This book is deserving of far more attention then I believe it has gotten, I compare it to favorably to Path of Destruction - a novel that came out of nowhere and wound up being one of my favorite reads of that year.

Here are just some hints of what you can expect in this novel:
 -  Do you not like Traviss’ take on clones, etc? Miller’s is completely different.
 -  Are you annoyed that The Clone Wars is stomping all over continuity? Miller actually attempts to fit this in place.
 -  Did you ever want to see the reactions of some of these characters (Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin - badly wounded you’ll remember, Padme) to the events of “Attack of the Clones”? Miller does this too.
 -  Want to see what happened in between that battle on Genosis and Anakin/Padme’s wedding? It’s here.
 -  Want to see Palpatine drive a hovercar with uneasy passengers Padme and Bail? Yup.
 -  Want to have some scenes giving you Palpatine/Sidious’ thoughts? That’s here.
 -  How about a sparring match between Obi-Wan and Anakin witnessed by a dozen Padawans (including Ashoka)? Hell yeah.

This book has given me things I didn’t even realize I wanted. Anyone put off by the TV series or the other books in this series, owes themselves to give Wild Space a try.

It is an amusing and insightful novel. I loved getting into the minds of some of the characters you normally never get; Sidious/Palpatine, Bail, Mace, and Yoda. Palpatine actually comes across as a human being in some of these moments, which is not to detract from the fact that the reader is often also shown inside his thoughts as he constantly plots and adjusts and ‘pretends’ to have real emotions.

It takes a little while for Wild Space to get to the main plot - all the scenes at the beginning of the novel are so well written that I barely noticed. But eventually we get to it, and it kind of winds up being a ‘buddy movie’ for Obi-Wan and Bail - the two partners who are forced together on a mission to a planet in Wild Space. They start off not really liking each other, but respect and learn to be friends by the end of the story. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Obi-Wan and Bail’s animosity towards each other at first. Sometimes it grated a bit, and yet, I also found it to be fairly realistic. Obi-Wan doesn’t trust Bail because he’s a politician, Bail doesn’t really understand the Jedi - so they don’t start at a point where they can relate to each other. But their growth into friendship is organic, not forced, and even if no one else ever touches these two again, the reader understands how Bail and Obi-Wan came to be working together in RotS and why Leia knows of Obi-Wan from her adopted father in ANH.

The Sith have a lot of freaking planets - that said, I liked what the author did with it here. The planet itself was a Jedi trap. This was no easy journey through for our heroes through the wilds of this planet; these guys barely survived and as a reader I could see how hard it had been.

I can’t think of a book that’s more newbie friendly than Wild Space that’s been released any time recently. With the exception of knowing that Anakin got a padawan (and that’s still mentioned somewhere in the first few chapters) this book was made for people who have only seen the movies. That said, there are enough small linkages to the greater EU to captivate any hard core fan. In all, I really loved Wild Space and can’t wait to see Miller’s next two Clone Wars novels. If they’re anthing like this one, we’re all in for a treat.