Coruscant Nights Series

[Drake 53]

Picked up this paperback just today and started into it. I really liked the description on the back cover:

Jax Pavan is one of the few Jedi Knights who miraculously survived the slaughter that followed Palpatine's ruthless Order 66. Now, deep in Coruscant's Blackpit Slums, Jax ekes out a living as a private investigator, trying to help people in need while concealing his Jedi identity and staying one step ahead of the killers out for Jedi blood. And they're not the only ones in search of the elusive Jax. Hard-boiled reporter Den Dhur and his buddy, the highly unorthodox droid I-5YQ, have shocking news to bring Jax - about the father he never knew.

But when Jax learns that his old Jedi Master has been killed, leaving behind the request that Jax finish a mission critical to the resistance, Jax has no choice but to emerge from hiding - and risk detection by Darth Vader - to fulfull his Master's dying wish.

I'm enjoying it. From the sounds of it, it's Angel meets Star Wars. This book is pretty dark, going into the very bottom levels of the Coruscant undercity. It's fairly graphic too...talking about one of the characters getting his stomach split open and having to hold his viscera in.

If it's any good, I'll probably write up a review for Probe Droid...if it ever gets released. :p

Edited July 11, 2008 by Drake

[Andy 60]

If it's any good, I'll probably write up a review for Probe Droid...if it ever gets released.

If the book or PD gets released? If you mean PD, then why wouldn't it? lol

[Chickenman 9]

Because this is GB, Beeurd.

:p

[Mara 29]

I had been curious about this trilogy of books... Maybe I'll start on 'em.

Sounds more interesting than Millennium Falcon, anyway. :p

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

ooooooh. i'll have to buy that next month when i get paid again.

[Drake 53]

I meant PD, B. And it was a joke.

I'm liking this author's style. It's Michael Reaves, btw...co-author of Death Star. It's a much different style than what I've gotten used to with every other Star Wars book out there. It's a lot darker, grittier and, as I mentioned, graphic.

[Princess 35]

Guess I'm finding a use for my 15% off coupon after all

[Princess 35]

Maybe it's because I really didn't know any of the characters, but I found that this book was hard to get into. It was an interesting story, but not something I'll be rushing to read again

[Drake 53]

I enjoyed it a lot. I'm looking forward to the next part.

[Mara 29]

Finished it last week.. and it was a pleasant surprise, really.

Left my notes at home, so I'll be back later to gather my thoughts somewhat coherently.

[Mara 29]

Like I said, it was a good read, better than I was expecting.

I don't know about anyone else, but I found the imagery Reaves used of the Force as being like threads really interesting. A different view of how everything is connected.

I did get slightly confused about

why Jax was loosing his connection every so often. Yeah, it was explained later but I'm not sure I buy it...

Also... maybe it was just me but when Jax and Nick were together, Jax didn't quite seem so mighty or outgoing. Almost like he was submitting to the alpha dog kind of thing. But when it was just Jax defending himself, he was all big powerful Jedi. *shrug* Maybe it was just out of respect for his friend or he just didn't have the same opportunities as when he was without Nick.

I don't know how many of you have read any of the Dune books, but I felt that the scene

with the feral droids taking over part of the underground was reminiscent of the Jihad in the Dune universe, where those droids/machines began to take over human characteristics, the humans later defeated them and made a pact to never make machines with human thought again. I just felt a lot of similarities.

And again later with I-Five. (And perhaps also with Artoo and Threepio slightly).

The ending, though, was a bit cheesy,

with all the characters ending up together... almost like a fairy tale.

Same thing with the holocron, which was too much of a coincidence for me.

And Nick's "death." I think it would have better if he had been sacrificed... I guess. I know he's one of the main characters, but he is starting to feel a bit infallible to me. Wondering if anything is impossible for him.

But overall.... it was good. I enjoyed it. And I want to get to the second one.

[Drake 53]

I got the second one, Street of Shadows, at the convention I went to in Toronto this weekend.

This one looks like it's getting into the detective theme a little more, whereas the first novel was really introducing the characters and setting up the overarching story. Jax, I-5YQ and Den are approached by a Zeltron woman (lol, they're everywhere now!) who wants to find out who killed her lover, an artist who had just unveiled a light sculpture with obvious links to lightsaber techniques.

[Chickenman 9]

I really gotta read these books. The second one sounds very noir-like.

Zeltron = Perfect Femme Fatale

[Bad furday 57]

*cackle* Den Dhur is back! After his intro in Medstar(s) :D

[Mara 29]

The second one is out already? I thought it didn't out for another month.

[Drake 53]

Then they must have had advanced copies for the con. Either way, I'm looking at it right now. :p

[Mara 29]

Well, I can check online for sure. I could have gotten the date wrong, lol.

[Drake 53]

Wookieepedia is saying that they're adding Street of Shadows spoilers so my guess is that it's officially out.

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

or enough people went to the convention and got advanced copies.

[Drake 53]

Doubtful.

Release date was August 26th so I did get it a few days early. Neat.

Edited August 29, 2008 by Drake

[Mara 29]

Time to search the library catalog then.

[Princess 35]

I'm reading it in between school stuff right now.

And like the spoiler tags much Mara?

[Andy 60]

Don't you, Prinny?

I bet you were expecting some kind of spoiler to be here.

[Mara 29]

Can't be too careful.

Got the second one on hold from the library, yays!

[Drake 53]

Just on the last chapter now. I enjoyed it a lot more than the first probably because all of the characters have already been introduced and they were able to just jump right in.

Also...

Aurra Sing and Captain Typho are in it. Typho was apparently secretly in love with Padme so he shows up on Coruscant looking to avenge her death by hunting down her killer. At the end, he gets it half right in that the killer was Darth Vader...he just didn't clue in that it was Anakin. He served to get Vader pretty frustrated and broody right before being strangled, though. It was a pretty emotional scene.