Yoda: Dark Rendezvous (Star Wars: Clone Wars)
by Sean Stewart
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sean StewartEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-11-23
ISBN: 0345463099
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Del Ray
Book Reviews of Yoda: Dark Rendezvous (Star Wars: Clone Wars)
Book Review: Quite possibly the best Star Wars since the Thrawn Trilogy
Summary: 5 Stars
Easily one of the best Star Wars books I've ever read, and I've read the majority of them. I enjoyed the New Jedi Order, but reading Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, I realized that this is what makes a masterpiece. The only Star Wars novels I've read that I liked better were Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command, comprising the legendary (by Star Wars EU standards) 'Thrawn Trilogy' by Timothy Zahn - written in the early 1990s. Don't get me wrong - I love Allston's work, and I loved the Hand of Thrawn Duology (also by Zahn) that came before Sean Stewart ever wrote this book, but there's something about Dark Rendezvous....
Maybe it's the way Yoda is handled. One of my favorite things to do with Star Wars books is to read the lines of movie characters and try to imagine them saying that. Yoda was perfect that way. Everything he said and did, I could see him saying and doing. For instance, there was a scene in the Jedi Temple infirmary where Scout (who I'll get to later)-
--SPOILERS--
-learned that she was to become the apprentice of Jai Maruk, when she was sure that she was going to be rejected as a Jedi Padawan and sent to the Agricultural Corps. Scout begins to sob and Jai asks why she is crying? Shouldn't she be happy? Yoda responds by saying something to the effect of a band has been around her heart, and now that it is gone, it is too much for her to take in all at once. To use his wording, 'Stings, it does!' Scout cries out that it is exactly how she feels, then asks Yoda, 'How did you know?' Yoda leans over as if to whisper in his ear, then shouts, 'Grand Master of Jedi Order am I! Won this job in a raffle I did, think you? Master Yoda knows these things. His job it is!'
--END SPOILERS--
It was quite possibly the greatest section of EU with a movie character (and how underexplored the EU Yoda is!) that I had ever read. But the best was yet to come.
Scout was, I believe, at the time that Stewart wrote this book, probably a fairly original concept. I think only Tionne and maybe Tekli from post-Original Trilogy EU had explored the concept before, and Scout is a lot younger in age (only 14 years old). A Jedi apprentice without much strength in the Force. Further distinguishing her from the likes of Tionne, who preferred to yodel Jedi ballads and recite old poetry to compensate for her weakness in the Force, Scout feels that she has to rely upon guile and wits to win in sparring matches against other Jedi. The thing is that Stewart fell prey to the classic Star Wars cliche of introducing a feisty, red-haired female. At least make her blonde! Oh well...
When we are first introduced to Scout, she and her peers are about to engage in a dueling tournament at the Jedi Temple. As one reviewer at TheForce.Net put it, this little addition made the Temple feel more like Hogwarts than the movies made it out to be. Which is good, considering that in the young readers' Jedi Apprentice series (which I am now forced to admit that I did enjoy), a teenaged Obi-Wan Kenobi and his fellow apprentices do seem to enjoy life at the Temple. Scout chooses to use her wits rather than her Force powers, and-
--SPOILERS--
-ends up winning the tournament, despite incurring a fellow student's anger when she uses a trick involving her grabbing onto the other's lightsaber blade rather than surrendering to force the student into a position where Scout could and did claim victory.
--END SPOILERS--
My biggest gripe with the tournament itself was that Stewart made constant references to such things as 'wrist locks' and 'throat holds'. Not much for the traditional lightsaber sparring seen in, uhhh, everywhere else, eh? Kinda throws people out of the story, but it's not bad enough to drop a 5-star rating to a 4. Maybe a 10-star rating to a 9.5, but meh. I can live with it.
