This is an audiobook or dramatization of the trilogy Dark Forces by William C. Dietz. The three books are Soldier for the Empire, Rebel Agent and Jedi Knight. It was published around 1998 and is narrated by full cast with sound effects and music familiar by those who has watched the movies. Now, dramatization always leaves something to the mind. Half of the time, I have no idea what was happening since there was no narration to tell me what was going on. The dialog tried to make up for it, but it made the story quite ridiculous when the characters tells us what they are doing the entire time. It isn’t a riveting story, but I will try to avoid judging it on that too much since I expected this.
Now, the story follows Kyle Katarn, more famous from the Jedi Knight games by Lucasarts, as he goes from a student from the Imperial Academy to a full fledge Jedi when his father gets murdered by the Inquisitor Jerec. Kyle sets out on a journey of revenge while slowly discovering the truth of his father, who was a rebel, and learns that he can sense the force just like his father. The journey will take him to meet iconic people like Luke and Leia while falling in love in Jan and discovering long forgotten Jedi secrets.
The main characters are Kyle, a rather bland character, I cannot describe his personality well outside of him being determine and has fighting spirit. I’ve only seen him in Jedi Academy and there he had more of a roguish feeling about him, but not here. Jan, the first rebel that Kyle spares, and becomes Kyle’s love interest and sidekick is also in many of the scenes. She is more of a roguish character than Kyle, being a loyal rebel and follower of Kyle. She is in love with Kyle and I think the author was going for her being torn between the rebellion and Kyle but it isn’t necessary in the story since Kyle shows over and over again that he is loyal to the rebellion.
There are a bunch of minor character, the more famous one is Leia, Han, Luke and Thrawn but all of them are just there to make the fanboys scream. They have little effect on the story itself and are frankly rather a waste of space.
The story is, frankly, rather badly written. Some of the plotlines are so rushed it isn’t even funny. Kyle has literally found out that his father was killed by the rebels and pledges to kill them, then he meets a rebel who tells him that his father wasn’t murdered by the rebels and shows him some videos that really doesn’t give any solid proofs and Kyle goes along with it because of the plot most go on. That he even was put into the Imperial Academy makes no sense when his father is a rebel leader. What the hell did his father think with? The excuse was that he wanted his son to have an education but he most has known that it would lead his son to kill rebels, not to mention if the Imperials ever found out about his father, Kyle would be executed as they would believe he was a spy.
The force is also rather random in this book. I kept having flashbacks to the scene in the new Star Wars films when Han shouted “that is not how the force works.” That was me here, the force is used as a plot device, such as in the beginning Kyle takes care of an entire squadron of trained soldiers because of the force. All before he was trained by a jedi, a training that by the way consist of a Jedi saying “use the force” in his head and suddenly he is a master. Those who thought Rey was a Mary Sue, well this one is even worse.
I also don’t think the author understood the dark side very well either. For example, in a scene Kyle starts to use his jedi superpower to take care of a squadron by himself, and the force stops working for him because he started to fall to the dark side by becoming overconfident… The dark force makes you stronger, that is why it is so easy to fall to it in battle. Because it strengthens you by using negative emotion, very similar to how rage work. If the dark side removes your ability to use the force, then there wouldn’t be any dark jedis, despite this book being littered with them. Not to mention there is no mention of Kyle falling to the dark side despite is one driving force is to kill the man who killed his father. That is a storyline very similar to the original trilogy who made it clear that it would lead to the dark side, but here it is barely mentioned until the last part of the books when it takes many scenes from the original Star Wars movies.
Now, I wouldn’t mind all of these flaws, I am rather flexible with my lore as I enjoy the Old Republic games, but that is because I can fill the bad use of the lore with good characters and an intriguing story. I cannot do that here because the story is cliché, the revenge has been done, and there is no depth to the story. No philosophy about the subject that did makes the original Star Wars Trilogy interesting. All the things in this story is there because it would give someone money. The guy seeking revenge, be a master in sword fighting and get superpowers, check. Throw in a girl to be the romance, check. Bad guy with no other character trait than being bad, check. Save the galaxy, check. Throw in a lot of famous characters from the franchise, check.
You get the point, I cannot see anything appealing with this book series, but then again, a lot of it is riding on you feeling over the moon of the games and I have not played them so there is no joy to see the character from my favorite game. I cannot give this one more than a 2 out of 10. According to me it is badly written, feeling more like a cash grab than an actual story and instead of wanting me to continue reading about Kyle, or play the games, it makes me wonder why anyone would like this.
With Kind Regards
Senefer.
Read with Senefer 