Star Wars: Force Collector – Kevin Shinick
It’s been a little over two years since I last read and reviewed a Star Wars novel. The main reason for this hiatus is twofold. First, with a few exceptions, I found the overall quality of the last several books to be severely lacking. So much so that I was starting to get burned out. Second, I decided it would be a good idea to switch gears and read something that didn’t take place in our favorite galaxy far, far away. So, that’s what I did. But now, the time has come to get back into the groove and crack open another canon Star Wars novel. This time, I decided to read Force Collector by Kevin Shinick.
This is the first real novel in the Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker line. Unlike the last two films, The Rise of Skywalker only featured two real tie-in novels. The rest of the Journey to… releases for this film were geared for young children. If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t have high hopes for this book going into it and I was ready to just get it over with. So let’s just cut to the chase. Was Force Collector as bad as I was anticipating? No. Do I feel like it is a valuable contribution to the Star Wars canon? Not really. But to explain why I feel this way, let’s get into the details.
This book takes place a few years before The Force Awakens and it focuses on a new character, Karr Nuq Sin. Karr is a teenager like any other. But as he reaches maturity he realizes that he occasionally has visions and premonitions when he touches certain objects. After telling his family about this, his grandmother explains that she believes he is gifted with the Force. Of course, the Jedi Order is a relic of the past. His family urges him to be quiet about this ability, but Karr decides to set off into the galaxy in search of various Jedi artifacts, hoping to discern the whereabouts of someone who can teach him why he has this power and how to harness it.
The set up is a solid one. But the book quickly turns into a fanservice amusement park that shoehorns in a number of characters and locations from previous films. There’s nothing wrong with this per se. But at the end of the day, there’s really nothing added to the Star Wars saga as a whole with this book. The story is very self contained and it doesn’t really give any hints for The Rise of Skywalker or clear up any mysteries from the previous films either.
Karr’s flashbacks are interesting at times. They offer a slightly different takes on some key events from the Star Wars saga, especially one infamous episode from The Clone Wars. But even so, at the end of the day, this book just feels largely unimportant. It’s not terrible. But it also just seems a bit pointless. The story is just… ok.
All in all, it really feels like Disney just slapped the “Rise of Skywalker” label on this book to help it sell. It doesn’t really feel like much of a tie-in product. There’s way worse things you could waste your time reading. But there’s also a slew of better options. This one is for completists only.
Story: Decent writing and a promising premise. But about half way through the book it starts to become obvious that nothing spectacular is going to happen. This is a novel about Karr. It takes place in the Star Wars universe and it references Star Wars things. This isn’t terrible. But at the end of the day, it’s largely pointless because we are probably never going to hear this character’s name ever again.
Recommended: For serious Clone Wars fans or people who want to wring every possible detail out of previously established lore.
