THE STORY:
Young Boba travels to Tatooine (doesn't everyone?) in search of the one person who can help him take the next step to becoming a bounty hunter - Jabba the Hutt. He finds, however, that Jabba is far from easy to deal with and a new enemy enters the frame in the form of the cruel and deadly hunter Durge.WHAT'S GOOD:
I like the way this series has Boba encountering all kinds of characters in order to forge him into the greatest hunter in the galaxy; in book one there was his father Jango Fett, book two had him meeting the deadly Count Dooku, book three saw him facing Aurra Sing and here he meets not only everyone's least favourite vile gangster, but also the latest character from the Clone Wars continuum, Durge. It's really no wonder that this lad later becomes Darth Vader's favourite mercenary.
WHAT'S BAD:
The problem here is the fact that the book is for younger readers. This means that Boba is still a boy and it's hard to believe that he so easily outwits opponents such as Durge. It also means that the story is very 'PG', with Boba not killing anyone and only completing his mission to kill Jabba's enemy through that enemy's bad luck. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for a gorefest, but I just think it's a bit silly making a kiddies series about Star Wars' most ruthless and efficient killer. And I'm not even going to go into the cheesy storyline where Boba befriends some poor orphans. All in all I felt that this book and the others in the series fail to capture the essence of Boba Fett (look to his comic book adventures for that). Finally, it claims to be a Clone Wars novel, but the Clone Wars (which, let's not forget, is a vast destructive conflict) is mentioned only in a sideline about the villain selling weapons to the Separatists.
A pleasant enough read, but nothing groundbreaking.
