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Star Wars Legends: Novels
Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine
Enter the explosive universe of the exciting online game
STAR WARS GALAXIES:
AN EMPIRE DIVIDED!
It is a time of great turmoil. The oppressive Empire is close to seizing complete control of the galaxy. The ragtag guerrilla army of the Rebel Alliance fights on, striking wherever it can, but now something has come to light that could spell certain doom. Hidden in the Jedi ruins of Dantooine is a Holocron containing a list of high-level Rebel sympathizers. If that list were to fall into the hands of Darth Vader, the Rebel Alliance would lose its most valued support—and possibly the war itself.
As an Imperial bio-engineer who frequently visits other worlds, Dusque Mistflier is the perfect cover for a Rebel who needs to travel far and wide without arousing suspicion. And so she agrees to help Rebel spy Finn Darktrin in his quest to recover the crucial Holocron. Despite help from Han, Luke, and Leia, the mission is fraught with peril. And as their journey takes them into the fiery belly of the beast that is galactic civil war, Dusque and Finn will learn that the hardest part of all is figuring out whose side you’re on—and how far you’re willing to go to win. . . .
STAR WARS GALAXIES:
AN EMPIRE DIVIDED!
It is a time of great turmoil. The oppressive Empire is close to seizing complete control of the galaxy. The ragtag guerrilla army of the Rebel Alliance fights on, striking wherever it can, but now something has come to light that could spell certain doom. Hidden in the Jedi ruins of Dantooine is a Holocron containing a list of high-level Rebel sympathizers. If that list were to fall into the hands of Darth Vader, the Rebel Alliance would lose its most valued support—and possibly the war itself.
As an Imperial bio-engineer who frequently visits other worlds, Dusque Mistflier is the perfect cover for a Rebel who needs to travel far and wide without arousing suspicion. And so she agrees to help Rebel spy Finn Darktrin in his quest to recover the crucial Holocron. Despite help from Han, Luke, and Leia, the mission is fraught with peril. And as their journey takes them into the fiery belly of the beast that is galactic civil war, Dusque and Finn will learn that the hardest part of all is figuring out whose side you’re on—and how far you’re willing to go to win. . . .
286 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 30, 2003
29 people are currently reading
970 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
October 6, 2025
A very mediocre book sadly. The majority of the book was "fine", but it never really stood out until the end. The ending is shocking and well handled, but I don't believe it's really worth it for the journey.
The book is ostensibly a tie-in to the video game Star Wars Galaxies, but there are very few action scenes in the novel, so I don't know how accurate to the game design it is. But the book took a lot longer to get going than I think it needed to, and we don't even get to Dantooine until the last 100 pages.
The main character of Dusque was nominally interesting, as were Finn and Tendau. Unfortunately, it took the entire book for me to finally get connected to Dusque and Finn, and that was only because of the nature of the ending.
I don't have a ton that I heavily disliked about the book, as I feel it is constructed fine. It's just that it didn't particularly work either, nor was it entertaining to read, which is perhaps the biggest sin a novel can commit.
And man, that cover is not doing the book any favors. I know they're trying to emulate the game, but it really fails to show what the novel is about or really entice in readers.
Overall, this is a mediocre book with a pretty good ending. Only really recommended for completionists of the EU though. 6 out of 10.
The book is ostensibly a tie-in to the video game Star Wars Galaxies, but there are very few action scenes in the novel, so I don't know how accurate to the game design it is. But the book took a lot longer to get going than I think it needed to, and we don't even get to Dantooine until the last 100 pages.
The main character of Dusque was nominally interesting, as were Finn and Tendau. Unfortunately, it took the entire book for me to finally get connected to Dusque and Finn, and that was only because of the nature of the ending.
I don't have a ton that I heavily disliked about the book, as I feel it is constructed fine. It's just that it didn't particularly work either, nor was it entertaining to read, which is perhaps the biggest sin a novel can commit.
And man, that cover is not doing the book any favors. I know they're trying to emulate the game, but it really fails to show what the novel is about or really entice in readers.
Overall, this is a mediocre book with a pretty good ending. Only really recommended for completionists of the EU though. 6 out of 10.
January 30, 2020
I don't really understand why Ruins of Dantooine gets such a short shrift amongst readers. I'll be the first to agree that it's far from the best Star Wars novel, and ranks towards the bottom of the 3-star shelf, but to call it the "worst legends book" and "worse that (insert said title here)" seems to be a bit harsh.
