Review of
Queen's Peril
Published:
June 2020
Reviewer Rating:
Avg User Rating:
(3.88)
Watching the Phantom Meance, I would never have thought the Handmaidens would have turned out to be some of the most interesting pre-clone wars characters. As a companion to Queen’s Shadow, or vice versa, since that comes after, this book does a really good job of fleshing out their story and how they helped make Padme into the force she is for the prequals.
I liked seeing the girls get to know each other and fashion themselves into the single working unit that we see in Queen’s Shadow. I also liked the little pieces of inner conflict we got to see. It made them all seem so much more real and fleshed out.
My only real complaint is that the story should have stayed with the Queen and her handmaidens. The diversions to Panaka and Palpatine were okay, since they were continuations of pieces of the overall narrative, but the small digressions to Obi-Wan, Shimi, and Darth Maul added nothing to the narrative. Not only were they a distraction from what was being told, they didn’t actually help anyone. Their sections didn’t add enough for someone who hadn’t seen the movie, and they added nothing for someone who had. They ended up just being wasted space in the novel, serving only to break pacing.
The only other complaint is that the first half was well paced, the second half was rushed as it pushed through the events of the Phantom Menace. I’m sure it was that the author didn’t want to repeate to much of what we’d already seen, but Johnston had been able to put us with members of the handmaidens who weren’t on screen when the story did dip into events of the movie, so that shouldn’t have been an issue. What we are left with is a second half that felt rushed and made the overall book weaker.
To be clear, I enjoyed this novel, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if the second half hadn’t skipped through so much, and given us the same time with the characters that we got in the first half. Sadly, Johnston took a 5 star idea and watered it down into 4 stars
I liked seeing the girls get to know each other and fashion themselves into the single working unit that we see in Queen’s Shadow. I also liked the little pieces of inner conflict we got to see. It made them all seem so much more real and fleshed out.
My only real complaint is that the story should have stayed with the Queen and her handmaidens. The diversions to Panaka and Palpatine were okay, since they were continuations of pieces of the overall narrative, but the small digressions to Obi-Wan, Shimi, and Darth Maul added nothing to the narrative. Not only were they a distraction from what was being told, they didn’t actually help anyone. Their sections didn’t add enough for someone who hadn’t seen the movie, and they added nothing for someone who had. They ended up just being wasted space in the novel, serving only to break pacing.
The only other complaint is that the first half was well paced, the second half was rushed as it pushed through the events of the Phantom Menace. I’m sure it was that the author didn’t want to repeate to much of what we’d already seen, but Johnston had been able to put us with members of the handmaidens who weren’t on screen when the story did dip into events of the movie, so that shouldn’t have been an issue. What we are left with is a second half that felt rushed and made the overall book weaker.
To be clear, I enjoyed this novel, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if the second half hadn’t skipped through so much, and given us the same time with the characters that we got in the first half. Sadly, Johnston took a 5 star idea and watered it down into 4 stars
