Jedi Healer, by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry is the second and last of the Medstar duology. Good riddance. This book felt like a long and convoluted second half of a single volume. In the first book, titled Battle Surgeons, readers were introduced to a few, unknown characters who were part of a medical unit helping clone soldiers on a remote planet called Drongar.The first novel primarily set up the characters, including Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee, who had been sent to Drongar to help heal people, and as a final test to her becoming a Jedi Knight. The other character prominent character introduced is Jos Vandar, a surgeon who fans will come to either love or hate throughout the series.Though Battle Surgeons was fairly successful in revealing an interesting story, Jedi Healer fails on almost every level to deliver a satisfying conclusion. The only thing it has in its favor is a bit of humor, and the fact that it manages to tell a story not seen in the Clone Wars so far: a battle of spirit on an out-of-the-way planet, and does so without any major characters.The Medstar duology truly should have been one book, and in fact, shouldn’t have been published to begin with; there are simply too many problems in this series. For instance, early in the novel, we are told that Jos Vandar is Corellian. Strange, since the first book does a pretty good job of telling readers how his culture looks down very harshly on being involved with people not from his planet. Therefore, readers begin to assume his love interest, Tolk, is either not human at all, or that Jos is from a strange, secluded planet. Not so if he’s from Corellia. But if that culture frowns on the prospect of people marrying from other cultures, why didn’t Han Solo have a problem with getting involved with Leia in the Original Trilogy, or in the subsequent books? Why was it never mentioned? To the authors’ credit, later in the book, there’s talk of how attitudes on Corellia are changing but it comes far too late to keep the reader from being helplessly confused.This book was also horribly proof-read--much like this review--and spelling mistakes, grammar errors, and many other problems mar this book throughout. As if the problem with Corellians being ostracized marrying "eksters" isn’t bad enough, it’s even worse when they refer to the same thing as "eskers" several times. Make up your mind please. (Note to LucasBooks and Del Rey Editors: Microsoft Word has an excellent feature called ‘Find & Replace’ I would also turn off the proofreading markup features and try reading these manuscripts. You’d catch more errors that way.) Star Wars books have been getting progressively worse about these types of errors lately, and it’s embarrassing to see how poorly some of these books read.As if proofreading mistakes weren’t enough to drive the reader crazy, many of our modern-day sayings and phrases are translated and inserted into Jedi Healer. In fact, the language rating of this novel would have to be at least PG-13. After all, "no mopek" isn’t going to fool anybody. A few ‘curse’ words won’t bother some people, but it just sounds dumb to see "getting his drive tubes scoured," when we know what they mean. It’s okay every now and then, but not as often as this book parades these phrases around.Among the other problems in this book, and quite possibly the most frustrating: it has a see-through plot. Near the end of Battle Surgeons, the authors set up the fact that there’s a spy in the midst of the characters introduced. Readers will probably begin to suspect a particular character as the spy, and will most likely be correct. Throughout most of Jedi Healer, Reaves and Perry try to keep a lot of drama going on this fact, hoping that it will pay off at the ‘reveal’ near the end. However, they do very little to draw guilt away from the character most readers should be suspicious of. Granted, the authors try to distract the reader, in poor fashion and with more embarrassing, overlooked mistakes, but the story is so cliché that it fails to excite. Readers may doubt their assumptions once or twice, but when the Reveal finally happens, it’s entirely too short, and extremely un-gratifying. It’s not surprising at all; downright disappointing is more like it.Though the book suffers through many hurdles, it does have its high points. Unfortunately, those high points are still depressingly low. A couple of fairly noteworthy events are the appearance of a Republic Star Destroyer, and a mention of the Modal Nodes--the band playing in the cantina in A New Hope. Another fascinating--if not confusing--point talks about Republic weapon tests of what we can only assume is the Death Star.Overall, the book tries to deliver a story, but instead reveals itself for what it truly is: a commercial attempt to extort the Star Wars franchise in order to elicit fans to buy the latest offering. Del Rey knows that fans will buy it if it says Star Wars. It’s sad that they would use that to promote this Medstar duology. Rather than write books around a good story, they tried to wrap an ill-conceived story around two books, to make money not just once, but twice. What easily could have been a single volume was instead split into two. Twice the page count, twice the profit, right? Or was it simply because there were two authors? Either way, these books could have never seen the light of a word processor, and it probably would have been for the better.Unless you’re a die-hard fan, who doesn’t need the extra $14 USD, skip ‘em.
