Tonith scene, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It was as if I was reading the mind of Dr. Evil as he maliciously plotted how to show the readers how EVIL he was. There was absolutely no point to his galaxy-wide Holonet broadcast, informing everyone that he was EVIL and he was going to execute hostages every hour (which, curiously, he never actually does, thus making that entire chapter a waste of space). Hello? The Confederacy is trying to win the war through PR and tactics. The authors are too entrenched in current war to realize that in the Clone War, everyone is supposed to believe that their cause is good. The Separatists are not Islamic terrorists; they do not desire to make everyone hate them. Idiots. Why the hell does Tonith want to inflame his enemy and possibly his own support with such an imbecilic stunt? The Separatists are supposed to believe in their cause, they think the Republic is corrupt, and that they must create a new state free of it. Perhaps some higher ups are indeed corrupt, but they’re not stupid enough to tell the galaxy, “Hey! Look at us, we’re TEH EEEEEV1L!!!111”. In addition, what’s the point of pasting Assajj Ventress’ face on the cover of the novel, if all the time she gets are a few pointless scenes where Tonith tells her what the readers already know what’s going on (a.k.a. totally pointless filler scenes). Then, in their final parley, Assajj randomly states that she is going to kill Tonith when they meet. Say what?!?! Where the hell does this come from? This is just another “Assajj and the Confederates are EV0L!!!11” scene that is totally meaningless and only serves to cheapen the book further.
Clones and Droids: I would have never guessed that the clones in Jedi Trial were the same docile, obedient clones created on Kamino that served impeccably on Geonosis. In JT, the clones are “oourah-ing” every third chapter, and they behave as if they were soldiers in a modern Earth army. At one point, when a clone flies down the Azure Angel II to Anakin, he’s squealing like a little schoolgirl. WTF is this? The clones are supposed to be reserved and stoic troopers, not your generic excited young soldier. On the other side, the droids behaved nothing like what we’ve seen in TPM, AOTC, and the rest of the EU. Their speech patterns were more “humanlike” and they were vicious, very unlike the humorous and terse droids from the rest of SW. They simply did not feel correct to me, and it they screamed of the EVIL DROIDS description.
Prose:
Jedi Trial is certainly one of the blandest Star Wars novels in existence, defeating even The Cestus Deception. The superficiality of the writing is astonishing, with passages such as this (Odie and Erk conversing after having met a few minutes earlier):
Hey! Can you fly a fighter? Sure I can get us there!” She laughed without humour.
“You know, once we get out of this, why don’t you volunteer for flight training?” Erk said.
She snorted. “Are you serious?”
“Sure I am. You’ve got the right attitude. Come on. We may be on our own, but tow hotshots like us? Sheesh, with our skill and my brains…”
“My brains and your skill…”
“Now you’re really talking like a fighter pilot!” They shook on it.
Just what kind of crack were the authors on when they thought of this dialogue? These two characters just met ten minutes ago, and they’re already talking like if they’ve known each other for ten years! By what basis does Erk think Odie would make a good fighter pilot? On her “attitude”. That’s right, he judges her not on her flying skills or her military prowess, but on what he believes is her “attitude”, and the fact that she makes a couple CRAP attempts at humour. This is simply schlock at its height, and this book is chock full of passages of similar calibre.
This book is also full of entire pages of useless information. The droid in the artillery centre goes on for nearly TWO pages babbling about its functions. This has no application in the rest of the story. The reader should not have to read through all this useless detail to get to the actual plot. The droid is not funny at all, but instead it speaks as if I was reading the blasted thing’s instruction manual. I want to read about the Battle of Praesitlyn and the effect it had on the major characters. Too much time is spent on military and tactical details that are of no importance to the book. In addition, the writers spend too much time elaborating on the tactics, but not enough actually describing the action. They spend an entire chapter briefing the commanders on what will happen, but they never describe it when it actually happens. So in truth, this book does little to show Clone Wars action, other than vague descriptions.
