Revan

SO I kind of decided I didn't want to read this one, because I like the KOTOR games so much, but at the same time I want to read the good non-canon / lore/ legends Star Wars books while waiting for my Chronological Star Wars Film & TV watching to reach the next canon book in the time-line. Quite a few people say this is one of the good ones...but not so many of the fans of the games, and hooo-boy, I can see why.
I've played KOTOR 1 & 2 many, many times, on many different games consoles and computers, over the years. I've played all ways, good, bad, and in between. I've romanced different characters, I've played them modded, I romance Kaiden in Mass Effect purely because he's voiced by Carth Onansi (well, by Raphael Sbarge, who voices show more both). My icon on gaming sites is often Bastilla, as a kick ass jedi lady. I'm a fan. This book, despite being called Revan; despite being written by Drew Karpyshyn, who usually Knows His Stuff; despite featuring Revan, Bastilla, The Exile, Canderous,, and T3-M4 - does not feel like it's a fan.
Revan doesn't feel like Revan, (and not just cause I prefer my Revan female) - he's all over the place, and at no point do you feel like he has much in the way of amazing power, or tbh much in the way of brains. Big dumb hero? Yeah, more of that. Bastilla - fantastic, powwerful, mysterious, complex role-maodel Bastilla? Well, I don't think this one could possibly be voiced by Jennifer Hale. Bastilla is sat at home waiting for her man, barefoot and pregnant or as a single mum being jealous of the Exile. I mean sheesh. Canderous is in it for a bit and yeah, I guess he's okay. Big dumb hero was never too complicated in the games either. T3 gets treated so poorly by the end of the book I'm not even going to talk about him. Carth, Juhani, Atton, Jolee, others are just forgotten, I guess Mission, Zaalbar and HK-47 get a passing mention, but literally one or two lines. There's no more where that came from, guys. Oh and The Exile, omg, prehaps Drew Karpyshyn hasn't played KOTOR 2? That's all I can assume.
Aside from that whole thing - the book is, hmm, okay. It starts well, and seems exciting (once you can recover from PointlessLittle WifeyBastilla, that is), but quickly becomes the quite good story of Lord Scourge, a sith whose path eventually connects with first Revan, and later The Exile (Meetra Surik). I quite liked his story, but it was nothing to do with the characters I expected. They turned up, did their thing, and were dealt with in one way or another. Apart from the couple of interludes with wifey, there was very little about them when NOT interacting with Lord Scourge, whereas we got all the history and backstory and side characters and locations etc - all the set dressing - for Lord Scourge's side of the story. I think calling the book SCOURGE and renaming the two jedi and their droid to be anyone else at all, would probably have made a much less annoying book. That might have made a 3 or 3.5 star review, but this is fairly lucky to be a 2 star. Now I have to try to find out, without spoilers, if the next Old Republic book is going to be worth me reading or not, or if I just jump ahead.
As others said before me and I foolishly failed to listen - if you love KOTOR, if you love Revan, the Exile, and Bastilla, - don't bother with this one. I wish I hadn't! show less

SO I kind of decided I didn't want to read this one, because I like the KOTOR games so much, but at the same time I want to read the good non-canon / lore/ legends Star Wars books while waiting for my Chronological Star Wars Film & TV watching to reach the next canon book in the time-line. Quite a few people say this is one of the good ones...but not so many of the fans of the games, and hooo-boy, I can see why.
I've played KOTOR 1 & 2 many, many times, on many different games consoles and computers, over the years. I've played all ways, good, bad, and in between. I've romanced different characters, I've played them modded, I romance Kaiden in Mass Effect purely because he's voiced by Carth Onansi (well, by Raphael Sbarge, who voices show more both). My icon on gaming sites is often Bastilla, as a kick ass jedi lady. I'm a fan. This book, despite being called Revan; despite being written by Drew Karpyshyn, who usually Knows His Stuff; despite featuring Revan, Bastilla, The Exile, Canderous,, and T3-M4 - does not feel like it's a fan.
Revan doesn't feel like Revan, (and not just cause I prefer my Revan female) - he's all over the place, and at no point do you feel like he has much in the way of amazing power, or tbh much in the way of brains. Big dumb hero? Yeah, more of that. Bastilla - fantastic, powwerful, mysterious, complex role-maodel Bastilla? Well, I don't think this one could possibly be voiced by Jennifer Hale. Bastilla is sat at home waiting for her man, barefoot and pregnant or as a single mum being jealous of the Exile. I mean sheesh. Canderous is in it for a bit and yeah, I guess he's okay. Big dumb hero was never too complicated in the games either. T3 gets treated so poorly by the end of the book I'm not even going to talk about him. Carth, Juhani, Atton, Jolee, others are just forgotten, I guess Mission, Zaalbar and HK-47 get a passing mention, but literally one or two lines. There's no more where that came from, guys. Oh and The Exile, omg, prehaps Drew Karpyshyn hasn't played KOTOR 2? That's all I can assume.
Aside from that whole thing - the book is, hmm, okay. It starts well, and seems exciting (once you can recover from PointlessLittle WifeyBastilla, that is), but quickly becomes the quite good story of Lord Scourge, a sith whose path eventually connects with first Revan, and later The Exile (Meetra Surik). I quite liked his story, but it was nothing to do with the characters I expected. They turned up, did their thing, and were dealt with in one way or another. Apart from the couple of interludes with wifey, there was very little about them when NOT interacting with Lord Scourge, whereas we got all the history and backstory and side characters and locations etc - all the set dressing - for Lord Scourge's side of the story. I think calling the book SCOURGE and renaming the two jedi and their droid to be anyone else at all, would probably have made a much less annoying book. That might have made a 3 or 3.5 star review, but this is fairly lucky to be a 2 star. Now I have to try to find out, without spoilers, if the next Old Republic book is going to be worth me reading or not, or if I just jump ahead.
As others said before me and I foolishly failed to listen - if you love KOTOR, if you love Revan, the Exile, and Bastilla, - don't bother with this one. I wish I hadn't! show less

