Kenobi - by John Jackson Miller
I highly enjoyed this book, and I wasn't necessarily expecting to. Why? Well, despite the title of this blog... I don't really enjoy Westerns all that much.
This book was a Western. It's about Ben Kenobi wandering out into a little patch of the west. There were Indians... um, I mean Sand People. There was a plucky widow shopkeeper, there were powerful ranch hands... you could have changed the names and set this in 1880s Wyoming.
And it was... just lovely.
The EU - No Planets or Species Were Harmed in the Production of This Book. The book, and its consequences were... small. You see just a little bit of how Obi-wan becomes Ben, that old Wizard. And it's understated. It's not a earth shattering or galaxy spanning affair. It was just a simple story set in the Star Wars Universe... with realistic characters acting in a realistic way. And this is something utterly, utterly refreshing.
The EU - A Western In Space? But Nathan Fillion isn't Ben Kenobi - I will admit that I am a Firefly fan... and so, what I will say is that this ended up having very much a Firefly sort of feel... almost what you could see happening if Book decided to exile himself. But just the gritty, on the edge, but getting on with getting on approach. It's the best of the Western genre, really, it is. And it was great fun.
The Bad - Intergalatic Expanded Name Dropping - Yes, I know that there is an extended universe. Yes, I know who several of these names are, like Kiera Holt, or A'Sharad Hett. And yes, I know they take up large sections of other times and places in the Star Wars Universe. But... did they have to be here? In this book? I mean, it wasn't terrible that they were here, but here you have such a close, tight book, just about this little out of the way place -- I don't like the random "must run to wookiepedia" sort of character dropping normally, but this stood out a bit more brashly, precisely because the rest of the book was so close and... local.
The Ugly - Nothing.
Seriously, there wasn't anything ugly about this book. I guess I could see how some people might not find a character to latch on to, but there's nothing that makes me say "ugh."
Just a solid book. This will be in the stack that I re-read.
Grade: A
