I, Jedi

By Michael A. Stackpole

A review by Don J'Bar

 

Well I have just completed I, Jedi for the second time. The novel is set about 11 years after Star Wars - A New Hope. It is one of the books about the start up of the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4.

One of the original students is Corran Horn, a Force sensitive pilot flying with Rogue Squadron and former Corellian Security officer, whose wife has been kidnapped. He realizes that to rescue her requires training in the Jedi way, so he enlists the help of Master Luke Skywalker.

Wanting to remain anonymous, at Luke Skywalker's urging, he changes his name to Keiran Halcyon, a great Corellian Jedi of the past. After many trials in the training arena, a long dead Sith Master exudes control of some of the Jedi Padawans, even getting Master Skywalker in a rather bad bind. The Lightside prevails and Horn leaves the Praxeum to strike out in search of his wife, joining a band of pirates with whom she is believed to be captured. Using his flying skills to win favour, and his CorSec skills to go undercover, Horn infiltrates the pirate band and returning to his Jedi heritage in the end, with the help of a few old friends, as well as a few new ones, rescues his wife.

Along the way to that rescue, however, he learns a great deal about what a Jedi is, and briefly even falls to the Dark Side, thinking that the end may justify the means. Luckily, he returns to the Light and all is again right with the Force. He also learns of a couple of different offshoots of the Jedi tradition and his place in it..............

The novel seems a bit slow moving at first, and I get a sense that it is only filler material. I mean, being happily married myself, I couldn't spend months training, if I knew my wife was in danger. I guess it works out in the long run, but...........

Later in the novel however, things really come together. There is excellent information on that greatest of Jedi abilities, making a lightsaber, and the different Force manifestations that came from certain "lines" of Jedi. If you have read Anzik's story "A Long, Long, Long Time Ago" you will see that it is referred to there as well. I am embarking on some writing along those lines myself. Now I have some of the background available.

Overall, it is worthy reading if you can get past the first bit of slow moving narrature. It is set in the first person, so you get a sense of what it is to be Jedi, the feelings, thoughts, etc.

I am going to give it three of four. Without the slow first third, it would have gotten the big four! So there you have it.

DonJ'Bar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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