Amazon.com
It's an unexpected combination: Greg Bear, author of so many ambitiously complex SF novels, writing about the colorful simplicities of the Star Wars universe. But he carries it off well, with a mix of action-adventure and thoughtful world building that entertains while keeping to the spirit of Lucas's saga.
A few years after the events of The Phantom Menace, young Anakin Skywalker is getting restless--sneaking away from Jedi Temple training to gamble his life in a flying game that's much more bizarre and dangerous than the movie's podracing, even before an alien Blood Carver assassin intervenes. Anakin's character is taking shape now:
But above all, he loved winning.
To turn the boy's frustrated energy to useful ends, the Jedi Council has Obi-Wan Kenobi take Anakin to investigate the remote, enigmatic world Zonama Sekot, whose organic technologies produce magnificent spacecraft, and where a Jedi has vanished without a trace. Secretly pursuing them is a battle squadron captained by the weapons designer who has already blueprinted the Death Star and is being double-crossed by his employer Commander Tarkin.
Rogue Planet's action climaxes as the Jedis learn to grow their own spaceship, the Blood Carver strikes, and two heavily armed fleets converge on helpless-seeming Zonama Sekot. Every faction has secret cards up its sleeve--and Anakin's is a very dangerous wild card indeed. There's final victory and heartbreak, but also loose ends (including even stranger, deadlier aliens) that suggest sequels to follow. Bear does a solidly workmanlike job. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
From Library Journal
The young Obi-Wan Kenobi trains 12-year-old Anakin Skywalker to become a Jedi knight.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
Kurzbeschreibung
MASTER AND APPRENTICE
The Force is strong in twelve-year-old Anakin Skywalker . . . so strong that the Jedi Council, despite misgivings, entrusted young Obi-Wan Kenobi with the mission of training him to become a Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan? like his slain Master Qui-Gon?believes Anakin may be the chosen one, the Jedi destined to bring balance to the Force. But first Obi-Wan must help his undisciplined apprentice, who still bears the scars of slavery, find his own balance.
Dispatched to the mysterious planet of Zonama Sekot, source of the fastest ships in the galaxy, Obi-Wan and Anakin are swept up in a swirl of deadly intrigue and betrayal. They sense a disturbance in the Force unlike any they have encountered before. It seems there are more secrets on Zonama Sekot than meet the eye. But the search for those secrets will threaten the bond between Obi-Wan and Anakin . . . and bring the troubled young apprentice face-to-face with his deepest fears?and his darkest destiny.
The Force is strong in twelve-year-old Anakin Skywalker . . . so strong that the Jedi Council, despite misgivings, entrusted young Obi-Wan Kenobi with the mission of training him to become a Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan? like his slain Master Qui-Gon?believes Anakin may be the chosen one, the Jedi destined to bring balance to the Force. But first Obi-Wan must help his undisciplined apprentice, who still bears the scars of slavery, find his own balance.
Dispatched to the mysterious planet of Zonama Sekot, source of the fastest ships in the galaxy, Obi-Wan and Anakin are swept up in a swirl of deadly intrigue and betrayal. They sense a disturbance in the Force unlike any they have encountered before. It seems there are more secrets on Zonama Sekot than meet the eye. But the search for those secrets will threaten the bond between Obi-Wan and Anakin . . . and bring the troubled young apprentice face-to-face with his deepest fears?and his darkest destiny.
Autorenportrait
Greg Bear hat bisher 26 Bücher geschrieben, die in mehrere Sprachen übersetzt wurden. Er wurde für seine Werke zweimal mit dem "Hugo" und viermal mit dem "Nebula-Award" ausgezeichnet. Die "Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" nennt ihn den "besten lebenden Autor der Hard SF".
-- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
Leseprobe. Abdruck erfolgt mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Rechteinhaber. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
1
Anakin Skywalker stood in a long, single-file line in an abandoned maintenance tunnel leading to the Wicko district garbage pit. With an impatient sigh, he hoisted his flimsy and tightly folded race wings by their leather harness and propped the broad rudder on the strap of his flight sandal. Then he leaned the wings against the wall of the tunnel and, tongue between his lips, applied the small glowing blade of a pocket welder, like a tiny lightsaber, to a crack in the left lateral brace. Repairs finished, he waggled the rotator experimentally. Smooth, though old.
