The Cestus Deception

This novel was a bit of a disappointment, mainly because a brother wrote it and he’s (supposedly) a martial artist and I expected something a little different. But the plot is the same as essentially every other Clone Wars novel – two Jedi are sent to God-forsaken planet [insert name] to keep it from falling into the hands of the Separatists. This time it’s Obi-Wan and Kit Fisto who are sent to the planet Ord Cestus to stop its government from selling Force-sensitive “Jedi Killer” hybrid droids to the Separatists.

Kit, in the brief time he was on the screen in AOTC, seems liked like he would be a bit of a smart ass and a joker, but in this novel he seems to be a bit impatient and he has a bit of a temper. You know, the more Jedi I see, the more it looks like impulsive warrior Jedi (Qui-Gon, Nejaa, Kit, Anakin) are more common than emotionally in control Jedi (Mace, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Shaak-Ti).

The one different thing in this novel is the POV shift to clone trooper commander A-98, who calls himself “Nate.” He ends up working with Sheeka, a (black?) woman who was a lover of Jango Fett. Though she knows that Nate isn’t Jango, she still influences Nate to want to be more than just a clone. As his personality starts to blossom, Nate starts calling himself “Jangotat.” The slow build up of the relationship is handled so much better than relationship between the two airheads in Jedi Trial.

Obi-Wan is, as usual, handled badly. He must be really hard to write for. Not only is he boring here, he gets involved with Kit in faking a video to fool the government of the planet into siding with the Republic. When he gets busted because of a hidden camera (ouch!), he goes underground and essentially becomes a terrorist – blowing up droid factories and such. I guess it’s nice to see that Obi-Wan can be involved in half-assed schemes with no Anakin around to blame.

Asajj Ventress, one of Dooku’s minions, makes an appearance here, but she is much better in Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, which I will talk about later.