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68 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another winner from Sean Stewart, November 26, 2004
I'm an unabashed Stover groupie. And while I recognize that he's not the best writer out there, he's certainly my favorite - there's just something about the way he writes that I find incredibly appealing. He writes what I want to read. But as I said, favorite is not necessarily best, and while Stover's Star Wars novels are among the best out there, Sean Stewart's novel is easily the best Clone Wars novel yet and one of the best Star Wars novels ever written.
Anyone who's been reading my reviews will know that one of my complaints about some recent Star Wars novels is that the prose itself is boring, regardless of the actions and characters it is describing. Not so here. Unlike a good number of Star Wars writers, Sean Stewart has style. His language is often nearly poetic (sometimes a little too self-consciously so, but thankfully not often) - as one Amazon reviewer put it, "at once fluid and precise, impressionistic and razor-fine." Which makes it a pleasure to read this book even during the more sedate moments.
Aside from the language itself, Stewart has many other assets. He's got a wonderful grasp of character, showing for the first time in the novels the character dynamics between Ventress and Dooku, between Dooku and Sidious, between Yoda and Dooku, between Yoda and the rest of the Jedi, etc. He gets into Dooku's and Yoda's heads in a powerful way - Dooku becomes a more sympathetic character while remaining true to the bad guy we know he is, and Yoda in particular is handled fantastically. I was truly worried despite my faith in Stewart that he wouldn't be able to do Yoda justice, but my fears were unfounded. Stewart drew as much from the impish, wise Yoda of ESB as from the more somber, obnoxious Yoda of the prequels, to wonderful effect and more than a few laughs (all of them appropriate - no potty humor here). I particularly enjoyed an exchange about how the Jedi Temple should relocate off of Coruscant, to a more living planet. Finally too we get a little more explanation of the concept between lingering "Force spirits," and the exchange between a certain character and Yoda, especially when it comes to that character's estimation of Dooku, is awesome. Oh, and Padmé finally also gets an appearance in a novel, however brief. There are a couple problems, though. Every once in a while, for example, Stewart seems to have a little trouble with Yoda's syntax.
Continuity gurus should mostly be pleased (I think; I don't really count myself among their number anymore, so there could've been mistakes I missed), as Stewart refers appropriately to other Clone Wars events without being heavy-handed, and his GFFA name-dropping rarely seems inappropriate or out of place. Stewart also manages to convey the pathos in the Jedi Temple very well, as it is so emptied in the months since Geonosis, with so many Padawans without masters, masters having lost friends, and so forth. There are a couple problems though. For example, I found it hard to swallow that the Ithorians would have such a heavily fortified moon - which is particularly annoying considering that the fact that it's the Ithorian system is not relevant to the story, and it could as easily have been any other system.
Also in this book you will find some of the best lightsaber fights ever committed to the page. Including one involving my own personal favorite fencing cheat - which works, against all expectations, because that particular fight is between Padawans using lightsabers dialed down to training-settings. Plus some good heroics, a pretty good dogfight, some wonderful musings on loyalty and the light and dark sides of the Force.
Overall, a brilliant Star Wars novel, and one it's hard to believe will be topped anytime soon (though I have high hopes for Stover's adaptation of Revenge of the Sith). I doubt they'll manage to bring Stewart back for more SW novels, but I sincerely hope they will. Despite a very few minor quibbles, this is a tremendous effort.
If you like this book, I also highly recommend Sean Stewart's novel Nobody's Son.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
In the end, what we are is: alone., December 11, 2004
This book may or may not be the greatest Star Wars book ever written. It's difficult to make such a judgement, there being such a wide variety of books that bear the label of "Star Wars," and so many of them being so incredibly good. Cloak of Deception, Shatterpoint, The Cestus Deception, The Lando Calrissian Adventures, Return of the Jedi, Tales from Jabba's Palace, Tales of the Bounty Hunters, Traitor, The Unifying Force . . . The list goes on. Yoda: Dark Rendezvous is certainly worthy of ranking among these and their fellows as the crown jewels of the Expanded Universe, but, as a Star Wars book, I cannot say if it is any better than the best of those. As a simple novel, however, it surpasses them all.
It would be impossible for me to describe, in the time I have, just what makes this book so good. The prose is a large part of it; Mr. Stewart has a very intriguing writing style. Several passages are simply breathtaking. The characters are astounding, even the minor ones who had no major impact on the plot. The humor is the best and most abundant in recent memory, and manages to be such without detracting from the overall somber tone of the novel. And, most important of all, I think, we finally get inside Dooku's head, learn what makes him tick, and see him as the tragic character he truly is.
Only two elements come to mind which detracted from this novel's magnificence: the references to the Rendili Fleet Crisis, which had not yet occurred as of Dark Rendezvous's placement in the timeline, and the number of ships Obi-Wan had cost Asajj Ventress (he didn't steal a ship from her on Queyta).
The title of this book is perhaps misleading. This is not a book about Yoda. Not solely, at least. It's about Count Dooku and two Padawans as well, in addition to several other characters who make Yoda: Dark Rendezvous the masterpiece it is. Even the Chosen One has a part to play. But most of all, it's a book about family, and acceptance, and coming home at the end of the day to people who love you, and the fact that even those who never come home again will always be waited for.
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18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Addition to the expaned universe, December 5, 2004
It seems that with Episode III coming up in the next year that the expanded universe is exploding with new books. Ironically, its the paperback books that are the better stories as opposed to the hardcover. While I was disappointed with the book about Mace Windu, Yoda's Dark Rendevous is really an excellent story. It presents Yoda as a teacher not as an all knowing master of the force. Stewart also has a way of writing other characters that is both realistic and interesting. The people and aliens he brings into the book seem to be real people. This book could have been just a Yoda versus Dooku and it was not and for that I am grateful. We see much more of the Jedi Temple and much more of the Padawans, and we see that it's not just Anakin Skywalker who is strong in the force. Anakin's dark side does come out a little and he is more closely aligned with the Anakin in the movies than with the disappointing Jedi Trial. I rate this book very highly and is among the best of the Star Wars prequal era books.
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