Doug's Sounding Board

Star Wars: Alliance by Timothy Zahn – Timothy Zahn, as usual, serves up an exciting Star Wars novel with pacing similar to the original trilogy. It’s also rare to get a novel set in the original trilogy era so that’s another bonus.

Star Wars – Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn – This is the start of the story about how the Sith came to have the rule of two; master and apprentice. One Sith destroying the rest is well done and I look forward to the sequel that establishes the rule of two in Star Wars – Darth Bane: Rule of Two.

Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact – by Karen Traviss – Karen Traviss has defined more of the Mandalorian culture than any other author and now that is expanded to include the clone soldiers. She covers a lot of issues with cloning scattered throughout the story and gives humanity to the human clones. No longer so you look at them on screen and think of them as disposable droids. This was based off a video game and I think it has surpassed that game.

Star Wars Republic Commando: Triple Zero- by Karen Traviss – More growth of the clones from Hard Contact as well as introducing new characters that were only alluded to in Hard Contact. This story doesn’t go exactly where you expect it with awkward love interests for some of the clones and how that impacts the troopers in and out of the relationships. Their sergeant vowing to find a cure for their rapid aging to give them a chance at a normal life. Also seeing how one squad raised with fear and punishment act versus one raised to try and please their sergeant also provides an interesting take on nature vs nurture and what that gets you as an end result.