Yes, Dantooine is far from perfect. It suffers a lot of problems, worst offenders being Holocrons crafted by average people (they are strictly Jedi and Sith tools), and having the events of the title only take place in the last 80 pages or so, however, that doesn't necessarily make it as awful as others try to paint it
Whitney-Robinson's style is simplistic and not very advanced, though in this case, it's not a bad thing. It makes Ruins of Dantooine to be an easy, quick read. Unlike staples of the genre like Zahn and Luceno, she doesn't bog herself down in the minutia of ship description or planetary gravity wells. Characters aren't super deep, nor do they have totally believable backstories, but this is one of those instances where it really shouldn't matter much...this is based off a freaking videogame from the early 2000's afterall .
In the grand theme of things that is Star Wars, The Ruins of Dantooine is totally readable and is entertaining enough, yet there is little doubt that this one will never be considered as one of the classics of the EU.
Yes, Dantooine is far from perfect. It suffers a lot of problems, worst offenders being Holocrons crafted by average people (they are strictly Jedi and Sith tools), and having the events of the title only take place in the last 80 pages or so, however, that doesn't necessarily make it as awful as others try to paint it
Whitney-Robinson's style is simplistic and not very advanced, though in this case, it's not a bad thing. It makes Ruins of Dantooine to be an easy, quick read. Unlike staples of the genre like Zahn and Luceno, she doesn't bog herself down in the minutia of ship description or planetary gravity wells. Characters aren't super deep, nor do they have totally believable backstories, but this is one of those instances where it really shouldn't matter much...this is based off a freaking videogame from the early 2000's afterall .
In the grand theme of things that is Star Wars, The Ruins of Dantooine is totally readable and is entertaining enough, yet there is little doubt that this one will never be considered as one of the classics of the EU.
September 8, 2013
This books failed to draw me in at all. I ended up skimming it to get the gist of the story. I would have thrown in aside all together if it wasn't for my desire to read all Star Wars novels. Consider this one "read". It reads like a video game, complete with pointless side quests and encounters that don't advance the story. Dusque had far too many wild animal encounters, even if you consider her job studying alien lifeforms. The surprise at the end of the book was hardly surprising. You were just waiting for it to happen the entire time so it's impact was dimini...there was no impact. You were just glad the author finally spat it out and the book was almost over.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2009
I didn't realize this would be my first romance novel. Classic horribleness courtesy of pp 155-6: "As Finn started to speak, Dusque held up a hand and placed it against his lips. 'It's all right, ... I understand.'" Oy
January 29, 2020
Not much to it but a nice quick read and it was interesting to see the perspective of someone being recruited into the rebellion.
January 17, 2023
More like 1.5 stars ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For 2022, I decided to go back in time and reread all the Prequels Era novels published between 1999 and 2005, plus a smidgen of other novels (like Survivor's Quest and the Dark Nest trilogy) released during that time frame. This shakes out to 21 novels, four eBook novellas, and at least thirteen short stories.
This week’s focus: the first (??) Star Wars video game tie-in novel, Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine by Voronica Whitney-Robinson with W. Haden Blackman.
SOME HISTORY:
Voronica Whitney-Robinson wrote very fast. Star Wars Galaxies (often abbreviated SWG), the massive multiplayer online role playing game was set to come out in the summer of 2003, and Lucasarts and Del Rey decided that maybe a tie-in novel would be the way to go. So they reached out to Whitney-Robinson, who had previously written novels for Wizards of the Coast; she submitted an outline of the story in August, and by early September she had already written half the story. Considering that Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine was published on December 30, 2003, I would say that Whitney-Robinson is a very speedy author indeed!
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
This novel was one that I might have heard about, but I never saw in the flesh and never felt compelled to seek it out—mostly because I had never played SWG, and had no interest in doing so. It wasn’t until I started compiling my list of prequel releases that I realized that this was a Star Wars book at all
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Hidden within the Jedi ruins on Dantooine is a holocron that contains the names of Rebel sympathizers—and if this information were to get into the hands of the Empire, it would cause innumerable deaths. So former Imperial bioengineer Dusque Mistflier and Rebel operative Finn Darktrin are dispatched to retrieve the holocron. But Dusque will learn that the hardest part of this mission is figuring out whose side you're on, and how far you're willing to go to win…
STAR WARS GALAXIES: THE GAME:
Some background on Star Wars Galaxies: it was a Star Wars-themed massive multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG, developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by Lucasarts for Windows computers. There was originally a plan to also release it for consoles, but that never panned out. The base game titled Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided was released on June 26, 2003 in the USA and later in the rest of the world, and the base game was upgraded with three major expansions between 2003-2005. (In addition to the initial cost of the software, there was also a monthly subscription fee of 14.99 USD, but there were discounts if you subscribed for long periods of time.)
