Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray (5/5)

I’m going to admit that originally I wasn’t going to write a review for this book. It’s about two years old and probably doesn’t need a review, but after reading it… I have to. My number one concern is with myself and how it took me this long to open up this book finally. Claudia Gray is one of my favourite authors (I adore Leia Princess of Alderaan, Bloodline, and The High Republic: Into the Dark, and I’m also incredibly hyped for The High Republic: The Fallen Star) and I’ve had this book on my shelf for months now. Coming out of reading it, I cannot give it anything less than five stars, which is something that is frequent for me, especially with specific writers. With Claudia Gray, there is just something about the way that she writes that astounds me every single time I put up a work of hers.

Because it was written in 2019, Project Luminous was already underway, and so there are elements from The High Republic that show up here, as well as a lot of bridge with Cavan Scott’s Dooku Jedi Lost, which I am also debating doing a review about. These authors really don’t do anything by mistake at all, and it shows in their work and how well their works combine to enrich the tapestry of the Star Wars universe. You can tell how deeply they love Star Wars, because there is no other way that they could write these types of stories with the knowledge of the Star Wars universe. My High Republic fan ears (or eyes) perked up (can eyes do that?) when they began talking about hyperspace corridors and what would happen if that was targeted by the presumed villains in the text because that is a huge part of Light of the Jedi which I am currently finishing for the second time.

A major part of Master & Apprentice was about Qui-Gon’s relationship to prophecies, and how much of that was influenced by Dooku. And Claudia Gray goes hard with the talk about prophecies and their importance to Qui-Gon and the Jedi themselves. I really enjoyed this deeper glimpse into Qui-Gon and why certain events of The Phantom Menace affected him so deeply, particularly the slavery aspects and the belief in Anakin being the chosen one. Other prophecies are a little bit more vague, but the one about the woman born to darkness giving birth to darkness feels very much like a prophecy about Leia and Ben. Of course, we know that “One will ascend to the highest of the Jedi despite the foreboding of those who would serve with him” is about Anakin joining the Council, not Qui-Gon. So many of these prophecies are already obvious to those of us who know a lot about Star Wars, while others are less concrete like “He who learns to conquer death will through his greatest student live again”. My personal viewpoint of this is about the dyad between Rey and Ben. If Palpatine is the one in question who “learns to conquer death”, and Anakin is the “greatest student”, there is the fact that Anakin is Ben’s grandfather, and the dyad between Ben and Rey nearly completely brings Palpatine back. Of course, that may be completely wrong, but I do really enjoy how Gray engaged my brain and Star Wars knowledge with Master & Apprentice.

The main plot was stimulating, and I did not see that twist that came, but now it all makes sense to me when I think about it and I cannot wait to do a re-read of it and pick up on all the clues that I missed in my first reading. As a fan of Cavan Scott’s Dooku Jedi Lost, I was very excited to see more of Rael Avarross and more of his journey as well, especially with the ending. I loved that ending for him, and I love him as a character. Getting to explore more of Dooku through Qui-Gon’s perspective was very important to me as a major Dooku fan and my desire for more Dooku content. Gray did get me when she slipped, what I perceived to be, a bit of Dooku/Jocasta Nu into a flashback chapter that was only a couple of sentences.

Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s relationship in this book was incredible to me. I like that their relationship wasn’t perfect, which is accurate to The Phantom Menace, but we easily see that Qui-Gon cares for Obi-Wan and that Obi-Wan does respect Qui-Gon. They have moments where they do an incredible job together and moments that aren’t so amazing, which is all part of  the teaching and learning process. I get very emotional over Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s relationship, and this novel made me so emotional throughout the entire journey with the two of them. The epilogue broke me nearly.

If you haven’t read Master & Apprentice, please, get on it. You’ll love it. I could not recommend this book more. Claudia Gray, you did it again. You’ve got me crying over another Star Wars book.