Product Description

There is a great disturbance in the Force. . . . From the sleek ships of the glimmering Coruscant skyscape to the lush gardens of pastoral Naboo, dissent is roiling. The Republic is failing, even under the leadership of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, elected ten years earlier to save the crumbling government. Separatists threaten war, and the Senate is hopelessly divided, unable to determine whether to raise an army for battle or keep the fragile peace. It is a stalemate that once broken, could lead to galactic chaos. Mischievous and resolved, courageous to the point of recklessness, Anakin Skywalker has come of age in a time of great upheaval. The nineteen-year-old apprentice to Obi-Wan Kenobi is an enigma to the Jedi Council, and a challenge to his Jedi Master. Time has not dulled Anakin's ambition, nor has his Jedi training tamed his independent streak. When an attempt on Senator Padmé Amidala's life brings them together for the first time in ten years, it is clear that time also has not dulled Anakin's intense feelings for the beautiful diplomat.The attack on Senator Amidala just before a crucial vote thrusts the Republic even closer to the edge of disaster. Masters Yoda and Mace Windu sense enormous unease. The dark side is growing, clouding the Jedi's perception of the events. Unbeknownst to the Jedi, a slow rumble is building into the roar of thousands of soldiers readying for battle. But even as the Republic falters around them, Anakin and Padmé find a connection so intense that all else begins to fall away. Anakin will lose himself—and his way—in emotions a Jedi, sworn to hold allegiance only to the Order, is forbidden to have.Based on the story by George Lucas and the screenplay by George Lucas and Jonathan Hales, this intense and revealing novel by bestselling author R. A. Salvatore sheds new light on the legend of Star Wars—and skillfully illuminates one of our most beloved sagas.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #278604 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04
• Binding: Hardcover
• 372 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Attack of the Clones is the inevitable novelisation of the new Star Wars movie, and fantasy author RA Salvatore does his best with a script which relies heavily on spectacular visual effects.

Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi has a hard time with his apprentice Anakin Skywalker, now 20 but lapsing frequently into teenage bad attitude. Master Yoda backward speaking still is, and disturbance great in the Force as always senses. Lovable droids R2D2 and C3PO remain terminally cute. Princess Padme Amidala is now a hot babe, a Senator of the Republic and highly disturbing to Anakin's hormonal Force. Jar Jar Binks retains his irritating accent even in print: "Mesa so smilen to see'en yousa! Wahoooo!" Political supremo Palpatine makes diplomatic noises, but we suspect he's up to no good...

When someone tries to fix a big Senate vote by assassinating Amidala, much action follows--an aerial car chase which must be hair-raising in the movie, and interstellar pursuit including a spaceship dogfight in a crowded asteroid belt. Obi-Wan discovers a lost world that's grown a warrior-clone army for mysterious reasons and another world's heavy industry is cranking out innumerable battle droids. Can the renegade Jedi with the majestic name Dooku be responsible?

Meanwhile, following orders to protect Padme by staying very close to her, Anakin sulks a lot, finds his Jedi vows of chastity dissolving fast, and is temporarily saved by a bid to rescue his mother from sadistic kidnappers on planet Tattooine.

Now, the climax: "Take them to the arena!" Our favourite characters are duly chained up as a snack for unspeakably horrible CGI beasties, but they have some tricks left--and practically everything else in the plot is converging on that arena for the mother of all special-effects battles. Many, many light-sabres come into it.

All rather silly, really: not so much a serious novel as a memento of the film, something to jog memories until the DVD release. Every hardcore Star Wars fan will want a copy. --David Langford

Synopsis
In this volume, it is time for Anakin and the other characters to make key choices - about forbidden love, duty and honour. These choices will set into motion events that change the lives of everyone and the course of an entire galaxy.

From the Publisher
The tie-in novel, based upon the story by George Lucas and the screenplay by George Lucas and Jonathan Hales

Customer Reviews

Anakin's character lacks conflict
While many reviewers focus on the long exposition and the flat acting in "The Attack of the Clones," the greatest failure of the new Star Wars movie is much more basic. The story ignores the character established for Anakin in "The Phantom Menace." Anakin was presented and described by other characters as an open, kind-hearted and empathetic child. He befriended Qui-Gon Jinn and Padme with an open heart and risked his life for them. The Anakin in "Attack of the Clones" has none of those qualities. The writers and movie makers thus fail to explore the real conflict that they had previously set up for his character. The whole question to be answered by this trilogy, according to interviews with George Lucas, was to be "How could someone become a Darth Vader? What could happened to make someone turn from good to evil?" Had they followed Anakin's original character, we could have seen a character who was idealistic and struggling to do good, only to have his attempts met with frustration and treachery. The character could have had a joy for life and adventure that resulted in nothing but setbacks. We could watch as his illusions about the world crumbled until, totally disillusioned, he gave up in anger and frustration and turned to evil. While there are hints of this in the movie, there is no more than that. The death of his mother should have been the perverted result of dark forces in league to use him, while he naively trusted the world. Instead, her death was merely the result of living in this dangerous universe. When he kills her tormentors and admits the deed to Padme, we should see the same sort of conflict present in "Lawrence of Arabia", when Lawrence, torn with conflict, admits that the thing that bothered him most about executing a man was that "I enjoyed it." His basic goodness early on in the movie could have been the source of both humor and empathy for his character, both of which are notably absent, but which were abundant in prior Star Wars episodes such as "The Empire Strikes Back." This conflict in Anakin's character was to be the central theme of the movie. Because it is so sorely lacking, the movie loses both the depth and meaningfulness that it should have had.

BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN NOVELISATION OF THE MOVIE
I really love this book as I also love the movie itself. I love movies as much as I love books but unlike movies, books don't need a time restriction and therefore you really get a feel for the characters and can really understand where they are coming from, especially Padme, who's past and feelings aren't really dwelled upon at great depth in the movie. I think Salvatore really put across her character beautifully. However, I do think you should see the movie first because atleast then it won't get spoilt either way, bcos in the book there are alot more incidents that weren't in the movie. Also you get a real feel for Obi-Wan here aswell and amazingly cool Jango Fett.

Ruins enjoyment of the film. Watch it first.
I have been a Star Wars fan for many years, and am also an avid reader of the Expanded Universe series of books. After the slight disappointment of The Phantom Menace, I was really looking forward to the next chapter in the series.
Usually I read novels after I see the films, but this time I decided to do it the other way round. The only other book i had read by the author - R.A Salvator - was another Star Wars novel, Vector Prime. I didn't like what he done with the story - it felt like he had been handed an outline of the plot, but simply designed a basic story to fill the gaps, lacking emotion in the most important scenes. These traits seem to have been carried over to this book.
When I first saw the book, I was surprised at its size - just over 300 pages to cover a 2.5 hour film, plus extra scenes. Immediately I thought this would not be able to do the film justice.
Comparing the book to the film, the story did stay faithfully true to the action, and the extra bits in the book did add some new insight. But these extra bits also spoilt the experience, as they revealed too much too early, spoiling the suspense. The story may have stayed faithful, but it was also too brief. In a novel I expect there to be much more insight, and more explaination into a charactors actions and emotions. What I got was the bare outline of the story. Some scenes in the film were better at expressing emotion than the novel was - a trait that is often reversed in other cases.
The bottom line - watch the film first. Then, if you wish to fill in some of the gaps left by the script, read the book. And then pray Mr Salvatore stays well away from the Star Wars universe from now on. A potentially great film tie-in novel has been let down by flawed writing methods. Wait for the paperback.