by Patrick O’Brian

What in the world possessed me to read yet another book about a bunch of British guys on a ship (the Royal Navy) in the late 18th century, immediately after reading an edition of Joseph Conrad’s short story, “The Secret Sharer” (complete with representative works of critical essays), that’s also about a bunch of British guys on a ship (the merchant marine) in the late 19th century, which I absolutely hated?

This: last November I saw the DVD, Master and Commander starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, and loved it. (Both also starred in A Beautiful Mind.) Brian told me that our brother-in-law is a fan of Patrick O’Brian’s novels, and since I thought the movie was so awesome, then certainly the book must be even better. Because they usually are, right? Wrong!

Novels, because they aren’t limited to about 2 hours of film time, are far richer and offer background that is cut from the movies. In this case, we learn how Captain Jack Aubrey of the HMS Sophie and Doctor Stephen Maturin become friends. We have the pleasure of reading how Aubrey receives command of the Sophie while grounded in Minorca, and prepares her to set sail.

But instead of receiving orders to pursue and capture a French Naval ship and the setbacks and near misses and heroic battles wonderfully portrayed in full, Hollywood splendor, the Sophie only takes part in several skirmishes, none of which are…all that. About halfway through, the book was a surefire way for me to get to sleep and yet I continued doggedly, waiting for a full-scale battle only to reach an anticlimactic ending.

However, Aubrey and Maturin are well-rounded characters, neither of whom are perfect, which makes Aubrey, to me, especially endearing. If you have an elementary knowledge of Spanish and French you’ll either cringe or laugh at the way he horribly mangles both, using words from each language — plus English — when communicating with non-British characters.

The language O’Brian uses is mind-boggling — he really knows his way around a sloop and more than merely peppers the narrative with “mizzen” here and “topgallantsails” there, whatever those are. You get the full jargon and yet, even though I had no idea what the Sophie’s crew was doing at certain times, the story is so character-driven that it didn’t matter. For all I know, a “poop-deck” is how sailors referred to the ship’s litter box, since it was a long-standing tradition to have a ship’s cat for rodent control and crew morale.

Master and Commander is the first in a series of Aubrey/Maturin novels and although I was a little disappointed, now that I know what to expect, I look forward to reading the next one.

I’m not going to review every single Jedi Apprentice book, but I do recommend this series to anyone who’s a fan of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s. I’m a sucker for backstories, so of course I was sucked in.

The series begins when Obi-Wan’s 13, the age at which most young Jedi have already been chosen to be a Padawan. Although the Jedi Apprentice series is for young readers (ages 9 – 12), Jude Watson well conveys young Obi-Wan’s insecurities: about whether or not he’ll become an apprentice; if Qui-Gon Jinn, who we all know chooses him, approves of him; if he’s doing well enough — emotions most teenagers feel, including teenage crushes(!), which is something all adults can relate to and makes this series worth reading.

This last volume ends with a 17-year-old Obi-Wan about to graduate from “Jedi high school” and to embark on his journey, still with Qui-Gon, to “Jedi college,” where he’ll go through his trials and if successful, become a Jedi Knight.

by Lilian Jackson Braun
…or, “The Author Who Didn’t Write the Ending.” Yeah, yeah — I’m reading “fluff” books because number one, I’m a sucker for books that have cats in them and two, that’s what ECT does to your brain — makes it hard to read literary fiction.

Actually, I’ve been re-reading The Cat Who… series because I have a bunch that I haven’t read yet and because of the ECT, couldn’t remember exactly how Qwill got Koko, etc.

If you aren’t familiar with this series, the first three volumes were written in the 60’s, and let me tell you — they were pretty risqué for their time. For example, a husky female metal sculptor named Butchy Bolton? Braun didn’t publish her fourth volume until the ’80s because: “The rising mystery author disappeared from the publishing scene for 18 years. The blame came from the fact that mystery novels were starting to focus on sex, violence, and foul language, and Braun’s light-hearted books were not welcome in this new territory.” (Lillian Jackson Braun) Personally, I think this series is now written by ghost writers. I mean, the woman was born in 1913, which would make her like, 93 or 94 now and she’s still publishing! More power to her, I guess.

OK, on to this particular book. Qwilleran and his cats leave their country home “400 miles north of everywhere” to sublet an apartment “Down Below,” (the city) in order to save a historic building from being torn down by developers. A preservation committee, on which some old friends of his are members, are the ones who ask him to make the trip. Not only did the plot plod along, we never find out what actually happens to the building at the end of the story! Will it be restored? Will it be torn down and gentrified with the rest of the neighborhood? WTF? Come on, Lillian — you can do better than that!

by Jude Watson

Although this is a kids’ book, it’s pretty good. Jude Watson also wrote the Jedi Apprentice (that had young Obi-Wan) and Jedi Quest (with young Anakin) series. This is the fourth book in this series and takes place after Episode III. Ferus Olin, who’s an adult character and was a Padawan with Anakin during JQ, ended up leaving the Order. Now that there aren’t any Jedi left, he’s using what Jedi abilities he still has to try and help people escape Imperial tyranny.

by Aaron Allston

Here comes another Star War. Betrayal is the first of a nine-book series called Legacy of the Force. The rest of the volumes will be published between August 2006 through 2008.

I would have liked this a lot better if there wasn’t too much going on. Although the central figure is Jacen Solo, all the other events surrounding his path are also important. Thus, the story, and by extension the readers, end up planet hopping all over the galaxy. In fact, that’s how Allston divides up subsections of each chapter — by where they take place. For example, the first chapter starts with something happening on Coruscant, then there’s a transition to something taking place on Adumar, etc. It’s easy to get lost even if you’re familiar with the SW universe.

Although there are numerous subplots — all of which are very good — I wanted to be able to read more about the characters in those parts of the story. Since the next book will be written by a different author, I hope we’ll still get to see some of these minor characters because they’re interesting.

It isn’t necessary to have read every single book/comic that takes place between Episode VI and Betrayal, but I highly recommend that people read The Corellian Trilogy first, which includes Ambush at Corellia, Assault on Selonia, and Showdown at Centerpoint.