Scout, through this tournament, proves to be a fairly original, original character (which is getting to be surprisingly rare these days, and I don't really think we've had one in the EU since Droma in the New Jedi Order and maybe Vergere, though it's iffy, but I didn't read Shatterpoint, so what the hey). It should be noted that her primary Force talent, as they're limited, is predicting her opponent's moves before they happen. I must admit one gripe with Scout, and that's her nickname. Her Master should have been named Atticus or something, just to make the reference a little more blatant. But I suppose it's better than her 'real' name, Tallisibeth (Star Wars naming policy strikes again! This week's episode: 'Elizabeth' becomes 'Tallisibeth'!) :P
Whie was an interesting character. Some other reviewers on other sites have said they weren't too fond of him, but I liked him. He was also a remarkably original character. He is plagued by Force-guided visions of the future coming in the form of nightmares. Bit of a messed-up kid really, but he has kind of a progression, starting as just a precocious, serious, quiet kind of kid, you know, the kind who is ahead of his class and knows it and is alienated by it, so he keeps to himself mostly. That's what Whie is like at first. As the book goes on, he gets progressively weirder, so to speak. If you've read the book, you'll know what I mean. The Jedi, Jai Maruk and Maks Leem, were solid characters. Nothing we haven't seen before originality-wise (though Maks's 'nervous habit' was somewhat amusing) but good counterpoints to Yoda.
And back to Yoda! The rest of the review may contain spoilers, so be forewarned. Yoda is written flawlessly. He's a combination of the sometimes-stern, sometimes-gentle Yoda we see in Episodes I and II (most noticeably in the Younglings scene in the latter, though the movie's poor acting diminished its intended effect) and the crotchety, funny, gruff, very wise Yoda seen in Episodes V and VI. He is wonderful. It's a mixed blessing that he is so underused in the EU, because while he has so much potential, I don't think anyone could write him as well as Sean Stewart. I honestly don't. He's compassionate at times, then the next paragraph he's making wisecracks or beating a droid with his stick and yelling at it. The author really makes Yoda the highlight of this book, which is appropriate considering that it is called Yoda: Dark Rendezvous.
It's also amusing how Stewart establishes Yoda's dislike of droids that we see glimpses of in The Empire Strikes Back. He views technology in general as a necessary evil and mentions to Maks Leem about how he would like to move the Temple to a world teeming with wildlife. It seems appropriately ironic that he is to be stranded upon a world that is just that, all alone for the majority of the time (despite visits by Jorj Car'das and all those people who just swing by for a visit and never speak of it again so conveniently in Galaxy of Fear, if you count those books as canon), in a short six or seven months along the in-universe timeline.
Stewart has a way of putting in minor things in the book, setting up new minor characters for just one or two scenes and showing you events involving the major characters through their eyes. At first, I found this perspective jarring, but as I read on, I realized how effective a tool it was, to get the reader interested in these one-shot characters and give them a life of their own even with just a few lines, thoughts, or actions from these characters who never appear anywhere else in the book (most notably the guy in the refresher - Star Wars lingo for a restroom - in the spaceport, the kids playing arcade games on the transport, and the security monad in the corridor where the Jedi's rooms were).
Stewart also introduces two wholly unique droid characters. They at first appear very similar to two separate sides of C-3PO, the beloved golden robot of movie fame. As the plot thickens, the droids develop until they appear to be more similar to HK-47, the maniacal assassin droid from the Knights of the Old Republic RPG video game series. Yet the droids are not clones of HK-47 (and despite how wonderful HK-47's sardonic deadpans in Knights of the Old Republic were and still are, I'm glad). They retain individuality, even from one another. Yoda and one of the droids, the better-off one named Fidelis, actually engage in a brief philosophical conversation including one of the greatest literary lines of all time involving Yoda calling Fidelis a 'toaster-thing'. It was quite funny.
