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KENOBI - September 2013 Holocronies Book Club
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Jeff Diamond, Grand Moff
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Sep 03, 2013 07:27AM
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Listening to this on a long car ride. Starting now!
I started this one this morning.
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My heart is torn in pieces.
I finally got this one started. It almost appears as if Kenobi is a side character in his own book (at least in the beginning). Starting to get interesting. I like some of the ties to the Fate of the Jedi books and legacy comics.
Spoilers sorry (and typos,but I'm in a phone so gimme a break)*************************
Finished it a while ago, but have been mulling it over. I'm not sure I liked this one. The whole Hutt debt subplot seemed like more of an afterthought. I was hoping to learn a little more about Ben's relations with the Lars family, and why in ep IV Owen mentions Kenobi's name with such disdain, where now we know Ben was the reason they adopted Luke in the first place. Before the prequels, we were led to believe Ben was just some old wizard who liked to take a stroll in the desert once in a while. That makes sense if the Lars family wanted Luke to stay away from Ben since they just thought he was some weirdo. After the prequels we learn Ben gave Luke to the Lars family. In that case Owen must have feigned his disdain for Ben to protect Luke, and to keep Ben's identity a secret. OR he truly wanted to prevent Luke from fulfilling his destiny so that he could harvest water for the rest if his life. Cool! But this book has nothing to do with any of that. So Ben drops Luke off and that's the end of the story for 19 years? Aw, man.
I say that's the end of the story because, unlike books like the FOTJ series etc, I found the book unnecessary to the greater scheme of things, and was pretty disappointed. I feel like in the end you are not really attached to any of the characters, and the fact that they all magically disappear at the end makes this book feel like a waste of time. Ben was kind of a wet noodle until the last 3/4 (understandably so, given his mission), and the whole plot kind of centered around the enigmatic bearded weirdo, someone's kid making poor decisions, and their other kid having a crush on the bearded weirdo.
There were good parts of this book. I enjoyed the Tusken lore and the references to the one Jedi who lived among them (I forget what comic that was originally in). I liked the fact that Ben couldn't successfully get qui gonn to answer him in meditation. I loved Oren galt's fate at the end. The fact that the tuskens were the only characters who actually learned something from Ben or understood ANYTHING about him was great. I think in the end the point of this book is that Ben is, was, and always will be a man of action, and for all the wisdom he may have, it's mostly his luck and his wit that gets him out if the reckless decisions he makes.
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I found that i became un-attached to the characters at some point. Plenty of them were like able. A good example from my perspective: I thought the main family was led by a strong female character until the introduction of the non-existent love triangle. At first it isn't really taken seriously, but by the end it was the main question on her mind. I thought that development really destroyed annaline's character. What was once a strong willed and fully capable woman became a sort of giddy schoolgirl dreaming of a future with Ben. The complete 180 really threw off the character's story arc and I was sort of unmoved when seeing her leave disappointed. The author sort of wrote her off as a fool in the end, when I was originally pretty confident that she would be the real protagonist (since it was apparent that Ben might not be)
I now want to know how he spent the other 17 years of his time there. I expected the book to cover more of a time period.I did appreicate the different genre of a Western, i havent read much of that it was fun. Plus learning more about the Sand People
Just finished the book today. I thought it was very good. I've never been a huge fan of Obi-Wan (didn't dislike him, just not my top Jedi though Ewan McGregor did a great job with him). I felt that in the first part of the book, Obi-Wan was almost a side character in his own book. I was almost going to wonder if the book was just called Kenobi. He featured more later on but I still think most of the story was told from different points of view rather than his own (typing that now, I wonder if that was intentional given his quote on the topic). I really enjoyed it. Definately better than fatal alliance which I'm listening to right now as well.
I too was left wanting more. It started off slow to me. Like most of the others it did pick up at the end. I also wanted to know about Kenobi and wish it covered more of a time span.
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He was at the Star Wars Reads chat on Saturday.
Just finished Kenobi today (sorry I'm a bit behind the reading group). I am a big fan of Obi-Wan and I have to say that I am a big fan of this book. I really enjoyed the characters JJM developed around the Claim, the side story with the Tuskens, and the resolution at the end. Can you call it 'resolution' in any Star Wars story? I do agree that I would have liked a bit more of Kenobi early on in the novel, but I understand how can you only write about a hermit in the desert?I would be very much in support of a sequel to the novel as there are those other 17 years where he had to have some adventures waiting for Luke to grow up.
This book was alright. Maybe I was expecting more from the book. It started slow, was way too predictable and as a result the end felt anti-climatic. I enjoyed the Western feel but I would have liked to see more of Ben dealing with the Lars family. I did enjoy the final fate of Orrin Gault, that twist was the one thing I didn't see coming. It was nice to see things from the Tusken perspective but I don't think the book went far enough into their culture. Overall it was a decent book, written well enough, easy to follow and get the gist of the characters but too predictable.
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