That brings me to my next point: the book’s vagueness. If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed that “vagueness” was this book’s main theme. We are never given good descriptions of anything. After 345 pages, I still don’t know what the Intergalactic Communications Centre looks like, nor do I know what the terrain surrounding it looks like. We only get a poor description that hints at some flat plains, a few hills to the right, and some other riffraff. Could they at least say north, south, east, or west? And one of the most annoying things that kept coming was the authors’ use of the world “artillery”. WTF is artillery? The way they described their firing, it would seem that the clone army was operating using the technology of the US army. Since when do SW armies use mortars and other parabolic projectile weapons in ground combat? What happened to concussion missiles, turbolasers, and proton bombs? And why in God’s name does no one have air support? Where are the LAAT/I’s and related vessels? Since when does the Republic use treaded tanks (which are annoyingly called “tank droids”, even though they’re driven by clones”)? Where are the AT-TE’s, the AT-ST’s, the AT-AT’s, and SPHA-T’s? What happened to the Separatist ground arsenal? These fools very obviously never saw AOTC. This was not Star Wars ground combat. It was dumbed-down modern-day US Army ground combat. The combat that this book was said to be so full of was disgusting.
The space battles were also poor. We are given the vaguest of descriptions as to what ships participate in these battles (as well as several new ships that get little to no description), and the battles themselves are so quickly skimmed over that I’m sucked right out of my suspension of disbelief. The worst offence is the final battle with Pors Tonith’s reinforcements. After wasting dozens of pages on Odie and Erk and on useless military information, we get a whole FIVE PAGES to deal with this plot point. What is supposed to be the last part of this book’s climax is nothing more than a whimper. Here it is, summarized for you:
Cloaked fleet arrives, Anakin et al fly out to meet the fleet, droid and clone fighters engage while Anakin flies past them, Anakin blows up CIS flagship with two torpedoes. The End.
Yes, I’m serious, the great reinforcements, which had been discussed constantly by Pors Tonith over the course of the novel, are terrorized into retreat by the ludicrous destruction of their flagship. All Anakin does is pop two torpedoes into the bridge, and BOOM! Have these idiots ever SEEN a Star Wars movie? Are they capable of logical thinking? Why would they make big capital ships if TWO FRICKING TORPEDOES can blow up their most powerful vessels? Do they know that SW ships have SHIELDS? This is one of the most offensive depictions of Star Wars combat ever, surpassing even Stackpole in the art of fighter-wank.
And then, as the ultimate insult, they add the generic Darth Sidious moustache-twirling scene at the end of the novel. This sort of ending has become so cliché that it only serves to detract further from a steaming pile of crap.
Add to this the fact that the price is $36 Canadian, and then I really regret having ever wasted my time on this. Jedi Trial is definitely one of the most amazingly atrocious Star Wars novels of all time, among the ranks of The Crystal Star, Children of the Jedi, and Planet of Twilight. I recommend it to absolutely no sane person, unless they are actively seeking out a brain haemorrhage. This book is stunning proof of how Del Rey has bungled the Clone Wars era. It is sad that after decades of anticipation, all they can deliver are bland novels unbecoming of Star Wars or books that have little to do with the Clone Wars. Just compare what the novels have brought us to what Darkhorse has done with ~25 comics. This is truly a despicable sight, to see something that had been so hyped up turn out to be a disappointment. Why is it that DR decided to hire so many authors that had never written Star Wars before? Why not have Stackpole or Allston write Jedi Trial (or better yet, have them co-author it)? I am positive that each of them would have done an absolutely fantastic job, because the basic plot of this book had so much potential for a great story. Instead of Stephen Barnes, why could we have not had Troy Denning or Greg Keyes write The Cestus Deception? The two already had successful experiences in the SW universe, and they could have made that novel in to a much more interesting story, with much more bearing on the Clone Wars.
I pray that this is not a sign of things to come with the post-NJO books, because as of this moment, Del Rey is bringing about the doom of the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
0/10
feeling. KJA and Stackpole are the standard 
)