Review via Yodasnews Contributor Jacob Burdis:
The Legends of Luke Skywalker No Spoiler Review
The Legends of Luke Skywalker is one of several stories in the “Journey to the Last Jedi” series coming out to build excitement and prepare fans for the upcoming films. Both the teaser and full trailer dropped some pretty big bombs with Luke telling Rey “It’s time for the Jedi to end” and then Rey telling Kylo Ren “I need someone to show me my place in all this” as Kylo Ren extends his hand out to her. While the trailers are definitely creating more questions than answers, the “Journey to the Last Jedi” series is providing a few hints.
The format of The Legends of Luke Skywalker is very unique. The main story is set on a transport on its way to Canto Bight to make a delivery of fathiers. Among the crew are several young deckhands who act as the group of protagonists in this story. During their voyage, they are treated with multiple tales about the legendary Luke Skywalker from other members of the crew. Interspersed between the various tales, they experience an adventure of their own during the journey.
I’ll be honest, the first tale almost caused me to put the book down and walk away. It was so ridiculous that I felt like I was wasting my time reading it. I was worried that all the tales would be like this one. But I pressed on, and was greatly rewarded. A couple of the stories described instances in Luke’s life that added a rich backstory that hinted at what could possibly have driven Luke to decide it was time for the Jedi to end. I hypothesized after the first teaser of “The Last Jedi” that we as fans were finally going to see what “balance in the force” actually looks like (read my analysis of the Last Jedi Teaser here). The legends described in this book added a significant amount of fuel to that fire, and have me so much more excited to see “The Last Jedi.”
Only after finishing the book did I come to appreciate how the tidbits of backstory were hidden among obviously false and exaggerated tales of Luke Skywalker. It’s as if author Ken Liu wanted to establish how far from the truth some legends could be before providing one that could be plausible, so that the reader is second guessing the plausible ones as well.
Overall, this was a fun, quick read with very satisfying hints about the upcoming movie “The Last Jedi.” I highly recommend for any level of Star Wars fan!
Click Here or the image below to pick this up via digital, audio or physical form. We would like to thank Del Rey/Penguin Random House for providing the review sample.
