Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones [Mass Market Paperback]

After an assassination attempt on her life, Senator Padme Amidala is put into the protection of the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Padawan Anakin Skywalker. Padme is the strongest voice against creating a Republic Army and her death could lead the way to the creation of that army. The attempts on her life continue and Obi-Wan and Anakin now have to split up. Obi-Wan tracks a bounty hunter to a planet that has been removed from the Jedi Archives. Anakin is still assigned as Padme's protector and is to take her to her home planet of Naboo. Anakin still harbors a deep love for Padme that has only grown as the years have gone by.

This is a much better adaptation than Terry Brooks' offering of "The Phantom Menace". Salvatore was able to take the weak dialogue of George Lucas and work it so that on the printed page the dialogue felt smoother and less forced. His additional scenes were absolutely pivotal and added emotional weight to the novel and made Anakin's pain (and love) more real. It did the same for Padme, which was sorely lacking in the film. This was a worthwhile adaptation and even made me interested in taking a look at Salvatore's other work.

Released in hardcover a few weeks before the film's release, Salvatore's novelization of the screenplay by George Lucas and Jonathan Hales not only tells the story contained in the final film, but also adds three chapters of backstory establishing Anakin's emotional turmoil and Padme Amidala's inner struggle to find balance between her official duties as Senior Senator from Naboo and her growing awareness of a need for a more personal life.

Set 10 years after Anakin Skywalker's departure from Tatooine with Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Attack of the Clones begins with a prologue in which Anakin has a nightmare. It begins with images of something the young Jedi Padawan longs for...the presence of family and friends...and especially the company of his mother, who he has not seen in a decade. But the dream -- or is it a Force-vision? -- quickly turns ghastly when his mother's image turns into a garish crystaline figure and shatters. When he wakes up, sweaty and out of breath, he's forced to focus on his current assignment with his Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, which is to settle a dispute on the planet Ansion (which is described in full in Alan Dean Foster's The Approaching Storm, a prequel to Episode II). Anxious and unsettled, he wants to complete this mission quickly so he can go back to Coruscant and seek guidance, but not from his Master or any of the Masters at the Jedi Temple...but from Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.

Meanwhile, Anakin's mother Shmi is now no longer Watto's slave and happily married to moisture farmer Cliegg Lars. Although she is now free and loves both her husband and stepson Owen, she misses Anakin and wonders if he did, at last, become a Jedi. The chapter describing her new life on the Lars homestead sets up both the relationship between Owen and his girlfriend Beru Whitesun (who, of course, will be Shmi's grandson Luke's guardians in the future). Salvatore's expository chapter gives both depth and context to the later scenes involving Shmi and Anakin.

After another brief chapter of backstory, from Chapter Four on Attack of the Clones focuses on the events at the heart of the film. Ten years have passed since Senator Palpatine's election to the Supreme Chancellorship, but despite his promises to reduce corruption and restore confidence in the Republic, things have become worse. The Trade Federation and various other special-interest groups have joined a secessionist movement that has enticed several thousand systems to leave the Republic. Led by the charismatic Count Dooku, a former Jedi Master, this movement is gathering more momentum with each passing day, and Palpatine's negotiations are going nowhere. As the secessionists grow stronger and bolder, hawks in the Senate are pushing for the Military Creation Act, which will, for the first time since the founding of the Republic, set up a centralized army to assist the limited numbers of Jedi Knights. However, moderates such as Bail Organa of Alderaan and Padme Amidala of Naboo believe that such a move will result in open civil war.

When Amidala rushes back to Coruscant to vote against the Military Creation Act, her official starship is destroyed by an unknown assailant and her decoy Corde is killed. Alarmed by this incident (or so it seems), Palpatine urges the young senator to accept tighter security. When Amidala tries to object, Palpatine insists that she be guarded and suggests to the Jedi Council that she be placed under the protection of the Jedi...and he knows exactly who to assign: "Perhaps someone you may be familar with...an old friend...like Master Kenobi."

For Obi-Wan Kenobi, the unexpected assignment is simply limited to the protection of the Senator. For Anakin, however, it becomes the catalyst for both renewing his relationship with the woman he loves and to yet again defy his Jedi Master. They openly argue, bringing to the fore the restlessness and impetuousness of the young Padawan. Then a second attempt is made on Amidala's life, and both Jedi Master and apprentice head off in desperate pursuit of the deadly bounty hunter Zam Wessel...a chase that will only be the first phase of a long and perilous search for clues that will reveal who is behind the attempts on Amidala's life.

Episode II is a return to the classic Star Wars format, with its exotic locations (the cloners' watery world of Kamino, the hostile desert environment of Tatooine, the factory planet of Geonosis with its huge termite-mounds, and the dizzying cityscape of Coruscant), chases, spaceship fights, romance, and, of course, a climactic lightsaber duel.

Attack of the Clones features both familiar characters from The Phantom Menace, including a reduced yet crucial (if rather unexpected) role for Jar Jar Binks, and such new characters as Count Dooku, Cliegg Lars, and the fearsome bounty hunter Jango Fett, whose genetic material is being used to make the clones that will become the Grand Army of the Republic. Boba Fett, the equally ruthless bounty hunter seen in the Classic Star Wars trilogy, is introduced in Episode II as Jango's only unaltered clone.

The novel format has the advantage that expository material can be inserted without the constrains of "running time." Readers can for instance, learn why Palpatine manages to serve despite having passed his term limit in office, or "meet" Padme's family in a sequence that was written and filmed but deleted from the final film.

Salvatore has the advantage of having written Star Wars material before, and his skillful melding of backstory, use of deleted scenes, and great story-telling abilities make this adaptation work.