Count Dooku is also written exquisitely well. He exudes an aura of evil when he needs to, but most of the time he is 'grey' - a concept I found intriguing in Attack of the Clones that was entirely underdeveloped in the movie itself. He seems uncertain of himself. As one of the other characters puts it, when he summons Yoda to meet for a possible peace agreement on Vjun, he only thinks he's drawing Yoda into a trap. He tells himself that his Master, Darth Sidious, is the only one who still holds sway over him - that he is only summoning Yoda to Vjun to dispose of him. But Yoda was a special instructor of his during his Padawan years, a close confidante for him and someone who took a special interest in him. Indeed, Dooku is brilliantly executed in his struggles with deciding between his newfound power with the dark side and its seduction, and the thought of redemption in the light side and the knowledge that Sidious only plans to use him for as long as he is useful, then simply dispose of him. I think we all know what choice he eventually makes.
Now to get to the actual 'Dark Rendezvous' part mentioned so lightly in the novel title (ahem). Yoda and the Padawans, Scout and Whie, reach Vjun to meet with Dooku. Yoda leaves the Padawans behind and goes to meet with Dooku. I will not recall the exact play-by-play of this scene or how it ends, but Dooku and Yoda end up having a startlingly beautiful philosophical talk in Dooku's office. As the talk abruptly fades into battle, Yoda fires off the single best line in the entire EU (and I've come to the conclusion that there are so many good lines and beautiful moments in Dark Rendezvous that if I was to make a top ten list of all the best EU quotes or scenes, I'd have to make a rule that Dark Rendezvous would have to be put in its own separate list to give the other material a chance) just before the main lightsaber action begins. You'll know which line I'm talking about if you've already read it; if you haven't, read it and you'll know what line it is when you come to it. It literally made my jaw drop open from just how amazing and cool and poetic and just plain powerful it was.
Speaking of lightsaber duels. If you're reading this book for a flashy duel between Yoda and Dooku OMGF OMG POwWERFUL J3D1!!!!!!!1!11one, just forget about it or expect to be 'disappointed'. This book's action does not come in great battles or lightsaber or Force power duels, and the best we get of that doesn't even involve Yoda. This book's action and this book's duels come in the form of words and ideas.
This is probably as much a book about Dooku as it is about Yoda, because of Dooku's internal structure. Yoda is perhaps written more beautifully than Dooku, but Dooku's internal struggles are powerful and gripping. His interactions with his underling, Asajj Ventress, another well-used character not invented by Stewart (though Ventress is from the comics and cartoons and not the movies) are particularly chilling.
Stewart's endless parodying of real-life is funny and effective without being politically divisive and potentially offensive as the references in the also-excellent Labyrinth of Evil novel tie-in to Revenge of the Sith are. His mention of the 'Peterson's Field Guide to Droids of the Old Republic' is particularly amusing, me being somewhat of a bird-watcher myself and actually owning a Peterson's Field Guide.
If there was one thing in this book that might truly force my rating to a 4 if I didn't love Yoda and Dooku's writing so much, it would be Stewart's apparent problem with deciding on a title to refer to certain characters by. Maks Leem is exceptionally vulnerable here, though Asajj Ventress isn't much better. Maks Leem is alternately referred to as 'Master Leem', 'Maks', 'Maks Leem', etc. in the narrative, which is aggravating. Ventress is called 'Asajj', 'Ventress', and 'Asajj Ventress' randomly swtiching between them in the narrative as well. It doesn't throw the reader out of the book, but if you are reading intently it is somewhat irritating.
Summary of Yoda: Dark Rendezvous (Star Wars: Clone Wars)
As the Clone Wars rage, Jedi Master Yoda must once again face one of his greatest adversaries: Count Dooku. . . .The savage Clone Wars have forced the Republic to the edge of collapse. During the height of the battle, on Jedi Knight escapes the carnage to deliver a message to Yoda on Coruscant. It appears that Dooku wants peace and demands a rendezvous. Chances are slim that the treacherous Count is sincere but, with a million lives at stake, Yoda has no choice.
The meeting will take place on Djun, a planet steeped in evil. The challenge could not be more difficult. Can Yoda win back his once promising pupil from the dark side or will Count Dooku unleash his sinister forces against his former mentor? Either way, Yoda is sure of one thing: This battle will be one of the fiercest he?ll ever face.
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