forceunleashed (original) (raw)
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Writer: Sean Williams
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 319
The premise: Darth Vader has a secret apprentice who he's been training in the Dark Side of the Force. This apprentice is meant to help Vader overthrow the Emperor, but as always, when it comes to the Sith, nothing is what it seems. Soon the apprentice is on his own with only his pilot, a woman named Juno, and his training droid, PROXY, as his companions. He's conflicted about his missions, about his loyalty to the Emperor and his Master, and more important, about how he feels about that pilot of his. He might know all about the Dark Side of the Force, but he knows NOTHING about women, and that might be just what undermines his goals to take over the galaxy.
Buy the Paperback: to be honest, I kind of wish I'd bought the graphic novel instead. That too is an option. Reasons being were because as I mentioned before, I got really bored with the predictable rate of action scenes, and unless I've given impeccable descriptions of the visuals, it's all kind of muddy in my head anyway. And let's face it: any book that's a novelization of a VIDEO GAME is bound to be, you know, VISUAL. I'm not blaming Williams for this at all. I think he did well enough with what he had, but frankly, his other Star Wars work and his ORIGINAL work is much, much better. As for the game itself, I don't know. I'm not a gamer, but Greg's downloaded the PS3 demo for me and I'll see how I do and how fast I get impatient with the level of difficulty and the controls. I'll be honest, about the only video games I can handle are Lego: Star Wars and Lego: Indiana Jones. No, I'm not kidding. :)
But as far as the novelization goes, it's a fine idea in and of itself, but I'm really not convinced it warranted a hardcover publication, and if I'd had a choice between a hardcover and a mass-market, I'd take the mass-market. The books seems more geared for that anyway, but since I like the author, I hope he's making some money out of this deal. This isn't at all a solid example of Star Wars novels and what they have to offer, so if you do read this, and it's your first SW novel EVER, don't let this book be the judge and jury of exploring more SW titles. There are MUCH better stories out there, with familiar characters and non-familiar characters, that you can sink your teeth into.
The full review, WITH MAJOR SPOILERS, may be found at my LJ. Comments and discussion are most welcome.
REVIEW: Sean Williams's STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED
Happy Reading! :)