Review: Dark Disciple

Dark Disciple CoverThe enemy of my enemy is my assassination BFF …or at least that’s the logic of the Jedi Council when it comes to teaming Master Quinlan Vos with Asajj Ventress to try and take the nefarious Count Dooku out of the picture and hopefully end the war. (No one ever said the Jedi Council was brilliant, okay?) What could possibly go wrong with this plan? And it’ll worth it if it brings the Clone Wars to an end, right? Out today, Dark Disciple by Christie Golden asks these questions as an unlikely partnership forms to take on an impossible task.

While there were things I did and did not like about the book, it was an overall enjoyable reading experience. While readers go in knowing the outcome (the mission fails, it has to fail,) Golden does a good job of building up anticipation and making you think that just maybe Vos and Ventress will succeed and Dooku will die. This is a book that’s more about the journey than the actual end result. The story is based upon unproduced episodes of The Clone Wars but Golden takes the basis of the arc and really makes it her own so well that it’s impossible to tell what was originally in those eight scripts and what wasn’t.   (Dark Disciple may, however, may not be the most accessible book those who didn’t watch the show.)

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Dark Disciple Gets a Cover And a Release Date

Dark Disciple CoverDel Rey revealed the cover for Dark Disciple today, the forthcoming novel by Christie Golden.  The novel is based on an unused storyline from The Clone Wars and stars Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos.  The cover is the work of artist Matt Taylor.

Del Rey also announced the book’s official release date: July 7th, 2015.  (Keep in mind though that this could be subject to change.)

You can read their full press release here.

SDCC 2014: Rebels and Books

Two days down of San Diego Comic-Con and we’re already rolling in Star Wars news.  Well sort of.

Last night was the Rebels panel that featured the main cast along with Dave Filoni.  You can read StarWars.com’s liveblog of the event here.  While we didn’t get the official release date for Rebels (groan!), we did learn a few things.  The cast agrees that Vanessa Marshall is the biggest Star Wars fan out of all of them although apparently Freddie Prinze Jr. makes all the Force motions while recording.  The show will definitely be embracing the idea of this crew as a family and bringing in some comedy; both concepts they’re taking from the Original Trilogy.  Another point of note from the panel is that Filoni made mention of establishing a hierarchy of villains so if Darth Vader shows up, people should definitely be running.  Also, Rebels will be much more of a contained story than the Clone Wars as they won’t be jumping from character to character and creating new locations each week.

In addition to showing several clips from the show, they also debuted a second brand new trailer which you can watch below.

The Star Wars Books panel just wrapped up and needless to say, the highlight was the new book announcement.  Christie Golden will be penning a novel about Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos.  The book is due out in Summer 2015 and is taken from a plot line for the intended Season 7 of The Clone Wars.

asajj vos

As for the rest of the panel, it was moderated by Vanessa Marshall and there was a lot of discussion about John Jackson Miller’s forthcoming A New Dawn.  Vanessa has apparently read the book already and said it gave her a lot of insight into Hera.  Tarkin will be, as expected, akin to James Luceno’s Darth Plagueis and will take place very close to Revenge of the Sith.  Heir to the Jedi was described as a character study of Luke Skywalker and Lords of the Sith was dubbed “kind of a Vader/Palpatine road trip novel” by Jen Heddle.  You can read the rest of the live blog of the panel by the main site here.  I’d particularly suggest that readers take note of their comments about the newly minted Legends books.

If you’re looking for comic news though… well that’ll be dropping tomorrow during Marvel’s Cup of Joe Panel.  You’ve been warned.