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"After
the rather unexpected ending of the previous book, The Uncertain
Path has the difficult task of supplying a satisfying conclusion
to the story of Melida/Daan. It doesn’t do too bad a job, but
sadly there are elements to this book that grate.
"There are two parallel storylines here. The first deals with
Qui-Gon’s attempts to track a mysterious intruder at the Jedi
Temple and the second deals with Obi-Wan’s attempts to assist the Young
with their plans to end the war that has ravaged their planet for
generations. The first storyline is simply a huge preface to another
story that is sure to come in the next volume and as such makes the
text feel a little disjointed when the stories flit between one
another. There is, of course, the obvious time spent examining Qui-Gon’s
feelings about Obi-Wan, but besides that, there little of
consequence, I felt, in this half of the book. It is well written,
of course, and Tahl is an intriguing character (although her droid
needs to go away and never come back) but it just felt like a huge
set up.
"The second section is where the real problems lie. It manages
to be simultaneously a hard look at the emotions and internal
conflicts that all adolescents face (albeit here with a distinctly
Star Wars backdrop) and yet contains some utterly preposterous plot
points. The worst for me has to be the thought of pre-pubescent
children setting up a government. There is no way that this would
happen: the whole thing is beyond ludicrous, since the maturity
which some of the characters are assigned by Watson is unbelievable
given their age. Certainly later on in the book they begin to
display the petulance one would expect in children of that age, but
it doesn’t change the fact that here we see children – young
children – taking on responsibilities that are far beyond what
they are capable of and (at least on the surface of things) coping
with it to begin with. I may be over-examining this, given that this
is a young reader’s novel, but I could not read the “council
meetings” without sever scepticism. I also had an issue later in
the book when the splintered Young turned on each other.
Whilst Watson does mention the unsavoury nature of events in her
text, I was more than a little repulsed by the casual way in which
young children fired blasters at each other. More could have been
done, I think, to emphasise the true horror of such a concept.
"Nevertheless, Obi-Wan’s emotional journey is relatively
well-handled, as one would expect from Watson, who seems to excel at
such things. In spite of this, I couldn’t like this book. There
were too many things that, as an adult reader, I couldn’t accept
in terms of believability."
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