As a cargo ship rockets across the galaxy to Canto Bight, the deckhands on board trade stories about legendary Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. But are the stories of iconic and mysterious Luke Skywalker true, or merely tall tales passed from one corner of the galaxy to another? Is Skywalker really a famous Jedi hero, an elaborate charlatan, or even part droid? The deckhands will have to decide for themselves when they hear The Legends of Luke Skywalker. A collection of myths and tall-tales about the legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker, written by Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy award-winning author Ken Liu.
When a book has Luke Skywalker in the title I’m the first to get it. To a lot of us the hero of our childhood and returning star, this book though isn’t aimed at that market however. This is a young adult book, aimed at the audience now growing with the new trilogy, and it delivers some true legends.
With the line of books under the ‘Journey to…’ line we have a diverse range of fun tales covering many of elements and characters from The Last Jedi. Ken Liu has given us a book that feels a lot like the early days of the the expanded universe, in those great anthology novels, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina and more.
It’s almost an anthology of Luke’s post Jedi times, and his travels across the galaxy exploring the force’s many facets. Playing out in the fashion of a mythological tale, it’s told in the similar way to how Ben Kenobi was presented in John Jackson Miller’s novel, showing how people saw the character from their point of view, yet we know full well this is the hero of the tale.
It feels at first a little bit like Aftermath, in the way it’s laid out with interludes with the tales of Luke told in between, something I think disjointed the Aftermath novels and took you out of the story too much. In this one however with the anthology like feel it works quite well.
This book is a work designed more for young adult demographic, but it doesn’t mean it’s any less enjoyable than others. We get a story of a flea that sees some of the biggest moments in Return of the Jedi, quite funny how it turns out. We get a story of Luke in a hilarious disguise (trust me you’ll get a laugh) on a rescue mission, we also see Luke in searches of knowledge in the ways of the force. He learns more of the force, in ways the Jedi do not use, and how it may relate to his ways of thought in The Last Jedi.
Ken Liu has written a novel that has legends of Luke, as the title suggests but an apt way to wrap this up is you’ll see the humanity of Luke Skywalker, and his reality.