Reviews

Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars by Sam Maggs

aves76's review against another edition

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adventurous funny tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

cosmicrain's review against another edition

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2.0

ROMANCE DOESN’T WORK IN STAR WARS!!!

There’s a reason why Episode 2 is the worst in the prequel trilogy. There’s a reason we never saw Han & Leia be romantic in the original or sequel trilogy.

Gay or Straight, romance doesn’t work in Star Wars, especially when one of the characters is the most obnoxiously written character ever. My personal theory is that the author wrote herself into her work, which is why we have the character Fret.

By the way, you know what doesn’t work in Star Wars. LOVE TRIANGLES. Finishing this book was the biggest chore I’ve had to endure recently.

The book starts off great with lots of promise, and then the character Fret shows up, and it all goes down hill really with convoluted plot devices and even questionable decisions from our heroes.

I didn’t even know who Sam Maggs was when I read this, and I only looked her up after I was forcing myself to get halfway through this book. What is one of Sam Maggs goals? To always have some LGBT representation in her work. Always. To some people, it’s great. For some people, they don’t like it.

How do I feel about it? Unnecessary. Completely unnecessary in a Star Wars novel. I’m not reading Star Wars for romance or sex; I’m reading it because I want to read about the wars in the stars!!

Literally only read this because I’m going to play Jedi Survivor, and I was excited to read it. Thank God I purchased this from a Kindle sale, because I would’ve really hated paying full price for this less than mediocre adventure with a shoehorned lesbian romance.

Why two stars? It gets 1 star for being Star Wars, and 1 star for having maybe 2 or 3 good scenes in this unnecessary adventure in Star Wars. I pray Disney doesn’t invite Sam Maggs back for anything related to Star Wars.

beerd1's review against another edition

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5.0

Oh it was good, it was so good, also it was gay, so gay, in the very best way. It enforced my love of BD-1 even more strongly, which I didn’t think was possible and has me hoping for a live action appearance of Cal… also, so so excited for Survivor now.

jerrysaywhaaa's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

This was such a poorly written book, I can’t tell if the author thought the audience was dumb, or they themselves are just dumb. It feels so slow paced because you spend so much time during the action inside the character’s heads hearing their every thought. I also hated the third person limited narrative that would randomly switch which character’s mind they were in. It even made me kind of hate the characters too, especially since there’s little to no character development at all. It really felt like this book was just a bad knock off of Rebels. Maybe if I knew more about the Jedi video games, then I would have liked this book better (but I doubt it). 

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spooky_steven's review against another edition

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2.0

This was…really mixed. The romance (and new character) was awful & poorly written but the stuff outside of it was *ok* I guess. The plot was really weak & badly paced but the development for Mantis crew (especially Merrin) was ok.

topperfalkon's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I think Battle Scars suffers from being a relatively unimportant bridging novel between both Jedi games, whilst apparently simultaneously having the brief of assuming the reader hasn't played the games. As a result, the start and parts throughout the rest of the books are throwbacks to the first game often with some additional clarification/lore thrown in, which makes the going hard at times.

I was also expecting the book to tie more closely into the state the second game begins with, but actually it seems like Lucasfilm played that story close to their chest, so whilst there's some character development that may or may not have influenced the characters in the second game, the book ends up playing out like the Mantis crew just on one particular mission, rather than a connective narrative between the two games.

Most of the crew do develop from the first game, but mostly the focus is on Merrin, who gets a canonical queer romance storyline that probably would have killed EA if it ever made it into a game. It's overly fawning with a bond based on survivorship, which is a good thematic hook but gets a bit too full-on and repetitive at times without really bringing the story forwards.

I don't feel any of this is the author's fault, and the story picks up once we get into the second act, but having played Jedi: Survivor before reading this, I was hoping for a bit more of a bridge in that character transition.


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idkhow2ratebooks's review against another edition

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I’ll return to it someday, just never caught my eye i guess.

jdsterkin's review against another edition

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1.0

Maggs’ prose reads like middle school era Tumblr fanfiction, and reduces one of the pre-existing characters into a sex toy for her OC. It is worth neither your time or money.

5lastofhisname's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

watermelanie's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75