Survivor's Quest

  This one kept me up reading longer then I should have for quite a few nights. :-) It was nice that the whole story revolved around Luke and Mara. (Being they are two of my favorite characters) It was much like Tatooine Ghost where Han and Leia were the center of the story and by what I read from Wookieepedia that it was meant to be like a counter book. One about one couple and the other, the other. While Tatooine Ghost was good of course it's hard to be put up against Timothy Zahn.

  I tired to buy this book off E-bay a little over a year ago and could not get my hands on it. Being a Zahn and a newer book, 2004, you either have a hard time getting one or be wiling to pay more for it then you would for others. As I've stated before I have decided to buy only Hardbacks if one was available. I was into Visions of the Future when I realized I did not have the next book on my list. AH! E-BAY TIME! I was not looking forward to that thought.

  Then I got lucky! On a trip to a flee market I came across a book seller that had Survivor's Quest and Splinter of the Minds Eye (another I was looking for)!!!! YES!!! What are the odds? Really, what are the odds?!

  Being written after the Prequels they could incorporate parts of the Prequels. For instance Mara and Luke run into Clone Wars Battle Droids among other things.
The one thing you realize is this is not THAT far in years from the Clone Wars and the fall of the Jedi but all this time Luke has been running around trying to find out whatever he can about them and greatly in question was were the Jedi allowed to marry... duh, anyone old enough to be his father would be able to tell him the Jedi didn't marry! (Yeah, I know, it's not like Star Wars is real, haha, really I'm saying this with a little bit of amusement cause it's the biggest flaw that I have come across. There is just no way to fix that flaw!)

   This book starts off about 3 years after Visions but the story picks right up where the other stopped. Luke and Mara are again called to the unknown regions. There they find out a ship belonging to the Old Republic and the people who once called Thrawn their own wishes for them to come and let them return it.
As always it took me a little while to get who was who straight. The following will have some spoilers so.... that's your warning ;-)
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  Ok, I sorta saw the discovery of survivors coming. I know there is also a prequel to this book to explain some stuff but what I didn't understand was they had an area to keep possible Jedi and another for proven ones... While they did come across the not sure children they never said if any real Jedi were being kept in the other area?!

 

Then there was Evlyn. So many seemed to already know she had the power but she was never placed in the watch area... why? If the Jedi were so feared why was she left alone this long? And poor Evlyn, I found no illustrations of her online :-/ The image of her in the hall leading the groups to the turbolifts was a strong one and I chose it for my fan art of this book. I hope I run into her in a book again! At first I didn't like her cause she came across sort of stuck up to me (not sure why but she did) but the longer she was around the the more I liked her.


  I gotta love Luke and Mara's wake up call.
"I Love You"

  Using dead bodies as puppets... um... disturbing... kind of clever.... but disturbing...

  OK, The whole deal with Luke wanting himself and Mara to take on the Vagaari on their own was ridiculous!... Just saying. It was kind of like... well, Luke did you do that just to get you light saber back? I mean... he had a hard time getting away from these Vagaari and that was partly with the help of Evlyn. By now he knows these Vagaari love bombs... they get there and discover bombs. He thought this was a sure deal? And MARA WENT ALONG WITH IT?! Ok, it was ridiculous.... but hey, makes for good reading none the less ;-) And Luke got his light saber back!
 

   Now we enter the New Jedi Era