Just the week before, he had bought the wings from a former champion with a broken back. Anakin had worked his wonders in record time, so he could fly now in the very competition where the champion had ended his career.
Anakin enjoyed the wrenching twist and bone- popping jerk of the race wings in flight. He savored the speed and the extreme difficulty as some savor the beauty of the night sky, difficult enough to see on Coruscant, with its eternal planet-spanning city-glow. He craved the competition and even felt a thrill at the nervous stink of the contestants, scum and riffraff all.
But above all, he loved winning.
The garbage pit race was illegal, of course. The authorities on Coruscant tried to maintain the image of a staid and respectable metropolitan planet, capital of the Republic, center of law and civilization for tens of thousands of stellar systems. The truth was far otherwise, if one knew where to look, and Anakin instinctively knew where to look.
He had, after all, been born and raised on Tatooine.
Though he loved the Jedi training, stuffing himself into such tight philosophical garments was not easy. Anakin had suspected from the very beginning that on a world where a thousand species and races met to palaver, there would be places of great fun.
The tunnel master in charge of the race was a Naplousean, little more than a tangle of stringlike tissues with three legs and a knotted nubbin of glittering wet eyes. “First flight is away,” it hissed as it walked in quick, graceful twirls down the narrow, smooth-walled tun- nel. The Naplousean spoke Basic, except when it was angry, and then it simply smelled bad. “Wings! Up!” it ordered.
Anakin hefted his wings over one shoulder with a professionally timed series of grunts, one-two-three, slipped his arms through the straps, and cinched the harness he had cut down to fit the frame of a twelve-year-old human boy.
The Naplousean examined each of the contestants with many critical eyes. When it came to Anakin, it slipped a thin, dry ribbon of tissue between his ribs and the straps and tugged with a strength that nearly pulled the boy over.
“Who you?” the tunnel master coughed.
“Anakin Skywalker,” the boy said. He never lied, and he never worried about being punished.
“You way bold,” the tunnel master observed. “What mother and father say, we bring back dead boy?”
“They’ll raise another,” Anakin answered, hoping to sound tough and capable, but not really caring what opinion the tunnel master held so long as it let him race.
“I know racers,” the Naplousean said, its knot of eyes fighting each other for a better view. “You no racer!”
Anakin kept a respectful silence and focused on the circle of murky blue light ahead, growing larger as the line shortened.
“Ha!” the Naplousean barked, though it was impossible for its kind to actually laugh. It twirled back down the line, poking, tugging, and issuing more pronouncements of doom, all the while followed by an adoring little swarm of cam droids.
A small, tight voice spoke behind Anakin. “You’ve raced here before.”
Anakin had been aware of the Blood Carver in line behind him for some time. There were only a few hundred on all of Coruscant, and they had joined the Republic less than a century before. They were an impressive-looking people: slender, graceful, with long three-jointed limbs, small heads mounted on a high, thick neck, and iridescent gold skin.
“Twice,” Anakin said. “And you?”
“Twice,” the Blood Carver said amiably, then blinked and looked up. Across the Blood Carver’s narrow face, his nose spread into two fleshy flaps like a split shield, half hiding his wide, lipless mouth. The ornately tattooed nose flaps functioned both as a sensor of smell and a very sensitive ear, supplemented by two small pits behind his small, onyx-black eyes. “The tunnel master is correct. You are too young.” He spoke perfect Basic, as if he had been brought up in the best schools on Coruscant.
Anakin smiled and tried to shrug. The weight of the race wings made this gesture moot.
“You will probably die down there,” the Blood Carver added, eyes aloof.
“Thanks for the support,” Anakin said, his face coloring. He did not mind a professional opinion, such as that registered by the tunnel master, but he hated being ragged, and he especially hated an opponent trying to psych him out.
Fear, hatred, anger . . . The old trio Anakin fought every day of his life, though he revealed his deepest emotions to only one man: Obi-Wan Kenobi, his master in the Jedi Temple.
The Blood Carver stooped slightly on his three-jointed legs. “You smell like a slave,” he said softly, for Anakin’s ears alone.