Reviewed in 2005 at gs.designbymk.comWith the release of The Revenge Of The Sith growing ever nearer I was encouraged to appease the anticipation with some Clone Wars reading. I find many of the extended universe books to be superbly intriguing, especially when considering them in relation to the Star Wars timeline. This time I picked up the Medstar duology, Battle Surgeons and Jedi Healer.By far, the best part of these books are the characters. They have been well developed despite the fact that all of the characters have their debut in this duology. No doubt it is also their fifteen minutes of fame, so to speak, because the next books on the timeline return to more familiar characters, which is a real shame. You can’t help but wonder what happens to padawan Barriss Offee, as well as the other detailed and emotionally developed characters.One year prior to Episode III, Barriss Offee arrives on Drongar, a rim planet, to assist one of the Republic’s medical units, after all she is a healer. In the midst of her and the other lead medical staff is a spy, aiding the separatists and sabotaging the unit. There is little sword play and more physiological fights and mystery. Not the typical Star Wars book, yet it is intriguing.One technical note about the writing style. There are just too many ellipses and em dashes. Sometimes it’s the over use of exclamation marks. Many a paragraph end like…
What do You think about Jedi Healer (Star Wars: Clone Wars, #5) (2004)?
It was good...really good, until we got to the climax. One moment the force dome is collapsing and both good and bad guys are at risk, the next a point-of-view characters is regaining consciousness in orbit. When he asks what happened, they point to a Republic Star Destroyer in orbit near them. No, it doesn't work. Our Jedi had had her epiphany, but she needed to do something! The MASH--oops, RMSU unit was being overrun. A battleship in orbit doesn't get the medic's bacon out of the fire. What a
—Ron
Suite aux événements qui se sont produits dans le premier tome, la vie reprends son cours pour les médecins de guerre et les Jedi guérisseurs. Cependant, Barriss Offee, la padawan, entreprend de retrouver l'espion qui leur a fait tant de tords.Ce roman est la suite directe du premier tome. Il y a une semaine d’intervalle entre les deux. L'action se concentre beaucoup plus sur Barriss Offee et sa quête du coupable. Ce roman est donc du même calibre que le premier tome et offre les mêmes qualités. C'est très bien d'avoir un autre point de vu sur la Guerre des Clones.
—Yves
Before I begin I should probably point something out, it's been awhile since I've read part 1 of tis particular two book series. Like 11 years. But while I still remembered a couple essential point of the main plot and the B plot, the author does do a good job of reminding the reader, or if they missed part one for some reason, on who is who and what happened previously. So extra points there.As for the story itself, it takes place in the middle of the clone Wars and follows Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee, after the events of the first book, is told to remain in this Rimsoo unit (think a MASH type outfit) as she is unaware that there is still trouble here. The planet in particular has no strategic value what so over, outside of a plant called Bota that has almost unlimited medical and healing uses. There is still a spy, or two, in their midst. And Offee accidentally discovers a side effect that could affect the jedi in a huge way. There are a couple of side plots that are pretty enjoyable as well. The main one being one of the Doctor who planet and culture looks down upon, very hard, about marriage to an off worlder, and he fell nhard for one. There also a smaller plot about Sullistan reporter trying to get a droid that lost most of it's memory drunk.The story in of itself is alright, it's doesn't really do anything to brave with the characters. Although I do think they tried a bit too hard to make this particular alien setting (in a galaxy far, far away) a little too familar in a way. Somethings fit in the Star wars universe, like a Wookiee ripping an arm off a droid after losing a game. But there were a couple of things that made me groan. Like a reference to children game called "tipping sticks" which sounds a whole lot like dominoes. and I'm pretty sure there was a reference that, while not called this in the book it had a different name, was a reference to the wizard of Oz.If you read the first book and like some of the characters involved, then I would say pick this one up as well.
—Jim