A combat upgrade was released in April 2005 that was a major rewrite of the combat armor and weapons systems—basically meaning that only certain professions could use specific weapons and armors—and this resulted in a lot of controversy from players who criticized the changes and canceled their subscriptions. Another set of game changes dubbed the New Game Enhancements (NGE) began testing in November of 2005 and went live later that month. These changes reduced the number of 34 original professions to nine, and once again there was lots of criticism of these changes. But people were still playing this game up until 2011, when Sony Online Entertainment announced that they would permanently shut down Star Wars Galaxies in December 2011. However, even after that shutdown people still play SWG in emulator form, so even though it's an old game at this point, there's still a lot of nostalgia surrounding it.
THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS:
I guess Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine was an attempt to get book readers interested in this online game, but I think that if you have played SWG in the past, you’ll get more enjoyment out of this book than a complete newbie would. There are easter eggs of locations and items that appear within the game, but someone unfamiliar with the game won’t pick up on them at all.
I feel like Del Rey really did this story dirty by giving it such a bad cover. It's obviously artwork from the game, but it's that sort of middling-to-low quality CGI stuff from the early 2000s—and I think that an actual illustration would have done a lot better to sell me this as a legit SW book.
The Ruins of Dantooine follows our heroine Dusque Mistflier, an Imperial bioengineer from Talus. As the story progresses, she becomes frustrated with both her role as well as what the Empire is doing, and she ends up joining the Rebels and helping them with this fetch quest. She's joined for most of the journey by Finn Darktrin (not that Finn), a Rebel operative who’s been dispatched to get Dusque and convert her to the Rebel cause because she has the right credentials to get them on Dantooine to retrieve the holocron for Princess Leia and the Rebel leaders.
I did wonder why they were retrieving a holocron, because my understanding was that Jedi holocrons and Sith holocrons could only be accessed by someone with Force abilities, but I guess that within the game holocrons are used to store information? Maybe there's a third kind of holocron that anyone can access? Because if not, the climactic ending really couldn't have worked out.
When we first meet Dusque, she's on Nabooaccompanied by a fellow bioengineer who is an Ithorian (you know, these guys). She attends some sort of animal fight-to-the-death coliseum event and is disgusted by it, then goes into a casino. There's a one-page cameo appearance by Lando Calrissian which really felt like a video game move, and then she meets Finn. He makes her question things about the Empire, but she makes no decisions and heads off on a side quest with her Ithorian companion in search of these giant bats on one of Naboo's moons.
They head back to Naboo and the Ithorian is arrested and executed by the Imperials. This is what initially converts Dusque to the Rebel cause, because she wants to get revenge for her colleague. Dusque and Finn head to Lok, complete a fetch quest, meet Han Solo….and are not transported in the Millennium Falcon to the Rebel base, but instead just follow Han? They crash on Corellia, walk with C-3PO to the secret Rebel base, meet Luke and Leia, and are given their mission.
It's not until chapter 10 (of 15) that they finally leave for Dantooine—there's a lot more traveling, they get the holocron, they make it off Dantooine, and then So as the book ends, Finn is back with the Imperials, still in their good graces, and Dusque is alive and 100% on the Rebel’s side.
You think “okay, they're probably going to show up in some other story and interact again” but unfortunately that's it for these characters. Whitney-Robinson wrote a short story prequel to The Ruins of Dantooine that was published in Star Wars Insider, but that's really it as far as I could tell. She didn't write anything more in the Star Wars universe, or really anything more at all. Her author bio says that she's a marine biologist who lives in Washington state, so maybe she decided she didn't like writing tie-in novels and just wanted to focus on her real job.
ISSUES:
The Ruins of Dantooine is like a spy/intrigue story with a stealth romance plot. I had no idea going into it that the romance between Dusque and Finn would play such a huge part in the story, but it does. It’s OK, I guess? It’s not the best romance, but since I was not expecting any romance I was rather thrown by it.
I was also not expecting the sheer number of side quests that appear here. They don’t even head to the titular planet until two-thirds into the story, mostly because of all these useless side quests and fetch quests—many of which have no relevance to the greater plot, and seemed more like an opportunity to show the different worlds that appear in SWG.
And there are a lot of descriptions of different creatures on every planet they visit. Dusque is a bioengineer, so it makes sense that she would note them all, but there are so many different creatures, their eating habits, their temperament, their prey and their predators, and I found most of them uninteresting additions to the story.
I also wish that the appearance of Original Trilogy characters had been a little better integrated into the story. Because as it stands, they feel like unnecessary cameo appearances. Lando didn’t need to be there at all; I thought that Han would give them a ride, but he didn't; and Leia’s behavior with Dusque seemed to indicate a closer relationship than they actually had. Even the fact that Luke rescues Dusque at the end felt like an illogical reach.