It was all Anakin could do to keep from throwing off his wings and going for the Blood Carver’s long throat. He swallowed his emotions down into a private cold place and stored them with the other dark things left over from Tatooine. The Blood Carver was on target with his insult, which stiffened Anakin’s anger and made it harder to control himself. Both he and his mother, Shmi, had been slaves to the supercilious junk dealer, Watto. When the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn had won him from Watto, they had had to leave Shmi behind . . . something Anakin thought about every day of his life.
“You four next!” the tunnel master hissed, breezing by with its midsection whirled out like ribbons on a child’s spinner.
Mace Windu strode down a narrow side hall in the main dormitory of the Jedi Temple, lost in thought, his arms tucked into his long sleeves, and was nearly bowled over by a trim young Jedi who dashed from a doorway. Mace stepped aside deftly, just in time, but stuck out an elbow and deliberately clipped the younger Jedi, who spun about.
“Pardon me, Master,” Obi-Wan Kenobi apologized, bowing quickly. “Clumsy of me.”
“No harm,” Mace Windu said. “Though you should have known I was here.”
“Yes. The elbow. A correction. I’m appreciative.” Obi-Wan was, in fact, embarrassed, but there was no time to explain things.
“In a hurry?”
“A great hurry,” Obi-Wan said.
“The chosen one is not in his quarters?” Mace’s tone carried both respect and irony, a combination at which he was particularly adept.
“I know where he’s gone, Master Windu. I found his tools, his workbench.”
“Not just building droids we don’t need?”
“No, Master,” Obi-Wan said.
“About the boy—” Mace Windu began.
“Master, when there is time.”
“Of course,” Mace said. “Find him. Then we shall speak . . . and I want him there to listen.”
“Of course, Master!” Obi-Wan did not disguise his haste. Few could hide concern or intent from Mace Windu.
Mace smiled. “He will bring you wisdom!” he called out...
Anakin Skywalker stood in a long, single-file line in an abandoned maintenance tunnel leading to the Wicko district garbage pit. With an impatient sigh, he hoisted his flimsy and tightly folded race wings by their leather harness and propped the broad rudder on the strap of his flight sandal. Then he leaned the wings against the wall of the tunnel and, tongue between his lips, applied the small glowing blade of a pocket welder, like a tiny lightsaber, to a crack in the left lateral brace. Repairs finished, he waggled the rotator experimentally. Smooth, though old.
Just the week before, he had bought the wings from a former champion with a broken back. Anakin had worked his wonders in record time, so he could fly now in the very competition where the champion had ended his career.
Anakin enjoyed the wrenching twist and bone- popping jerk of the race wings in flight. He savored the speed and the extreme difficulty as some savor the beauty of the night sky, difficult enough to see on Coruscant, with its eternal planet-spanning city-glow. He craved the competition and even felt a thrill at the nervous stink of the contestants, scum and riffraff all.
But above all, he loved winning.
The garbage pit race was illegal, of course. The authorities on Coruscant tried to maintain the image of a staid and respectable metropolitan planet, capital of the Republic, center of law and civilization for tens of thousands of stellar systems. The truth was far otherwise, if one knew where to look, and Anakin instinctively knew where to look.
He had, after all, been born and raised on Tatooine.
Though he loved the Jedi training, stuffing himself into such tight philosophical garments was not easy. Anakin had suspected from the very beginning that on a world where a thousand species and races met to palaver, there would be places of great fun.
The tunnel master in charge of the race was a Naplousean, little more than a tangle of stringlike tissues with three legs and a knotted nubbin of glittering wet eyes. “First flight is away,” it hissed as it walked in quick, graceful twirls down the narrow, smooth-walled tun- nel. The Naplousean spoke Basic, except when it was angry, and then it simply smelled bad. “Wings! Up!” it ordered.
Anakin hefted his wings over one shoulder with a professionally timed series of grunts, one-two-three, slipped his arms through the straps, and cinched the harness he had cut down to fit the frame of a twelve-year-old human boy.
The Naplousean examined each of the contestants with many critical eyes. When it came to Anakin, it slipped a thin, dry ribbon of tissue between his ribs and the straps and tugged with a strength that nearly pulled the boy over.
