Welcome back to Go/No-Go, Tosche Station’s regular feature where we offer our spoiler-free opinion as to whether or not you should spend your hard-earned money on a book, film, or other entertainment. Today on the launch pad: Star Wars: Dark Disciple. It’s our first book outside of the Episode III-V timeframe in the new canon and uses unproduced episodes from The Clone Wars show. It’s Ventress and Vos versus Dooku. But is the book worth your hard earned money? To mission control for the verdict!
Bria: Dark Disciple is a fun and enjoyable read overall. It’s fun to see Christie Golden get to write outside of the Fate of the Jedi era. While I don’t have the same emotional attachment to Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos that some people do, I think she did a good job handling them even if Asajj did feel a little too nice sometimes. Plot-wise, their assassination plan takes some twists and turns that I definitely did not expect. I wasn’t completely in love with the book but I enjoyed it enough that I’m looking forward to reading it again. Dark Disciple gets a Go from me.
Nanci: Let’s get this out of the way: Dark Disciple is a well-written book. It’s a good book, and like Bria I’m glad to see Christie Golden writing in a different era. I was also glad to see her take on well-known characters like Quinlan Vos and Asajj Ventress, and for the most part, I feel she handled them well. (Although Ventress was a bit problematic for me at times.) The sections that focus on the two of them and delve deep into their character development are where the book truly shines.
Is Dark Disciple an enjoyable book? I think that depends very much on the reader. While I liked The Clone Wars, I wasn’t a fan of the anthology style of storytelling and the reliance on multiple episode arcs. It’s very obvious in parts that Dark Disciple was adapted from unproduced TCW scripts, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just not something that draws me in as a reader or a watcher.
While I wasn’t a huge fan of some of the story elements, I think Dark Disciple is a good read for fans of The Clone Wars, and Quinlan Vos and Asajj Ventress in particular. If you find yourself in those groups, I give this book a Go.
Shoshana: I very much enjoyed Dark Disciple and found it to feel like an arc of The Clone Wars. The book really seems to contribute to the overall picture of the Clone Wars and furthers the stories of Vos and Ventress rather than simply filling up space. While I’m not the biggest fan of some of the turns the story takes and while Vos and Ventress do sometimes act differently than I would expect, I didn’t find these to be too big of an issue overall and still enjoyed the story. The book is very clearly written with The Clone Wars fans in mind and I do question how accessible it would be for readers who have yet to see the show but if you are a fan of The Clone Wars, I would definitely give Dark Disciple a Go.
Flight Director’s Ruling: Dark Disciple is a GO for launch!
