Lucasfilm’s animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars ran from 2008 to 2013 on Cartoon Network, with brief revivals afterward on both Netflix and Disney+, culminating earlier this year in a knock-down drag-out final arc that saw former Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano’s perspective of the events surrounding Emperor Palpatine’s Order 66 and the long-talked-about Siege of Mandalore.
Now fans can relive some of their favorite moments and episodes of the critically acclaimed George Lucas-created show in a different form, thanks to the new short-story collection Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Stories of Light and Dark. In this book, due out next week from Lucasfilm Publishing, various authors have been brought together to retell some of the more memorable and familiar tales from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, albeit via fresh perspectives through specific characters’ eyes.
The stories being reinterpreted are from the Yoda episode “Ambush”– as the short story “Sharing the Same Face” by Jason Fry (Star Wars: The Galactic Explorer’s Guide), “Dooku Captured” adapted by Lou Anders (Star Wars: Pirate’s Price), the Anakin episode “Hostage Crisis” by Preeti Chhibber (Star Wars: A Jedi, You Will Be), the Padmé episode “Heroes On Both Sides”– as the story “Pursuit of Peace” by Anne Ursu (The Lost Girl) the Captain Rex arc “Carnage of Krell”– as “The Shadow of Umbara” by Yoon Ha Lee (Machineries of Empire), the Cad Bane arc “Crisis On Naboo”– as “Bane’s Story” by Tom Angleberger (Origami Yoda) the Asajj Ventress episode “Bounty”– as “The Lost Nightsister” by Zoraida Córdova (Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – A Crash of Fate) the Maul episodes “Brothers” and “Revenge”– as “Dark Vengeance” by Rebecca Roanhorse (Star Wars: Resistance Reborn), the Katooni / Ahsoka episode “A Necessary Bond”– as “Almost a Jedi” by Sarah Beth Durst (Race the Sands), the Obi-Wan episode “The Lawless”– as “Kenobi’s Shadow” by Greg van Eekhout (The Boy At the End of the World).
But the main attraction of this anthology comes at the very end: the original story “Bug” by author E. Anne Convery (The Confidence Chronicles)– also known as the wife of Star Wars television wunderkind Dave Filoni. This yarn draws inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island by having a Dathomirian witch come to stay at an inn on a desolate planet, where the young daughter of the establishment’s owner comes to be fascinated by the odd woman. Taking place in the aftermath of the Nightsister genocide depicted in the “Massacre” episode of The Clone Wars, “Bug” provides some new information as to what happens to the witches of Dathomir during and after the Separatist invasion seen in the TV show. We also learn more about the various factions of witches outside of the Nightsisters and how they interacted on Dathomir during more peaceful times– details I think fans will find very interesting. In fact, this unconventional story alone is just tantalizing enough to make this book worth picking up for die-hard fans of the series.
Otherwise, the remainder of the entries are fairly faithful retellings of stories that anyone who’s sat through the 130+ episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars has already experienced, although they’re now in prose form and told from an intriguing-enough variety of points-of-view and tenses. In general I’m not the biggest fan of written adaptations derived from movies and/or TV shows I’ve already seen, and this collection didn’t really impress me enough to change my mind. I would much rather have seen an assortment of stories like “Bug” that take a noteworthy cue or event from The Clone Wars and run with it, adding to the overall narrative rather than simply regurgitating parts of it.
Still the writers working here are all undeniably talented, and Stories of Light and Dark might prove a good reading enhancement tool for young adults whose parents are looking to encourage them to pick up a book every once in a while. Sometimes it takes a familiar story to learn hesitant readers into the world of short stories and novels, so with that in mind I could see this hardcover compendium becoming an excellent stepping stone to inspiring interest in some of the longer, more in-depth Star Wars texts out there. For adult fans who are already voracious readers, however, I’d suggest finding a reasonable way to skip to the end.
Star Wars: Stories of Light and Dark becomes available Tuesday, August 25 wherever books are sold.