“Who you?” the tunnel master coughed.
“Anakin Skywalker,” the boy said. He never lied, and he never worried about being punished.
“You way bold,” the tunnel master observed. “What mother and father say, we bring back dead boy?”
“They’ll raise another,” Anakin answered, hoping to sound tough and capable, but not really caring what opinion the tunnel master held so long as it let him race.
“I know racers,” the Naplousean said, its knot of eyes fighting each other for a better view. “You no racer!”
Anakin kept a respectful silence and focused on the circle of murky blue light ahead, growing larger as the line shortened.
“Ha!” the Naplousean barked, though it was impossible for its kind to actually laugh. It twirled back down the line, poking, tugging, and issuing more pronouncements of doom, all the while followed by an adoring little swarm of cam droids.
A small, tight voice spoke behind Anakin. “You’ve raced here before.”
Anakin had been aware of the Blood Carver in line behind him for some time. There were only a few hundred on all of Coruscant, and they had joined the Republic less than a century before. They were an impressive-looking people: slender, graceful, with long three-jointed limbs, small heads mounted on a high, thick neck, and iridescent gold skin.
“Twice,” Anakin said. “And you?”
“Twice,” the Blood Carver said amiably, then blinked and looked up. Across the Blood Carver’s narrow face, his nose spread into two fleshy flaps like a split shield, half hiding his wide, lipless mouth. The ornately tattooed nose flaps functioned both as a sensor of smell and a very sensitive ear, supplemented by two small pits behind his small, onyx-black eyes. “The tunnel master is correct. You are too young.” He spoke perfect Basic, as if he had been brought up in the best schools on Coruscant.
Anakin smiled and tried to shrug. The weight of the race wings made this gesture moot.
“You will probably die down there,” the Blood Carver added, eyes aloof.
“Thanks for the support,” Anakin said, his face coloring. He did not mind a professional opinion, such as that registered by the tunnel master, but he hated being ragged, and he especially hated an opponent trying to psych him out.
Fear, hatred, anger . . . The old trio Anakin fought every day of his life, though he revealed his deepest emotions to only one man: Obi-Wan Kenobi, his master in the Jedi Temple.
The Blood Carver stooped slightly on his three-jointed legs. “You smell like a slave,” he said softly, for Anakin’s ears alone.
It was all Anakin could do to keep from throwing off his wings and going for the Blood Carver’s long throat. He swallowed his emotions down into a private cold place and stored them with the other dark things left over from Tatooine. The Blood Carver was on target with his insult, which stiffened Anakin’s anger and made it harder to control himself. Both he and his mother, Shmi, had been slaves to the supercilious junk dealer, Watto. When the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn had won him from Watto, they had had to leave Shmi behind . . . something Anakin thought about every day of his life.
“You four next!” the tunnel master hissed, breezing by with its midsection whirled out like ribbons on a child’s spinner.
Mace Windu strode down a narrow side hall in the main dormitory of the Jedi Temple, lost in thought, his arms tucked into his long sleeves, and was nearly bowled over by a trim young Jedi who dashed from a doorway. Mace stepped aside deftly, just in time, but stuck out an elbow and deliberately clipped the younger Jedi, who spun about.
“Pardon me, Master,” Obi-Wan Kenobi apologized, bowing quickly. “Clumsy of me.”
“No harm,” Mace Windu said. “Though you should have known I was here.”
“Yes. The elbow. A correction. I’m appreciative.” Obi-Wan was, in fact, embarrassed, but there was no time to explain things.
“In a hurry?”
“A great hurry,” Obi-Wan said.
“The chosen one is not in his quarters?” Mace’s tone carried both respect and irony, a combination at which he was particularly adept.
“I know where he’s gone, Master Windu. I found his tools, his workbench.”
“Not just building droids we don’t need?”
“No, Master,” Obi-Wan said.
“About the boy—” Mace Windu began.
“Master, when there is time.”
“Of course,” Mace said. “Find him. Then we shall speak . . . and I want him there to listen.”
“Of course, Master!” Obi-Wan did not disguise his haste. Few could hide concern or intent from Mace Windu.
Mace smiled. “He will bring you wisdom!” he called out...
