Of all these one-shot books in the Age of Republic series, the Anakin Skywalker book was perhaps the one I was most looking forward to, to see what new spin on the legend we would get here.

As it is, this Book doesn’t really do much.

It’s not a bad book though. It’s basically just a snapshot of Anakin during the Clone Wars; the kind of random little tale you might get in a random Clone Wars episode.

What it does, however, is focus in on Anakin’s compassionate nature: his hesitation in committing to a tactical decision that might lead to the deaths of potentially innocent people in fact leads him to uncovering a Separatist trap designed to undermine the Republic’s image.

This seems like kind of an inversion of Palpatine’s taunt to Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, when he says of Luke “His compassion will be his undoing”. Here, Anakin’s innate compassion saves the day when he recognises that people who his superiors see as the enemy are in fact victims themselves – slaves being used against their will.

In freeing those slaves, he both does the heroic thing and validates his own position.

It’s nice to get a little story here that is focused on Anakin as essentially a good person: a compassionate, well-meaning guy – rather than a classic motif of the tortured or conflicted Anakin/Vader thing. Particularly having been absorbed in the Darth Vader title, it’s nice to get away from that kind of intensity and complex psychological storytelling, and back to a simpler sort of exploration of Anakin Skywalker.

The facr that he is helping free slaves here also ties in thematically well with Anakin’s psychology from Episode I and not being able to free his mother or the other slaves on Tatooine.

This isn’t really essential reading or a great book; but it’s a nice enough little piece.