I’ve had lots of real books lately, but being as this was an airport weekend, I snagged a Star Wars book I bought on a whim at Hastings a few weeks ago. I haven’t read any of these since the New Jedi Order series concluded early in the year, I don’t guess.

Anyhow, this one is set in the Clone Wars, several months after the battle of Geonosis. It’s all about Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson, for you casual fans, of which there surely must be very few these days) on a quest to find out why his fellow Jedi Council member and former Padawan has apparently gone rogue and is committing atrocities.

The actual plot of Shatterpoint is irrelevant. Honest. There are lightsabers, fights against overwhelming odds, bad feelings, and pretty much everything else that has the Star Wars stamp on it. The main purpose the book serves is to give you yet another window on what being a Jedi was, back in the Republic, and why the Clone Wars were ultimately their demise as a society. Which is to say, rabid fans will eat it up, and casual fans won’t care enough to get past the label.

Also, of course, it serves the ever-widening purpose of making fans rabid and casual alike resent George Lucas for being among the least capable writers in the Star Wars universe. I shouldn’t need a book to tell me in an oblique hint exactly why Palpatine’s plan was essentially unstoppable from start to finish, even while Lucas’ cinematic attempts leave me largely grasping at straws.