But most of all, the novel felt very fanfiction to me. Characters like Dusque Mistflier and Finn Darktrin sound like something thrown out of a Star Wars name generator. It's hard to get a grasp on Finn, because he never talks about himself—and then he ends up being an Imperial agent anyway. Dusque was nice, but I wish that Whitney-Robinson had not used the trope of Dusque being not like other girls, because if she truly doesn’t care about her appearance why does she have waist-length hair?? As someone who has had very long hair in the past, that is not a no maintenance hairstyle.
I also felt like there were a lot of mentions of the fact that since Dusque is a woman in Imperial service, she’s never considered for promotions and no one pays attention to her. It’s probably true, but it felt clunkily integrated into the story. I wish that could have played a bigger role into why she chooses to side with the Rebellion—not just her family history, and the Ithorian being executed in front of her, but the realization that she's never going to accomplish anything within the Empire, that her morals and ideals do not align with the Empire, and that she doesn't see herself with a future there.
IN CONCLUSION:
I sometimes see The Ruins of Dantooine described as the worst Star Wars novel, or one of the worst SW novels, and I don't think it is…I do think that the amount of time Whitney-Robinson spent on the story is reflected in the quality of the plot and characterization. I wish that The Ruins of Dantooine wasn't so heavily dependent on knowledge of Star Wars Galaxies, because all the video game aspects like cameos by Original Trilogy characters and endless side quests took away from the story. Since we never revisit these characters again, they don't get a chance to develop and grow—it's just generic Imperial agent masquerading as a Rebel, and generic Imperial scientist who realizes the wrongs of her ways. Whitney-Robinson obviously had a lot of fun with all the creatures and locations visited, but it's a mediocre intrigue/quest story, and not really important for your understanding of anything in Star Wars. (And yes, I still wish that it had gotten a better cover!)
Next up: an eBook about the stormtroopers from Survivor's Quest, Fool's Bargain by Timothy Zahn
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/heAz2GPMdJ8
Voronica Whitney-Robinson: The Fastest Pen in the Galaxy? (February 2004): https://web.archive.org/web/200907181...
Homing Beacon #96 - Exploring the Ruins of Dantooine (June 2003): https://web.archive.org/web/200502051...
For 2022, I decided to go back in time and reread all the Prequels Era novels published between 1999 and 2005, plus a smidgen of other novels (like Survivor's Quest and the Dark Nest trilogy) released during that time frame. This shakes out to 21 novels, four eBook novellas, and at least thirteen short stories.
This week’s focus: the first (??) Star Wars video game tie-in novel, Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine by Voronica Whitney-Robinson with W. Haden Blackman.
SOME HISTORY:
Voronica Whitney-Robinson wrote very fast. Star Wars Galaxies (often abbreviated SWG), the massive multiplayer online role playing game was set to come out in the summer of 2003, and Lucasarts and Del Rey decided that maybe a tie-in novel would be the way to go. So they reached out to Whitney-Robinson, who had previously written novels for Wizards of the Coast; she submitted an outline of the story in August, and by early September she had already written half the story. Considering that Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine was published on December 30, 2003, I would say that Whitney-Robinson is a very speedy author indeed!
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
This novel was one that I might have heard about, but I never saw in the flesh and never felt compelled to seek it out—mostly because I had never played SWG, and had no interest in doing so. It wasn’t until I started compiling my list of prequel releases that I realized that this was a Star Wars book at all
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Hidden within the Jedi ruins on Dantooine is a holocron that contains the names of Rebel sympathizers—and if this information were to get into the hands of the Empire, it would cause innumerable deaths. So former Imperial bioengineer Dusque Mistflier and Rebel operative Finn Darktrin are dispatched to retrieve the holocron. But Dusque will learn that the hardest part of this mission is figuring out whose side you're on, and how far you're willing to go to win…
STAR WARS GALAXIES: THE GAME:
Some background on Star Wars Galaxies: it was a Star Wars-themed massive multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG, developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by Lucasarts for Windows computers. There was originally a plan to also release it for consoles, but that never panned out. The base game titled Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided was released on June 26, 2003 in the USA and later in the rest of the world, and the base game was upgraded with three major expansions between 2003-2005. (In addition to the initial cost of the software, there was also a monthly subscription fee of 14.99 USD, but there were discounts if you subscribed for long periods of time.)