I reviewed this book and other Star Wars ones on my blog:
The Real World According To Sam

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about this book. I decided to begin diving into the Star Wars Expanded Universe and this is currently one of the books that occurs earliest in the timeline (I'm waiting for Dawn of the Jedi to become available at my library). I borrowed this one as an e-book and blasted through it as best as I could. This was due to the gripping story that unravels in the book. I have NOT played the Knights of the Old Republic game, so I have NO prior knowledge of the characters or of Revan through any game or other format.

At first I had a bit of a hard time getting through the prologue because I honestly did not know anything show more about Revan before reading this book, so I had to catch up on some background with some quick internet searches in order to feel secure in my reading (thats just me personally, it does kind of summarize things but I wanted to solidfy the information better). I latched onto his character and that of Lord Scourge, both of whom are very interesting.

Revan and Scourge are on two separate paths, Revan seeking out his lost memories and Scourge trying to become stronger while being forced to sidestep into an arrangement with Darth Nyriss, a Sith on the Emperor's Council. The plots thicken as Revan goes farther into space and Scourge finds himself in plots against powerful figures, until their paths eventually converge.

I liked the characters, I liked the story and I found it largely enjoyable. I found it interesting how Scourge changes after encountering Revan, having a complete shift in his approach and mindset, or so it appeared to me. I enjoyed the action sequences, as they were easy for me to follow along with and visualize. I had a hard time trying to see how the final act was going to play out because it seemed to hit its highest point with only a few short chapters left. It seemed peculiar, but upon completing it I see why that occurred the way it did, sort of. The ending is the part I'm still trying to process and wrap my head around. I'm trying to decide how I feel about it and if it changes anything about the way I had been enjoying the book I'm not entirely satisfied, but I do understand it...sort of? I'm not totally satisfied, and I find it kind of tragic in the long run. I'm interested to see how decisions made by characters here will play out in the long run for the Star Wars timeline, for the future of other characters to come. I still think the ending felt overly rushed and that Revan's story shouldn't have ended this way, because he is such an epic character. My main complaint is that darn ending, because it felt disjointed from the rest of the story and was much more rushed than any other part of the book.

Overall I enjoyed this book and I was happy that I was able to get through it as quickly as I did. I liked many elements of it and the writing style, while not masterful, was enough to get me latched to everything that was happening. All in all I thought it was good and I'm glad I read it. I feel I'll have a better understanding for the Star Wars universe history once I get deeper into the EU. This book left me with a great respect for the character of Revan and I guess thats one of the coolest things the book had to offer, this character. I would be thrilled if there was ever a film made that involved the story of Revan (but I might change the ending, and NOT make this version of his story canon). show less

It's 2 years after the Jedi Civil War. Most of the Jedi are dead and the Republic has to recover from the devastating war. With Revan still recovering from the loss of his memories, he soon begins having a repeating dream of a storm-covered world. Revan soon has difficulty sleeping and seeks answers. The next day, Revan travels to a small cantina to meet an old friend. Canderous Ordo is a Mandalorian warrior from the Mandalorian clan Ordo. Canderous tells Revan of a search for the mask of Mandalore that the clans are conducting. Mandalore was the warrior ruler of the Mandalorians. His mask is like a Mandalorian crown. Whoever claims it is the new Mandalore. Revan and Canderous travel to Rekkiad, the barren ice planet where Revan show more supposedly hid the mask before the loss of his memories. There, Canderous meets his friends and family from Clan Ordo. Revan must hide his identity as a Jedi, as most Mandalorians are not fond of the Jedi, due to the war between the Jedi and the Mandalorians that led to the destruction of the majority of the clans. What results is Canderous becoming the next Mandalore and the reunification of the clans. Now Revan begins his search for the storm-covered world. As always with a book, the real question is not will he find it, but will he be prepared for what is there amongst the storms and darkness?

