Customer Reviews

The Way of the Apprentice (Star Wars: Jedi Quest, Book 1)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"The Trail of the Jedi," written by Jude Watson, begins on the planet Ragoon-6. Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi Knight, has gone there for a training mission with his his Padawan, Anakin Skywalker. (Readers of the Star Wars Jedi Apprentice series may recognize this planet from book 14: "The Ties That Bind." Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan's deceased Master, took Obi-Wan there for a training mission when he was only a Padawan. It was there that Qui-Gon received his disturbing visions of Tahl, a Jedi Knight that would die after Qui-Gon pledged his life to her.) Wren, a Jedi Knight, leaves Obi-Wan and Anakin on Ragoon-6 and goes off to hide, leaving clues so that the Master-Padawan tem can track him. While on the trip, Anakin feels that he and Obi-Wan are not close and he feels "left out" when his Master does not share his feelings with him. Wren's clues lead Obi-Wan and Anakin to near-death experiences, including a flooded cavern and a den of malia -- savage beasts. While the Jedi are tracking Wren, they stumble upon Floria -- a girl about Anakin's age who cannot find her teacher and friends, whom she lost. The Jedi offer their assistance to Floria and head for their ship to contact someone for assistance. But as the Jedi are walking on their ship, they feel a surge in the Force and quickly run off the ship, right before the bomb that was planted on the Jedi's ship explodes. As Anakin rushes after a figure he saw sneaking around the ship, Floria -- the young slender girl -- used some complicated holds to keep Obi-Wan from moving . . . almost like an assassin. When Anakin pulls back the mask of the figure, he is discovered to be Dane -- Floria's older brother. The Jedi demand an explanation and are shocked at the response: Floria and Dane are bounty hunters. They, along with four other hunters, were dismissed by a being named Granta Omega and were instructed to bring the Jedi to him -- dead or alive. And by now Obi-wan has discovered something that is another problem: training mission clues are not supposed to be deadly, which leads Obi-Wan to the conclusion that Wren was captured. The Jedi's training mission has turned into a survival challenge. Now the Jedi must resuce Wren, and avoid several bounty hunters. Will the Jedi find Wren? Will they encounter Granta Omega? But most importantly: will they survive?

Anyone who loved Jedi Apprentice, and even those of us who didn't (yeah right, is there anyone who didn't adore those books?) should definitely, definitely check out this new series! More like an extension of Jedi Apprentice than anything else, it's already at least as good as that series was at it's height. Anakin Skywalker is now fourteen years old, and has been apprenticed to Obi-Wan Kenobi for several years (duh). Even at this age, Anakin is more than a handful, almost more than Obi-Wan can handle, and we can already see the seeds of many of their later problems sewn. Because of his brilliance and his intense connection to the living Force, everything has come easily to Anakin, and his abilities have taken him far above other students of his age, which has earned him grudging respect from teachers and students alike, but few if any, real friends. This doesn't seem to bother introverted Anakin too much, but Obi-Wan privately worries about his padawan, who has grown from a cheerful and open child, to a quiet and disturbed young man. The council decides to send them on a rather complicated mission to a planet plagued by a toxic disaster, where they will have to work with three other master-padawan teams, including Siri Tachi (whom most of us remember from Jedi Apprentice) and her padawan Ferus, whom Anakin doesn't get along with too well. Anyway, to avoid spoiling the story I won't say anymore, but trust me, these are definitely worth the time you spend reading them. For fans of all ages.

To Tell the truth, I didn't read Jedi Apprentice series. It never looked to exciting. Don't worry I'll try when I see it. This one didn't look exciting either. Then I saw Episode 2 and wondered how they got to this point where Anakin says to Obi-Wan "Your the closest thing I have to a father." to is getting mad and saying to Padme "This is all Obi-Wan's fault!" and I saw the book again and said the heck with it and gave it a shot. It was actually quite good. Obi-Wan was worried about Anakin because he didn't have aby friends. Although Anakin befriended Tru Veld, a fellow padawan, he didn't seem to like Ferus, who isn't to much of a padawan himself. This book is worth reading.

The Way of the Apprentice

The four teams of Jedi, Obi-Wan and Anakin, Siri and Ferus, Ry-Gual and Tru, and Soara and Dara, land on a planet to stop chaos in the plans of the evacuation. That is how this book starts out. The planet was half-destryoed by a toxin which was why the rest of the survivors had to evacuate.

The masters had to leave their padawans to deal with the people evacuating, while they help the sick and dying in the Isolation Sector, where the toxin is.

The padawans discover that an invasion is about to take place. They try to contact their masters to tell them about the isolation.

With comlink failure, the masters have to find out on their own. They also discover the toxin had only a half-life and was no longer a threat.

Will the Jedi have to allow the invasion to take place, or will they fight to the death to stop it? Read it to find out.