A combat upgrade was released in April 2005 that was a major rewrite of the combat armor and weapons systems—basically meaning that only certain professions could use specific weapons and armors—and this resulted in a lot of controversy from players who criticized the changes and canceled their subscriptions. Another set of game changes dubbed the New Game Enhancements (NGE) began testing in November of 2005 and went live later that month. These changes reduced the number of 34 original professions to nine, and once again there was lots of criticism of these changes. But people were still playing this game up until 2011, when Sony Online Entertainment announced that they would permanently shut down Star Wars Galaxies in December 2011. However, even after that shutdown people still play SWG in emulator form, so even though it's an old game at this point, there's still a lot of nostalgia surrounding it.
THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS:
I guess Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine was an attempt to get book readers interested in this online game, but I think that if you have played SWG in the past, you’ll get more enjoyment out of this book than a complete newbie would. There are easter eggs of locations and items that appear within the game, but someone unfamiliar with the game won’t pick up on them at all.
I feel like Del Rey really did this story dirty by giving it such a bad cover. It's obviously artwork from the game, but it's that sort of middling-to-low quality CGI stuff from the early 2000s—and I think that an actual illustration would have done a lot better to sell me this as a legit SW book.
The Ruins of Dantooine follows our heroine Dusque Mistflier, an Imperial bioengineer from Talus. As the story progresses, she becomes frustrated with both her role as well as what the Empire is doing, and she ends up joining the Rebels and helping them with this fetch quest. She's joined for most of the journey by Finn Darktrin (not that Finn), a Rebel operative who’s been dispatched to get Dusque and convert her to the Rebel cause because she has the right credentials to get them on Dantooine to retrieve the holocron for Princess Leia and the Rebel leaders.
I did wonder why they were retrieving a holocron, because my understanding was that Jedi holocrons and Sith holocrons could only be accessed by someone with Force abilities, but I guess that within the game holocrons are used to store information? Maybe there's a third kind of holocron that anyone can access? Because if not, the climactic ending really couldn't have worked out.
When we first meet Dusque, she's on Nabooaccompanied by a fellow bioengineer who is an Ithorian (you know, these guys). She attends some sort of animal fight-to-the-death coliseum event and is disgusted by it, then goes into a casino. There's a one-page cameo appearance by Lando Calrissian which really felt like a video game move, and then she meets Finn. He makes her question things about the Empire, but she makes no decisions and heads off on a side quest with her Ithorian companion in search of these giant bats on one of Naboo's moons.
They head back to Naboo and the Ithorian is arrested and executed by the Imperials. This is what initially converts Dusque to the Rebel cause, because she wants to get revenge for her colleague. Dusque and Finn head to Lok, complete a fetch quest, meet Han Solo….and are not transported in the Millennium Falcon to the Rebel base, but instead just follow Han? They crash on Corellia, walk with C-3PO to the secret Rebel base, meet Luke and Leia, and are given their mission.
It's not until chapter 10 (of 15) that they finally leave for Dantooine—there's a lot more traveling, they get the holocron, they make it off Dantooine, and then So as the book ends, Finn is back with the Imperials, still in their good graces, and Dusque is alive and 100% on the Rebel’s side.
You think “okay, they're probably going to show up in some other story and interact again” but unfortunately that's it for these characters. Whitney-Robinson wrote a short story prequel to The Ruins of Dantooine that was published in Star Wars Insider, but that's really it as far as I could tell. She didn't write anything more in the Star Wars universe, or really anything more at all. Her author bio says that she's a marine biologist who lives in Washington state, so maybe she decided she didn't like writing tie-in novels and just wanted to focus on her real job.
ISSUES:
The Ruins of Dantooine is like a spy/intrigue story with a stealth romance plot. I had no idea going into it that the romance between Dusque and Finn would play such a huge part in the story, but it does. It’s OK, I guess? It’s not the best romance, but since I was not expecting any romance I was rather thrown by it.
I was also not expecting the sheer number of side quests that appear here. They don’t even head to the titular planet until two-thirds into the story, mostly because of all these useless side quests and fetch quests—many of which have no relevance to the greater plot, and seemed more like an opportunity to show the different worlds that appear in SWG.
And there are a lot of descriptions of different creatures on every planet they visit. Dusque is a bioengineer, so it makes sense that she would note them all, but there are so many different creatures, their eating habits, their temperament, their prey and their predators, and I found most of them uninteresting additions to the story.
I also wish that the appearance of Original Trilogy characters had been a little better integrated into the story. Because as it stands, they feel like unnecessary cameo appearances. Lando didn’t need to be there at all; I thought that Han would give them a ride, but he didn't; and Leia’s behavior with Dusque seemed to indicate a closer relationship than they actually had. Even the fact that Luke rescues Dusque at the end felt like an illogical reach.
