Category: Articles

Legends of the Hydian Way: Jedi Apprentice Books 13-18

With the Xanatos saga well and truly over, Jedi Apprentice has pivoted from a series of one-off adventures all connected by the looming threat of Qui-Gon’s former apprentice to a series of character-developing arcs with cool-down one offs before and after. I think it’s a change for the better, as we’ll see this week when we finish of the main series of Jedi Apprentice!

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

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Legends of the Hydian Way: Jedi Apprentice Books 7-12

Obi-Wan Kenobi has had a pretty rocky start to his life as an itinerant Jedi. In fact, he’s been a Padawan for all of a few weeks at best and already he’s decided to quit the Jedi Order and then changed his mind. Currently we find him learning it’s not so simple to undo such a declaration.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

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Legends of the Hydian Way: Jedi Apprentice Books 1-6

This week led to one of the more difficult decisions I had to make logistically about doing these reviews. Legends canon contains a number of series aimed at younger readers that are still techincally part of the canon. The first of these chronologically is Jedi Apprentice by Dave Wolverton and Jude Watson. There are eighteen books in this series, but each book is very short, so instead of spending 18 weeks on a kids series we’re going to spend three and just do a third of it each week.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

Continue reading “Legends of the Hydian Way: Jedi Apprentice Books 1-6”

Legends of the Hydian Way: Darth Plagueis

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would have told you.

Friends, today we march boldly into a very long, very involved book. A book which begins thirty-five years before The Phantom Menace and ends just after that film does. Most importantly, it’s one of the best books in Legends canon.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

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Legends of the Hydian Way: Legacy of the Jedi

We’ve finally reached the prequel era! If you’ve only ever seen the actual Star Wars movies you’re going to start recognizing names now and to start with we have Count Dooku!

Wait a minute…what?

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

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Legends of the Hydian Way: Darth Bane – Dynasty of Evil

Fun fact about Darth Bane, he’s actually one of the only characters we’ve seen in any of these books so far who is confirmed to have existed in the new canon. Revan showed up in a deleted scene from one of the episodes of The Clone Wars, but because it didn’t make it into the final cut his canonicity is dubious.

Bane, however, shows up quite clearly in the final episode of season six of The Clone Wars, played by Mark Hamill no less! Zannah too is referenced, but doesn’t actually appear in the episode. All that to say, it’s nice to see new canon taking good bits from Legends. Today we tackle the end of the Darth Bane Trilogy with Darth Bane – Dynasty of Evil, by Drew Karpyshyn.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

Continue reading “Legends of the Hydian Way: Darth Bane – Dynasty of Evil”

Trouble Brewing Introduction 4 – David

To kick off season 2 of Heroes of the Hydian Way, each day this week we’re going to introduce you to a member of the team. Today meet David, one of this season’s players.

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Trouble Brewing Introduction 3 – Leslie

To kick off season 2 of Heroes of the Hydian Way, each day this week we’re going to introduce you to a member of the team. Today meet Leslie, one of this season’s players.

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Legends Of The Hydian Way: Darth Bane – Rule of Two

Last week I praised Path of Destruction for going out of its way to set up plot threads for a video game that came out twenty some years ago. I also criticized it for seeming slavishly devoted to Darth Revan above all other Sith. It almost feels like Drew Karpyshyn somehow heard me, because book tells of the Darth Bane trilogy reaches even further back to 1993’s comic series Tales of the Jedi and ties the legacy of Bane’s Sith Order in with some of the older Sith that came before.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

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Trouble Brewing Introduction 2 – Kristine

To kick off season 2 of Heroes of the Hydian Way, each day this week we’re going to introduce you to a member of the team. Today meet Kristine, one of this season’s players.

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Trouble Brewing Introduction 1 – Ben

To kick off season 2 of Heroes of the Hydian Way, each day this week we’re going to introduce you to a member of the team. Today meet this season’s game master Ben.

