Medstar I: Battle Surgeons & Medstar II: Jedi Healer

[Another audio book review.]

The Medstar novels are a welcome departure from the cookie cutter Clone Wars novels whose plots are usually about one or two Jedi trying to bring a wayward planet back under the wing of the Republic. In the Medstar novels, it’s almost immaterial who the enemy is or what the war is about. Although there is a Jedi in the story – padawan Barriss Offee, last seen in The Approaching Storm – she is immaterial as well. But you can’t have a Star Wars book with no Jedi, can you?

The Medstar novels revolve around a likeable ensemble cast of people brought together by the Clone Wars to Drongar, a backwater jungle planet where the Republic and the Separatists fight for control of the crops of bota, a rare medicinal plant.

The main character of the novels is Jos, a homesick battle surgeon whose strict upbringing makes him uncomfortable with the idea of becoming romantically involved with anyone other than a woman from his homeworld. This, of course, means he falls in love with his scrub nurse.

In addition to Jos and the Jedi there is Zan, a Zabrak surgeon who’s also talented classical musician (and you thought they just liked to break things), a homicidal admiral who’s dealing blackmarket goods to the Black Sun pirate organization, a Hutt supply sergeant (what genius thought that was a good idea?), a barfly Sullustan war correspondent looking for THE BIG STORY, a Teras Kasi martial artist bully who takes an instant disliking to Barriss, and, of course, there’s a spy/saboteur. The one mistake the author made in “casting” was to not include a clone trooper as one of the characters. The clones are just interchangeable pieces of flesh in the OR, unfortunately.

The plot of the Medstar novels isn’t unique, but M.A.S.H. in a Star Wars setting is a nice change of pace. There are no real surprises here. You know who’s going to die well before they bite the dust, because you recognize the archetypes. Nevertheless, I found myself wishing there was a Medstar III. The personable droid I-5 from Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter makes a reappearance here, and his story is unresolved. At the end of Medstar II he has recovered his wiped memories and he’s on his way back to Coruscant to fulfill the promise made to his former partner, Lorn, to protect his son, who would be a padawan in his early teens by now.

Because of the way this plotline has been left hanging, I think we can expect to see some novels covering the limbo area between Episodes III and IV. The more I think about it, this time period holds a lot of promise. Lots can be written about the early days of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. There are already two post-Episode III young adult books about Obi-Wan in hiding from the Emperor. If any of the other Jedi Council members remain alive after the Jedi Purge in Episode III, fans will want to know what happened to them too, especially if they have some noteworthy scenes in the movie (or actually get to freaking speak! Grrr!).

Also, it’s not a stretch to imagine that there could be some books forthcoming about the Skywalker twins as pre-teens, although Luke’s early life on Tatooine, as he mentioned in the movies, was pretty boring before those two droids came wandering into his life.