A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I started reading these books…

The Star Wars Expanded Universe is a big place, and one that’s easy to get lost in. To the extent that my bookshelf allows, every Tuesday I or another reviewer will be guiding you through the EU with (generally) chronologically placed reviews of Star Wars novels. Today I will be reviewing Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, a unique little book by Sean Stewart.

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous follows two very different Jedi apprentices with very different trials, their respective Masters, and legendary Jedi Master Yoda embark on a mission so secret that only one of them knows its true purpose: to seduce the infamous Count Dooku to return to the Jedi Order. The mission is far from easy, and not every Jedi is going to make it home… reported, even Yoda’s death is.

Dark Rendezvous really is a unique novel in a lot of ways. First of all, it’s the first novel in the history of Star Wars to refer to the title of Grand Master and possibly (aka, as far as I can remember without reading every novel written) the only novel to ever to refer to Yoda as such. Secondly, it’s the only novel I know of to focus primarily on a Jedi with less-than-average Force capability, or to feature such a character in a combat capacity. Finally, you’ve got Yoda.

Now that I’ve read Dark Rendezvous, I have two choices: I can change the way I’ve always looked at one of the classic characters of the Star Wars universe, Master Yoda himself, or I can change the way I look at canon. Don’t get me wrong- Sean Stewart’s Yoda is perfectly compatible with George Lucas’s Yoda. He’s just not Matthew Stover’s Yoda, or my Yoda. But the more I think about it, the more I think that this Yoda is as compatible with Stover’s as he is with Lucas’s.

What am I babbling about? Remember your first introduction to Yoda. No, he wasn’t sitting up in his poofy chair next to Mace Windu. No, he was trying to steal a flashlight from Artoo Detoo. “Mudhole? Slimey? My home, this is!”

This is Yoda. Is this Yoda’s act for trying a student’s patience? Or is Yoda really a mischievous little imp who doesn’t like droids but loves the swamp life and the food that can be found in it? That was the question plaguing me throughout this novel, and it made for some very interesting dynamics in the novel. Most if not all of the comedy relief, for example, is provided by Master Yoda himself. There were one or two moments where his actions led me to curl my lip in distaste, but mostly the unique and lighter view was a welcome experience. Still, I prefer my old view of the old Jedi.

Yoda redeems himself, though, because near the end of the novel the Yoda we know is there where it counts. He’s still providing comedy relief (”I want a rose!”), but it’s decidedly lighter against a decidedly darker atmosphere, and it really works. It was these darker scenes that cemented my acceptance of this Yoda, because it really lives up to who we know he is.

Beyond Dooku and Scout, we get a good deal at the inner workings of the Jedi Order. This isn’t just a Master and Padawan, as so many novels about Anakin and Obi-Wan are, nor is it about the Jedi Council ruling on everything. It’s about Padawans and younglings left in the Temple and the Masters that train them. We see the spectrum from self-righteous light to ideal Jedi to borderline dark, and we see the ideal we’re always striving toward. In this way, this is probably the most positive view of Yoda I’ve ever experienced, because we really can see his point of view. I feel I was able to get into the heads of every character in this novel, except for two.

What two could that possibly be? What two characters could be included, but remain so underdeveloped in the story that they’re the only ones I have no empathy for? Well, if I owned Outbound Flight, you’d have read my review of it and you would know. Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are notorious in this era for being roughly grabbed and shoved into every novel they could possibly appear in, usually as part of the myriad schemes of Darth Sidious (shout-out to James Luceno for eventually explaining Sidious’s motivation to bring Skywalker up at every opportunity). Their appearance could have been a major spoiler, but no, they serve absolutely no purpose in this novel. Except to make Count Dooku whine and complain, and I could have done without that, thanks.

While we’re at confusing or pointless plot points, the droids in general confused the hell out of me. Don’t get me wrong, I love droids in prominent positions in a novel. That said, we have one droid who’s apparently been waiting outside the temple for ten or more years without maintenance in perfect condition, and one who left the same planet some two hundred years ago, and just happened to fall in with the other so they could play dejarik for years on end? Um… what? The rest of their plot wouldn’t be so unbelievable, if I could just wrap my head around their origins and their convenient status as apparently the two deadliest droids alive. Some coincidence, huh?

There’s Yoda: Dark Rendezvous in a nutshell. It’s an interesting story, far more character than plot driven, and I’m definitely okay with that, because it gets from Point A to Point B and gets the plot taken care of. As long as you ignore the Chosen One and stuff like that. There’s some weird stuff, but it’s mostly justified and gives a very fleshed out experience, some darkness, but mostly light of the type that sharply contrasts the Republic Commando novels I read prior to this. While there are some issues, I would recommend this to the vast majority of readers.