But most of all, the novel felt very fanfiction to me. Characters like Dusque Mistflier and Finn Darktrin sound like something thrown out of a Star Wars name generator. It's hard to get a grasp on Finn, because he never talks about himself—and then he ends up being an Imperial agent anyway. Dusque was nice, but I wish that Whitney-Robinson had not used the trope of Dusque being not like other girls, because if she truly doesn’t care about her appearance why does she have waist-length hair?? As someone who has had very long hair in the past, that is not a no maintenance hairstyle.
I also felt like there were a lot of mentions of the fact that since Dusque is a woman in Imperial service, she’s never considered for promotions and no one pays attention to her. It’s probably true, but it felt clunkily integrated into the story. I wish that could have played a bigger role into why she chooses to side with the Rebellion—not just her family history, and the Ithorian being executed in front of her, but the realization that she's never going to accomplish anything within the Empire, that her morals and ideals do not align with the Empire, and that she doesn't see herself with a future there.
IN CONCLUSION:
I sometimes see The Ruins of Dantooine described as the worst Star Wars novel, or one of the worst SW novels, and I don't think it is…I do think that the amount of time Whitney-Robinson spent on the story is reflected in the quality of the plot and characterization. I wish that The Ruins of Dantooine wasn't so heavily dependent on knowledge of Star Wars Galaxies, because all the video game aspects like cameos by Original Trilogy characters and endless side quests took away from the story. Since we never revisit these characters again, they don't get a chance to develop and grow—it's just generic Imperial agent masquerading as a Rebel, and generic Imperial scientist who realizes the wrongs of her ways. Whitney-Robinson obviously had a lot of fun with all the creatures and locations visited, but it's a mediocre intrigue/quest story, and not really important for your understanding of anything in Star Wars. (And yes, I still wish that it had gotten a better cover!)
Next up: an eBook about the stormtroopers from Survivor's Quest, Fool's Bargain by Timothy Zahn
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/heAz2GPMdJ8
Voronica Whitney-Robinson: The Fastest Pen in the Galaxy? (February 2004): https://web.archive.org/web/200907181...
Homing Beacon #96 - Exploring the Ruins of Dantooine (June 2003): https://web.archive.org/web/200502051...
October 15, 2021
It starts off so promising, with one of the best depictions of being in Darth Vader's presence I've ever read. But once that is out of the way, it becomes a dull-ish runaround that doesn't endear me to the characters, who I find rather bland. I also find the developing relationship at the core of the novel moves rather too fast to feel realistic. There is a decent plot framework here, but when the brief appearances by the Lucasverse regulars are the only bright spots, then there isn't much left on which to hang a hat.
November 6, 2025
Star Wars: Legends: Galaxies - The Ruins of Dantooine by W. Haden Blackman, Voronica Whitney-Robinson
4.0 Stars
challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense
Fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters are a main focus: Yes
This is a dark story, but a story for the moment...too. I have read this novel in late-2025, and we too have a government that is "out of control".
I really love the character of Dusque. She is a citizen of the Empire, but she's not happy with what is going on, but "what can you do?"
She meets a man named Finn, who she's skeptical at, at first...but somehow, he's there for her.
The adventure ensues, and she saves him and he saves her...from this or that...that happens to them, and against them.
I love how they used Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker in this story. Not too much, but just enough to relay to the reader...that we are in THAT galaxy...going through similar things. Have we watched the Andor TV series on Disney+? Did it not resonate with most all of us? Yes...it did.
This novel is telling a similar story...and it's really good.
4.0 Stars
challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense
Fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters are a main focus: Yes
This is a dark story, but a story for the moment...too. I have read this novel in late-2025, and we too have a government that is "out of control".
I really love the character of Dusque. She is a citizen of the Empire, but she's not happy with what is going on, but "what can you do?"
She meets a man named Finn, who she's skeptical at, at first...but somehow, he's there for her.
The adventure ensues, and she saves him and he saves her...from this or that...that happens to them, and against them.
I love how they used Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker in this story. Not too much, but just enough to relay to the reader...that we are in THAT galaxy...going through similar things. Have we watched the Andor TV series on Disney+? Did it not resonate with most all of us? Yes...it did.
This novel is telling a similar story...and it's really good.
December 13, 2022
I don’t know why this book got such hate! It needs a new cover for SURE but it was a pretty great novel for being a rush job, based on a video game book. I would recommend this to most friends.
May 9, 2022
Stars: 2.5
Reread? Maybe at 49%
Recommend to: People who played Galaxies or want to read everything in the EU. It works okay as a moderately entertaining standalone.
I came into this book ready for a complete disaster after seeing people gripe about it on goodreads for years saying how it is among the worst or the worst EU books. I disagree with that pretty strongly. A good percentage of the prequel books were worse for sure. I'd say that I was pretty entertained through much of the book, but it was really harmed by being constantly annoying.
