Shatterpoint: Star Wars

Star Wars Shatterpoint displays the more gritty side of the Clone Wars. It's full of deadly new creatures and locations with some pretty great battles. The story revolves around Jedi Master Mace Windu, who's former Padawan Depa Billaba has vanished into the jungles on Haruun Kal; the homeworld Mace barley remembers.

Only Billaba's former master knows how to find her and so Mace plunges into a grulling trek through one of the most treacherous jungles in the galaxy in search of his once great pupil. But THIS jungle holds perhaps far more than even a Jedi Master can reckon with.

Matthew Stover does a brilliant job of bringing the Clone Wars raging to life with this novel, which also includes his short story "Equipment" (a Clone Wars short story).

I've read many a star wars novel in my time of star wars fandomness, and this book surpasses the rest by far. Matthew Stover grips you in the first sentence and doesn't let you go until the end. The book dug deep into the feelings and the thoughts of the characters, especially Mace. He brought up so many questions that, no matter who you are, will cause you to stop and think. He has a gift that few authors have. He successfully accomplished what I was taught the number one goal in writing a book is: Creating emotion in the reader.

The story starts off well enough. We are reintroduced to many familiar characters. But once the plot gets underway, the story becomes very hard to follow. I understand that certain aspects are meant to be caucus so that they can be explained later, but the story has moments of random flashback/flash forwards that are completely out of context. He also writes with excruciating detail about the crafts and weapons in a particular scene but tends to leave out what is actually happening!! And we are left to just sort of guess at what is happening in certain moments. I loved delving into Mace Windu as a character and as a Jedi and where he draws his strength from but this book makes the same mistakes that the movies tend to make as well....the Jedi are sometimes plagued with inexplicable weakness in the beginning of the story in order to put them into situations that will advance the plot. And as we approach the climax of the story, those weaknesses have all but vanished and the Jedi are the near invincible, border line omnipotent warriors they should be portrayed as. This book fell into that same trap. The story was thin to say the least. And at times hard to follow.