THE APPROACHING
STORM (STAR WARS)
By Alan Dean Foster
Century (Random House) - February 2002
ISBN 0712621865 - Hardback
Movie Tie-In/SF
Reviewed by: Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
Buy
a US || UK
Copy
Following on a few years after The Phantom Menace, this novel can be seen
as a prequel to the next film (to be called Star Wars: Episode II Attack
of the Clones) and shows us the young Anakin a few years later as a young,
discontented man. He and his master Obi-Wan Kenobi team up with female
Jedi Master Luminara Unduli and her Padawan Barriss Offee on a daring
mission to help save the Republic. Desert world Ansion wants to join the
secessionist movement but it is in such a strategic position that this
would mean disaster. Their task is to ally the city dwellers that want
to expand their territories with the fiercely independent nomads and come
to a solution that will satisfy everyone. But many factions want them
to fail and they are really going to have their work cut out for them.
This is a linear but exciting story as the four race across the desert
to find the nomads and foil their enemies at every turn. To its detriment,
we have yet another race of desert nomads which have populated SF novels
since the publication of Dune and these don't seem to truly have much
to mark them out from all the others and the introduction of the cute
furry Gwurrans who are so much like the Ewoks seems unnecessary. The brooding
and unhappy Anakin's problems seem to mainly stem from the fact that he
has never stopped missing his mother and he seems to be biding his time,
presumably waiting to fill this void by turning to the Dark Side at the
first opportunity. If you want lots of action and colorful entertainment
then this will please - the only time this fast story flags is when the
cute furry folk are being cute and furry - but the whole seems curiously
thin as opposed to the films.
|