Star Wars: The Jedi Academy: Dark Apprentice

Volume 2

By: Kevin Anderson

Narrated by: Anthony Heald

As the New Republic takes devastating losses in the ongoingwar with the scattered remnants of the Empire, the galaxy's future depends on three small children -- among them the Jedi twins -- born to incredible powers and perils, as an extraordinary new saga unfolds...

While the New Republic struggles to decide what to do with the deadly Sun Crusher -- a new doomsday weapon stolen from the Empire by Han Solo -- the renegade Imperial Admiral Daala uses her fleet of Star Destroyers to conduct guerrilla warfare on peaceful planets. And now she threatens the watery homeworld of Admiral Ackbar. But as the battle for a planet rages, an even greater danger emerges at Luke Skywalker's Jedi academy. A brilliant student delves dangerously into the dark side of the Force and unleashes the spirit of an ancient master of the evil order that warped Darth Vader himself. Working together, they may become an enemy greater than the New Republic has ever fought... more powerful than even a Jedi Master can face.© and (P)1994 Lucasfilm Ltd. and TM.

it's short

I mean, I know it's abridged but 4 chapters?? I feel like the story ended in the middle of the second act.

Like listening to a movie!

Enjoy all the soundscapes and narrators voices. It’s an absolutely Great listen! Looking forward to the next one

EU gold!

The story is good and important enough to tolerate the abysmal narration. Read my review for the first book in the series for an in depth review of the narration.

Remake!

Story is great!
These 3 hour books are a joke! Star Wars franchise trying to squeak every single penny out of their story. pretty much a kick in the face to your fans!

The nerrator......... He obviously doesn't know anything about Star Wars due to the fact that he mispronounces so many Star Wars specific words. Why would you have someone that is not a Star Wars fan narrate your books?........Puzzling!

Could have been a 5 star but instead it's a 4.

Sadly lacking in comparison to the first.

Spoilers Mentioned -

I'll state right away that I am an outspoken defender and praiser of Unabridged Audiobooks. I also hate abridged versions because of certain aspects I'll cover in this review.

To start with praise, Anthony Heald is THE narrator for the abridged Star Wars novels. Though that's only being generous for his scope of voices, his heart for emotion in literature and the overall performance. The sound design, music and sound effects are always top tier and welcoming to add to the drama.

This particular audiobook's strength is in its action scenes such as the duel between Luke and his apprentices or the battle of Mon Calamari.

That being said, that's about the only thing I can think about how the abridged version was handled.

Everything is so fast paced and Narration is so lacking that you feel like you'd missed key parts of the characters and their actions. Luke's training is an afterthought and brushed off like his students turn to the Darkside after only a couple nights.

Little context or even necessary growth in Luke's apprentices' almost instantaneous fall to the Dark Side is terrible at best with little to barely any rewarded reason. Especially when Kyp had just freshly come into training after his adventure with Han Solo in the previous title. He practically instantly hates Luke's passive and patient teachings that he practically becomes a dark jedi over night even when they state how much time has passed, the rapid fire scenes feel like a rapid infliction of whiplash. There's little time for the listener to really breathe in these characters and the colorful situations and places they're even in.

The Imperials, the the scope of the abridged version almost don't even need to be here. Admiral Daala was well portrayed in the first title. A promising villain to lead the antagonist role. Even though she lost the Sun Crusher at the end, how she was portrayed and perceived made her character significant.

Now in this middle book, Dallas is given so little love here with this 3 hour abridge. She accomplishes little and pretty much loses all of the gusto she'd built to be a compelling and genuine threat to the heroes.

This is a lot of why abridging is such a destitute to novels. Because if you don't abridge anything in a huge long book, it CAN be taxing to get through a novel full of meat but no substance. Abridged too much, and you leave your audience questioning everything. This book did not need to be Abridged. it needed a full release for all of these moving parts to really give weight as to the motives and struggles these characters were going through. Especially Daala and Kyp. The two main focal points this trilogy should be focusing on. As a fan of Marc Thompson, I'd happily buy all three novels if they were fully released with him as narrator. But sadly, the only version we have is lack Luster and actually suffers even compared to its previous title.