Finally, a book about Revan! Revan was my favorite Star Wars character, simply because of how strong and wise he was. This was a man who knew both the light and dark sides of the force had their own strengths and weaknesses, as he walked both of them. He drew on his emotions for power, yet always used them for protecting the weak and innocent. This is why I love this book by Drew Karpyshyn. It shows both of Revan's sides, his good and his bad. We never saw both when we played the games about him, only the good or the bad. This was a better look on the character's story. Easily one of my favorite books. show less

The story of Raven post the end of KOTOR and sets up events in The Old Republic MMORPG. Really you have to play this after you've played KOTOR or KOTOR2 to appreciate it, not sure if you need to play The Old Republic... probably helpful to have a good knowledge of some of the lore. Without spoiling too much of the story, Raven starts to have dreams of what happened when he went to the Outer Rim prior to KOTOR and seeks out the truth of what happened to him and Malek, discovering a new enemy the Republic must face, setting up the events of TOR.

All in all, a fun book, not amazing, not deep, but fun. If you're a Star Wars fan and enjoy the old Legends EU, it's worth reading. It's inspired me to really want to play at least the story of show more The Old Republic through. show less

Firstly I definitely don't envy Drew in taking on this novel (even with his work on the KOTOR games) Revan is a huge fan favourite and tough territory. Before reading this book the expectations were huge, I mean it's called Revan. It'd better be good!

Starting very differently than I expected, this book doesn't just focus on Revan but also a Sith Lord named Scourge. Scourge is hell bent on serving the Emperor who is currently preparing the secret with civilisation for war. Scourge was a great character and I loved seeing his rage get him into awkward moments at times as he tended to act first and think second. His later curiosity of Revan was also refreshing. By the end of the book I had a much greater appreciation for Scourge as he show more became more of 3D character.

Otherwise the majority of the book obviously focused on Revan, the once Jedi, turned Sith Lord, turned Jedi. Well he's kind of a Jedi.

I love the idea of the character Revan and for the most part it was really interesting as he tried to piece together his memory with Canderous at his side. But at times his character was a bit weak. Probably due to there not being much personality to draw from in the game. His relationship with Bastilla seemed not quite real and there's the fact that he still doesn't have a name. Somehow Bastilla calling him just Revan is kinda weird.

With that a side this was a fantastically quick read. The pace moved well and the variety of characters was refreshing. Drew is a master at creating great Sith characters and no one should be disappointed at the amount of page time given to Scourge. He's a great character and the way his fate intertwined with Revan is chilling. show less

7 stars: Good

From the back cover: Hero, Traitor, conqueror, villain, savior - the man called Revan has been all of these. He left Coruscant a Jedi, on a mission to defeat the Mandalorians. He returned, a Sith disciple, bent on destroying the Republic. The Jedi Council gave Revan his life back, but the price of redemption was the loss of his memories. All that's left are nightmares - and deep, abiding fear. What happened beyond the Outer Rim that Revan can't quite remember or entirely forget? One thing he's certain of: Something dark is plotting to destroy the very existence of the Republic. With no idea how to identify the threat, let alone stop it, Revan may be doomed to fail. For he's never faced a more powerful and diabolic enemy. show more But only death can stop him from trying.

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The first two thirds of the book alternates chapters, between Revan, our now Jedi, and Scourge, a Sith. For much of the time you wonder where and how they will meet as the stories seem completely independent, Ultimately they do meet up, and the last third of the book their storyline is together. I ultimately found the middle third likely the best. The first sections, with a long trip to find Mandalore's mask, is utterly superfluous to the story. While it was well done and readable, it doesn't move the plot forward at all, and barely the character. I do wonder what it was there, except perhap to introduce Canderous as the Mandalore? Tell us more about Mandalore culture? As this is a "Legends" book and written long before the animated series, its hard to judge that. Once Revan meets up with Darth Nyriss it gets more interesting. Is Scourge good? Bad? What about Sechel? How will Revan end up? While the last third moved quickly for me, it also was very "samey" -- another emperor who has lived for a thousand years who wants to destroy everything. Have we not heard this before? I will say that the ending was brave. SPOILER SPACE. Revan ends up essentially dead -- virtually so, but his energy being used in stasis by the emperor on, to feed on. Its said that Revan was like this for decades, his son he never knew was able to grow up not knowing war due to Revan's influence with the Emperor, etc. It strikes me like Rogue One, wherein our "hero" is dead (or virtually) at the end. There is no sequel book, so I assume this is true throughout. I appreciate that type of ending. Scourge... no surprise. Meetra -- ok character. Emperor -- too similar to Palpatine (though even worse).

Good. I read it almost entirely in a weekend. But not amazing. show less