oh man, stover got me into star wars with ROTS and then i found the absolute glory that is wild space
SAME… like I had always liked Star Wars (especially TPM when I was a kid) but reading that book is what pushed me over the edge from “oh yeah, Star Wars :)” to OH MY GOSH STAR WARS.
I love the ROTS movie, but I always feel like, it’s not even that the ROTS book is a great novelization of the movie – it’s more like that the ROTS movie is a sort of poor man’s version of the book. I really feel like, being into the prequels, that you almost have to read it. It’s not just like, an optional, redundant companion to the movie like some novelizations. You almost can’t understand Revenge of the Sith without it.
It includes every deleted scene and so much more of EVERYTHING. In my opinion, the book really wraps up a movie that can at times be apropos of nothing and disjointed, into a coherent symphony of pure angst. It’s melodramatic, but not in a cringey way like the novelizations Alan Dean Foster writes. Instead it’s got all the sweeping drama that a space opera should have, and executed amazingly well.
It really lets you in on what Anakin is going through, and that (plus the fleshed-out passages of Palpatine’s manipulations) helps me make sense of Anakin’s Fall, when it almost seems totally out of left field watching the movie. And Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship??? ICONIC. The glee and joy of the first part comes through, but I think the novelization REALLY shines after Order 66. Every bit of the Mustafar duel is so much more intense and so much more important and so much more sad. “Just the two of them, and the damage they had done to each other.” I’m in pain… I LOVE THIS BOOK.
Wild Space is amazing as well, the absolute PINNACLE of Obi-Wan whump. And honestly? Stealth/Siege? Rogue Planet? Fabulous. There is so much ridiculously enjoyable Star Wars writing out there. The ROTS novelization is a gateway drug!!! It’s the pathway to dangerously deep investment in Star Wars.
