If There's a Bright Center to the Universe...

Non-Star Wars content will arrive at some point in the foreseeable future, however, the staff here at Random Reviews' Multitude of Media is rather limited at best, and this blog began too late for readers to virtually hear my ridiculous (read: 11 hours at least without a break) screams of joy as The Night of the Doctor hit the Internet.

So, instead of Whovian mutterings or Tolkienian dissertations...



Star Wars: Kenobi! Featuring....the woman from the shop! (Not that one, though.) And her kids! And the denizens of Tatooine, the Wild West in Space! Also featuring the most awkward references to Kerra Holt and Zayne Carrick ever printed on the same page. Oh, and Kenobi, too.
And yet, it's still good. Really good.
I don't really want to say much about the plot, both to avoid spoiling the twists and because the plot really isn't the point of the story. Suffice it to say that it deals with Kenobi, having delivered Luke to the Lars family, trying to settle into an inconspicuous exile. And being really, really bad at being inconspicuous.
There is very little of the novel told from Obi-Wan (now Ben)'s perspective. We get an insight into his thoughts only in a few brief meditations as he tries to speak to Qui-Gon. The rest of the time, the story is more focussed on how the other characters are affected by his sudden arrival into the tight-knit desert community.
The real star of the novel is Annileen Calwell, who runs "Dannar's Claim," an eatery/general store which serves much of the surrounding country, including many patrons who hardly ever leave. Dealing with the shop and her children is a pain, but one particular escapade her daughter gets into causes an important change in her life, and the entire Oasis. Out in the wastes, they meet the mysterious "Ben," who soon becomes the talk of all the neighbors.
Other major characters include A'Yark, leader of a tribe of Tusken Raiders trying to recover after a terrible massacre several years before, and Orrin Gault, close friend of Annileen's late husband, an entrepreneur creating a system of defense against the Tuskens, the Settler's Call.
The real beauty of the story is its focus on the characters. It's a small-scale story. Whatever the outcome of the events might be, the offworld HoloNet will almost certainly not even pick up the story. Nobody outside would see significant differences in the galaxy. The galaxy isn't at stake, there're no invasions from outer space or imperial warlords with weapons of mass destruction. Just a sad, tired man, trying to hide in a community that doesn't suffer secrets, and the ways the lives of the characters around him shift and change with his arrival.

And the first-page reference to a long-running JCF joke amused me, at least.