This a review for Trail of the Jedi, TOTJ. Trail is the 2nd book in the Jedi Quest series and I am reviewing both the Unabridged audio casette and the paperback.

In TOTJ Obi-Wan feels that he are Anakin are not as close as they should be. So he plans a 10 day exercise on a very sparsely inhabited planet where he and Anakin must work together in a game of hind and go seek with an experienced Jedi Master.

Of course things start to go wrong right away in the hunt. Also, Anakin and Obi-Wan do not understand each other. In the end they both learn a little something about each other, but they also learn that someone want to kill them. The hunt is resolved in this book, but the Identity of the killer is not and will be continued in future books of this series.
The audio book is extremely well done by veteran SW reader Davis. The story here is defineately simplified for younger readers, but for completists like me, Watson dioes a nice job exploring the interactions between Ben and the future Vader.
In the first book Anakin learns to cooperate with a fellow Padawan Ferus (Padawan of Siri Tachi) who is well liked by his fellow Padawans and also a good leader. The continuing curiosity in any Prequel book is how Anakin and Obi-Wan loss each other such that Anakin becomes Darth Vader
Jude Watson does advance the character study of Anakin Skywalker.

This is a book written for 9 to 12 year olds, but I enjoyed Jude Watson handling of Anakin. I am pleased that the decision was made to put this book on unabridged Audio cassettes. I have almost every Star Wars audio book ever made up to NJO Star by Star. Davis is an experienced SW reader and does a great job.

Just as the title says, I love anything (well almost) that has to do with Star Wars. In other words, I`m an unofficial Star Wars fan. I take a tiny dislike in some good parts. But the book is so good it fills in the bad parts. Like for instance, on the part where Anakin meets the female bounty hunter, it was kinda dull. But I was also interested in it. I loved the part with the male bounty hunter though. The trail of the jedi could be checked out before book #1 in the series.

This may not be the most helpful reveiw but I think that Jedi Qest is getting a bad wrap it's every bit as good as Jedi Apprentice And I Think You should read it.Also check out the other Jude Watson books.Jedi Apprentice is a great sieries and think every one who is a Star Wars nut should read it.But what do not recomend is reading the books out of order I made This mistake and it's driving me nuts that I skipped a couple out of the Jedi Apprentice seires. Also I recomend Star Wars Jornal Queen Amidala.Jude Watson is the best author I've ever read and I hope that you love both Jedi Quest and Jedi Apprentice books as much as I do .May The Force Be With You...

This is the second book in a new series and it's a good story. It starts out with Obi-Wan and Anakin on a training mission. Both of them are worrying about their relationship, with Obi-Wan wondering if he will be as good a master as Qui-Gon was and Anakin wondering if Obi-Wan will ever care for him. As usual, things don't go as planned and the two find themselves on the run from bounty hunters. By the end, both manage to resolve their issues, to a degree.

Now, I am well out of the age range for these books, but I enjoy reading them. I like how they flesh out the background that takes place between movie installments.

This book is a spectacular work of art.The depth at which Watson explores and explains the characters makes you feel as if you really know them.She goes along with the whole Jedi teachings,and the Masters and Padawans have just the right serene Jedi attitudes.There is a perfect dose of humor and plenty of suspence.The characters are well formed,and the small signs of Anakin's eventual destiny are scattered throughout.The way she explains the Jedi's actions and lives is very well done,and she shares the thoughts not only going through Anakin's mind,but through the Obi-Wans as well,so you realize that he often doubtfull of his own ability to be the master.I all in all loved this book,and can't wait to read the others.

I'm 25, and although these books are written for younger readers, they are superior to many of the other Star Wars books with their psychological focus. Watson carefully traces Obi-Wan's and Anakin's development together, and captures the essence of the Jedi spirit. Approving this series and the Jedi Apprentice one was a great move by Lucas. I recommend that every serious Star Wars fan read each of these short books, as they flesh out key characters tremendously well.

My only complaint for _The Trail of the Jedi_ is that in one scene, Watson describes Anakin's lightsaber as a "red blurr." That of course is impossible since Skywalker's lightsaber is BLUE. While this may seem to be a minor error, lightsaber color is central to the themes of good and evil in Star Wars. Having said that, Watson's red/blue saber hallucination sequence in _Path to Truth_ is excellent.

Saber color and hilt design is also a major problem on the covers of these books. _The Trail of the Jedi_ has Anakin's blue saber on the left (with the correct hilt), and a green saber on the right next to Obi-Wan. Now, we know from _Rogue Planet_ that Obi-Wan had Qui-Gon's green saber for a time after he lost his own blue one, but this can't be it because, according to this book's text, Obi-Wan has a blue one again. Not only that, but the green saber's hilt does not match Qui-Gon's; rather, it resembles *Vader's hilt*. Careless illustration.

Verdict: ignore the lightsabers on the covers, but revel in the excellent character development.