Who would have thought that 2020 would be the Year of The Clone Wars especially back when the series was cancelled after the Disney acquisition? And yet the Year of The Clone Wars it continues to be as Disney-Lucasfilm Press bring us the middle grade anthology Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark featuring stores by Lou Anders, Preeti Chhibber, Zoraida Córdova, Jason Fry, Rebecca Roanhorse, Greg Van Eekhout, Tom Angleberger, E. Anne Convery, Sarah Beth Durst, Yoon Ha Lee, and Anne Ursu. Each story also features a gorgeous illustration by Ksenia Zelentsova with whose fan art you might already be familiar. Is this a book that fans of the show are going to love? Definitely! And if you’re not already a fan? Well, let’s dive into that.

The eleven stories are retellings of episodes from The Clone Wars. This is a double-edged sword because on the one hand, it’s always great to get a new perspective on a story we already know especially since books let you get into a character’s head. Some of the stories even give us first person. On the other hand… it’s a story we already know and only so much can be added especially in the short story format. On an individual basis, these stories aren’t nearly as successful as retellings as the full-length novels that tackled each of the Original Trilogy movies a few years back.

For me, the two true standouts from the anthology were “The Shadow of Umbra” by Yoon Ha Lee and “Dark Vengeance” by Rebecca Roanhorse. The stories star Captain Rex and Maul respectively and manage to truly soar beyond being retellings. Roanhorse in particular is a great fit for Maul telling his story to an unknown someone (I’m headcanoning that it’s Ezra). Lee is one of those authors that I’m thrilled to see writing in the Star Wars universe and when I double-checked to see who’d written the Rex story, my immediate response was, “Oh, of course it’s Yoon Ha Lee.” Maybe if we’re very lucky, we’ll get to see more Star Wars stories from him.

That’s not to say that any of the stories are bad. If anything, one of the true strengths of this anthology lies in the diversity of voices. Editor Jen Heddle assembled a fantastic team of both Star Wars veterans like Jason Fry and those new to writing in the galaxy like Anne Ursu. There’s no one involved here that I wouldn’t be intrigued to see more work by in the galaxy far, far away especially if they are given the chance to tell a new story.

Ultimately though… Listen, I’ll be blunt with all of you: there is an audience for this book and it is not me. If you’re a big The Clone Wars fan or if you have a younger reader who’s looking in dive into Star Wars books, this is definitely the book for you. If, however, you’re like me and watched the show but never really connected with it, the book is more to akin to one you might read once but not come back to which truly sounds harsher than I intended it to be. Not every Star Wars book has to or possibly can be for everybody and that’s okay!

So should you pick this book up? Sure! I’m always in favor of people reading more books in Star Wars and being introduced to new authors. Will you definitely love it? Your mileage may vary.

Thank you to Disney Lucasfilm Publishing for providing an early copy of the book for review purposes.