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Legends of the Hydian Way: Darth Bane – Path of Destruction

If you’re coming into all of these reviews having only ever watched the Star Wars films before, you might be confused by a lot of the stuff that’s happened so far. Specifically, you may be wondering why there are so many dang Sith running around. After all, doesn’t Yoda make it pretty clear in The Phantom Menace that “Only two there are, a Master, and an Apprentice?” Why are there whole empires and families full of Sith running around. Today, we learn the answer to how the Sith of the past came to be the Sith of the actual Star Wars films.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

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Legends of the Hydian Way: Knight Errant

You may remember back at the beginning of all of this I that I remembered really loving a lot of the old Legends books back when I was growing up. So far, we’ve had some decent books, some interesting ones that didn’t quite measure up, and one really disappointing one. Today, my friends, we reach the first really, really good book in our Legends read-through thus far.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me

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Legends of the Hydian Way – The Old Republic: Annihilation

We come full circle in The Old Republic this week, ending as we began five weeks ago with a novel by Drew Karpyshyn. Now, if you’ve read my review of Revan you may think that’s a bad sign considering my thoughts on that one but honestly, I tend to really like Karpyshyn’s work, so let’s see how we fare with The Old Republic: Annihilation.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me

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Legends of the Hydian Way – The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance

The Old Republic setting provides a unique opportunity for Star Wars storytelling. Set against the backdrop of a cold war between Jedi/Republic and the Sith, authors can play both sides off of the other in a time of tenuous peace. Most other times in Legends the Jedi and the Sith are aware of one another pretty much go down like Mace Windu marching on Palpatine’s office. In order words, this is one of the only settings where both Jedi and Sith have to play nice and smile at each other instead of immediately going for the lightsabers.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me

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Legends of the Hydian Way – Red Harvest

I suppose it was inevitable that even Star Wars would get caught up in the zombie fad that held most of Western media captive for more than a decade. The result is two books, one which we’ll get to down the line a ways, and this one: Red Harvest by Joe Schrieber.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

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Legends of the Hydian Way – The Old Republic: Deceived

After last week I did not have high hopes for the rest of The Old Republic tie-in books. However, while Deceived is nothing groundbreaking, it is a nice, self-contained story that does an admirable job of setting up plot for the MMO while still telling a story in it’s own right.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

Continue reading “Legends of the Hydian Way – The Old Republic: Deceived”

Legends of the Hydian Way – The Old Republic: Revan

Hoo boy. Strap in folks, we’ve hit our first really bad one. I’ll warn up front that this review and book contain full spoilers for Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2.

Welcome to Legends of the Hydian Way, the chronicle of my attempt to read through and review all the novels that make up mainline Legends canon in chronological order. May the Force be with me.

Continue reading “Legends of the Hydian Way – The Old Republic: Revan”

Legends of the Hydian Way – Lost Tribe of the Sith

One of the strangest things about reading Legends in chronological order is that it definitely wasn’t written that way and it shows. Much of the ancient history of the legends canon was told through comics in the 90s, with names like Naga Sadow and Marka Ragnos or  Ulic Qel-Droma and Exar Kun taking the spotlight. Later works will reference events in these comics but there was never an actual novelization of them which can confuse readers who wonder if they missed something. They did, but it’s in a comic series not included on the official timeline of books printed inside the cover.

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Legends of the Hydian Way – Dawn of The Jedi: Into The Void

What’s this? Another “Something From the Hydian Way?” And it’s a text post? What could it mean?

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Friends Like These Act 2, Episode 1 – “Puffer Pigs are the Best”

In search of the Mandalorians of Clan Beroya, Matu, Kith, and AMP arrive at Vlemoth Port to meet with their contact Kad Solus.

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Dead in the Water Epilogue – The Force and Matu

When Matu fell into his Force vision, it wasn’t just a simple thing. He soared among the stars and found a calling to several worlds before him. As well as a person he never expected to find.

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Dead in the Water Interview with Writer Keith Kappel

In this special interview episode Ben, Kristine, Brent, and Leslie are joined by guest Keith Kappel, writer of the Age of Rebellion Gamemaster’s Kit, the “Dead in the Water” adventure module, and the upcoming Heroes adventure Friends Like These.

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Dead in the Water Discussion Episode

In this discussion episode, the GM and players behind our Heroes: Ben, Kristine, Brent, Leslie, and Chris reflect on their experiences playing the “Dead in the Water” module from the Age of Rebellion Gamemaster’s Kit. Along the way they answer listener submitted questions, goof off, and hint at what’s coming next on Heroes of the Hydian Way.

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Dead in the Water Act 2, Episode 2

Now that TV-93 is equipped with a passkey, the squad embarks on a mission to save the Shadow Raptor from the mutinous droids that have taken control. With life support thinning, and most of their gear 11 decks above them, the squad has to move fast to secure the ship before the droids realize what is happening.

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