The biggest annoyance by far was that the primary character is a woman who whines incessantly about how she is treated differently because she is a woman. It is constant "I didn't get the promotion because I'm a woman", "he looked at me that way because he's never seen a woman in charge", and "he only reacted that way because I'm a woman". It was beyond annoying and at many times absurd. For example, .
There were plenty of other annoyances that were to a lesser degree:
- The love story is absurd. If it wasn't written by a woman, I would think it was written by a man who had no idea how a woman thinks or feels.
- Certain elements of the plot and characterization were done very poorly.
- There a somewhat regular contradictions within the book. One that comes to mind is when Finn details the times he knows Dusque sabotaged her own work because she didn't want the Empire to benefit from it. Then, one or two pages later, her partner is talking about how great she is because she never makes mistakes and Dusque is crying about sexism and how she doesn't get promoted when she so obviously is better than the men. And I'm sitting there in the Twilight Zone wondering how the author forgot about how she contradicted this on the last page.
- A good portion of the plot centers on a holocron, but apparently Roth doesn't understand that normal people don't use holocrons and wouldn't be able to operate one. But whatever.
- Too many instances rely on characters or factions behaving way out of character.
- EU authors are obsessed with listing planet names from the movies when they don't make any sense for the plot or are just very unlikely. So where had Dusque been previously? Tatooine and Yavin 4 of course.
- I hate the obsession with the OT characters that EU authors have. Just create your own. It isn't necessary to include them.
- Since I haven't played the game, I don't know if the missing backstory is explained there or not.
-
- Dusque is a bioengineer, and boy is that a job that apparently comes in handy all the time. She knows everything about every species on every planet. I guess her job is to go around and get samples from creatures, which doesn't seem difficult for the Empire. I would think they would just go in and kill whatever animal they wanted sampled, but no. They send in a team of two people to get living samples I guess. This also means that her credentials will get her into all kinds of places. It also means that her bosses apparently don't pay much attention to what she does.
- She goes from never using a blaster to being extremely talented and able to use it under extreme circumstances with one cringe worthy training session.
- There's a scene at the end
- There's a casino where they have identical games to Earth casinos, but they have to call them something different. So slots are lugjack and roulette is spinnerpits. I don't know why they have to do this.
I thought the plot was alright and moved along at a decent pace. It definitely wasn't great, but I can for sure think of 10-20 EU books that were worse.
That cover is hilarious.
Reread? Maybe at 49%
Recommend to: People who played Galaxies or want to read everything in the EU. It works okay as a moderately entertaining standalone.
I came into this book ready for a complete disaster after seeing people gripe about it on goodreads for years saying how it is among the worst or the worst EU books. I disagree with that pretty strongly. A good percentage of the prequel books were worse for sure. I'd say that I was pretty entertained through much of the book, but it was really harmed by being constantly annoying.
The biggest annoyance by far was that the primary character is a woman who whines incessantly about how she is treated differently because she is a woman. It is constant "I didn't get the promotion because I'm a woman", "he looked at me that way because he's never seen a woman in charge", and "he only reacted that way because I'm a woman". It was beyond annoying and at many times absurd. For example, .
There were plenty of other annoyances that were to a lesser degree:
- The love story is absurd. If it wasn't written by a woman, I would think it was written by a man who had no idea how a woman thinks or feels.
- Certain elements of the plot and characterization were done very poorly.
- There a somewhat regular contradictions within the book. One that comes to mind is when Finn details the times he knows Dusque sabotaged her own work because she didn't want the Empire to benefit from it. Then, one or two pages later, her partner is talking about how great she is because she never makes mistakes and Dusque is crying about sexism and how she doesn't get promoted when she so obviously is better than the men. And I'm sitting there in the Twilight Zone wondering how the author forgot about how she contradicted this on the last page.
- A good portion of the plot centers on a holocron, but apparently Roth doesn't understand that normal people don't use holocrons and wouldn't be able to operate one. But whatever.
- Too many instances rely on characters or factions behaving way out of character.
- EU authors are obsessed with listing planet names from the movies when they don't make any sense for the plot or are just very unlikely. So where had Dusque been previously? Tatooine and Yavin 4 of course.
- I hate the obsession with the OT characters that EU authors have. Just create your own. It isn't necessary to include them.
- Since I haven't played the game, I don't know if the missing backstory is explained there or not.
-
- Dusque is a bioengineer, and boy is that a job that apparently comes in handy all the time. She knows everything about every species on every planet. I guess her job is to go around and get samples from creatures, which doesn't seem difficult for the Empire. I would think they would just go in and kill whatever animal they wanted sampled, but no. They send in a team of two people to get living samples I guess. This also means that her credentials will get her into all kinds of places. It also means that her bosses apparently don't pay much attention to what she does.
