By Emma Mieko Candon

This is one of three books (there others are an Amazon Kindle freebie and a Rowan Williams Book) that I started in 2021 and will likely finish early in January….

I had a hard time at the beginning of this book, because of the writing. A friend described the prose at the start like this – “Star Wars “Ronin” reads like it was written in another language and then made into English with Google Translate.” However, it gets better as it goes, as the writer seems to drop some of the more “epic samurai poetry” type writing, and becomes more prose.

Also, the story got considerably better in the final third or so. The book opens with the events depicted in the Star Wars Visions episode “The Duel”. Imagine if George Lucas’ original samurai movie influences were in the foreground, Jedi and Sith were samurais and the protagonist is a ronin….and the big difference is that they now fight with lightsabers.

The book begins with the events depicted in the episode of Visions…and then there is the twist. I won’t spoil it. I thought the middle part, where the various characters are doing their missions, each with their own secrets, drug. There comes a moment where the intrigue starts working and then the characters motivations come into play, and the various plot threads come together and it really works. So, a recommend, with the caveat that it took me a while to fully engage with it.

334 Pages

3.75/5