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A review by verkisto
Crossfire by Peter Bollinger, Terry Bisson
3.0
Crossfire is a step up from The Fight to Survive, namely because it's a (mostly) complete story in itself. I may have gotten too used to Jude Watson with the thirty books of hers I read in her two series, but I've come to expect the stories to be self-contained, even if they're part of an overarching story. Crossfire likely won't make a whole lot of sense without The Fight to Survive, and I expect that the next book will rely heavily on what happens in Crossfire. (Though, I suppose that could be true of the Jedi Apprentice series. By the time you get to book seventeen, Watson's relying on characters and events from earlier in that series, too.)
In Crossfire, Boba has made it to the toxic moon of Raxus Prime, where Dooku has his base of operations. There, the two of them try to make an uneasy agreement over Boba's inheritance, but things go wrong quickly when the clone troops invade. From there, Boba is "rescued", and he continues to learn how to become self-sufficient through the events in the book.
Bisson's characterization is still the strong point of this novel, as it was in the previous one. Boba is considered an orphan by his rescuers, and he makes a friend while in transport. The thing is, Jango told Boba several times that bounty hunters don't make friends, so Boba's new friend is at odds with the training he receives from the book Jango left him. Ultimately, Boba has to make a choice, and while it wasn't as emotional as I would have expected it to be, it does find the tricky balance between making Boba a sympathetic character and making him compatible with the character he will become.
Like the previous book, Bisson simplifies things a bit more than I would have liked. The emotions in the story are written with broad strokes, and he overuses exclamation marks to indicate other emotions. I forgot to mention that he uses interrobangs in the first book, but at least I didn't see any of those in this book. Either way, the books are a good example of an author writing specifically for a younger audience, instead of writing normally and adjusting the content for younger readers.
Interestingly, Bisson touches on the issue of sex and gender, though it's only in passing. One of the characters in the story is neither a boy nor a girl, since in their race, their bodies don't define themselves until puberty. The character makes a remark about how gender is more than just parts, and I was surprised to find that in the book. I like that it was there, and I agree with it, but I've not seen such a progressive thought in the Expanded Universe. Regardless, I was pleased to see that message in a story written for a younger audience, and not made to be a big deal. It just is, and I think it's great.
While Crossfire improves on the first book in the series, this is the last book Bisson contributes to it. Elizabeth Hand takes over for the rest of the series, so it's hard to anticipate what will come next with a new author. I'll be reading it either way, which is good, since I've been wanting to read something by Hand for a long time.
In Crossfire, Boba has made it to the toxic moon of Raxus Prime, where Dooku has his base of operations. There, the two of them try to make an uneasy agreement over Boba's inheritance, but things go wrong quickly when the clone troops invade. From there, Boba is "rescued", and he continues to learn how to become self-sufficient through the events in the book.
Bisson's characterization is still the strong point of this novel, as it was in the previous one. Boba is considered an orphan by his rescuers, and he makes a friend while in transport. The thing is, Jango told Boba several times that bounty hunters don't make friends, so Boba's new friend is at odds with the training he receives from the book Jango left him. Ultimately, Boba has to make a choice, and while it wasn't as emotional as I would have expected it to be, it does find the tricky balance between making Boba a sympathetic character and making him compatible with the character he will become.
Like the previous book, Bisson simplifies things a bit more than I would have liked. The emotions in the story are written with broad strokes, and he overuses exclamation marks to indicate other emotions. I forgot to mention that he uses interrobangs in the first book, but at least I didn't see any of those in this book. Either way, the books are a good example of an author writing specifically for a younger audience, instead of writing normally and adjusting the content for younger readers.
Interestingly, Bisson touches on the issue of sex and gender, though it's only in passing. One of the characters in the story is neither a boy nor a girl, since in their race, their bodies don't define themselves until puberty. The character makes a remark about how gender is more than just parts, and I was surprised to find that in the book. I like that it was there, and I agree with it, but I've not seen such a progressive thought in the Expanded Universe. Regardless, I was pleased to see that message in a story written for a younger audience, and not made to be a big deal. It just is, and I think it's great.
While Crossfire improves on the first book in the series, this is the last book Bisson contributes to it. Elizabeth Hand takes over for the rest of the series, so it's hard to anticipate what will come next with a new author. I'll be reading it either way, which is good, since I've been wanting to read something by Hand for a long time.