Stuck at my parent's place during the June heatwaves, and with Clone Wars Gambit next on the list, I decided to reread Karen Traviss' adaptation of The Clone Wars (2008). When it was released, I felt it was a muscular, urgent telling of a piece of Star Wars media that was neither of those things. I've long felt that this, and No Prisoners, are two unrecognised gems of the EU.
Second time around? Well it is muscular - at 250 pages, this rockets through, and I really like how Traviss uses her signature epigraphs to propel through the parts of the story she's uninterested in exploring (the whole third act Padmé subplot gets condensed into two epigraphs, in a way that works). Traviss also does some good work trying to root TCW into the wider EU (ironic knowing what is to come) and, rather than trying to rescue the paper-thin plot and absurd premise of TCW, instead imbues a handful of the main players with some much-welcomed interiority.
Except cos it's Karen Traviss, we get some off-beam characterisation of existing characters, and some wild takes. Why is Anakin swearing all the time? Why does his internal monologue consistently refer to Obi-Wan as 'Kenobi', and what on earth is the editor doing here? Does Ventress genuinely believe her parents were 'innocent bystanders'? Does Dooku genuinely believe that Jango Fett was motivated by a sense that the Jedi Order was corrupt, and this was his primary motivation in providing his DNA for the clone army?! You can sense the desperation to commit a major act of character assassination on Obi-Wan here - perhaps the editor was up to something after all.
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