- She goes from never using a blaster to being extremely talented and able to use it under extreme circumstances with one cringe worthy training session.
- There's a scene at the end
- There's a casino where they have identical games to Earth casinos, but they have to call them something different. So slots are lugjack and roulette is spinnerpits. I don't know why they have to do this.
I thought the plot was alright and moved along at a decent pace. It definitely wasn't great, but I can for sure think of 10-20 EU books that were worse.
That cover is hilarious.
November 19, 2019
Okay, I'm a pretty big Star Wars nerd, I am a player of SWG, and I really liked the beginning of this book. It was funny to hear references to "crafting stations," and the "transport shuttles." And seeing the moons of Lok and Rori mentioned were really nice and I enjoyed reading a book about places that my Jedi character had been. Also the appearances of the creatures that my character had fought was great too.
However the book took a little long to get started. I mean the book is about 280 some pages long and they don't get to Dantooine until around page 200. Also everyone worth their Star Wars salt knows that you don't make a holocron to keep a list. Holocrons can only be made by Jedi Masters or Sith Lords. Now if they had said that there was a computer terminal or something like that that had the list of rebel sympathizers, that would have been more believable.
Also, unless you actually play the game before reading this book, a lot of it won't really make any sense to you.
In closing, it's a good quick read for the people who have played the game, and a nice little diversion for Star Wars fans, but let's face it, this could have been a lot better.
However the book took a little long to get started. I mean the book is about 280 some pages long and they don't get to Dantooine until around page 200. Also everyone worth their Star Wars salt knows that you don't make a holocron to keep a list. Holocrons can only be made by Jedi Masters or Sith Lords. Now if they had said that there was a computer terminal or something like that that had the list of rebel sympathizers, that would have been more believable.
Also, unless you actually play the game before reading this book, a lot of it won't really make any sense to you.
In closing, it's a good quick read for the people who have played the game, and a nice little diversion for Star Wars fans, but let's face it, this could have been a lot better.
September 21, 2017
Najchętniej dałbym temu czemuś ocenę ujemną. Potwór ten jest tragicznie zły w całej swej okazałości. Okładka machnięta na szybko, między jednym a drugim łykiem porannej kawy. Historia nudna, od samego początku przewidywalna, ciągnięta wyraźnie na siłę. Wątki poszczególnych postaci, ich cele i motywację są mniej ciekawe od historii gwoździa rdzewiejącego w ścianie. Nazwanie tego kiepskim fanfikiem (tak to się zapisuje?) to wciąż pochwała...
Wszystkich odpowiedzialnych za ten wytwór zesłałbym na 40 lat mycia toalet na najniższych poziomach Coruscant.
Wszystkich odpowiedzialnych za ten wytwór zesłałbym na 40 lat mycia toalet na najniższych poziomach Coruscant.
August 8, 2013
Really really loved this book, it was just like being in game again, all the descriptions of the planets and plant and animal life was fantastic - nyms map quest was even in there!!! The ending of the book had me tearing up - what a journey - loved it :)
April 2, 2013
Awful.
June 19, 2019
Not bad for genre fiction based on a MMO.
June 2, 2021
Star Wars Legends Project #272
Background: The Ruins of Dantooine was written by Voronica Whitney-Robinson and Haden Blackman W. and published in December 2003. It is Whitney-Robinson's only Star Wars work. The amount of Blackman's involvement in the book is unclear, but as project lead for Star Wars Galaxies, he presumably consulted on story elements relevant to the tie-in with the game.
The Ruins of Dantooine takes place one year after the Battle of Yavin. The main characters are Dusque Mistflier and Finn Darktrin, but also features appearances by Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, Threepio, Artoo, Lando, Wedge Antilles, and Darth Vader. The story takes place on Naboo, Corellia, Lok, and Dantooine.
Summary: Dusque Mistflier has experienced her share of family tragedy since the rise of the Empire, but all she wants to do is keep her head down and do her job as an Imperial bioengineer, a field she is truly passionate about. But her entire life is upended when she is approached by a dark, handsome Rebel spy with a plea that she can't get out of her mind, and nothing will ever be the same.
Review: I just realized why Voronica Whitney-Robinson was such a familiar name . . . I've read and enjoyed some of her Forgotten Realms stuff. So, when I say that this is one of the worst professionally-published novels I've ever read, I know it's not because she's a bad writer. The style of writing, though, feels like a very poor match for a Star Wars novel at almost every point. The characters speak in stilted, almost high-fantasy phrases (which I guess makes sense?). A lot of this reads like mediocre fan fiction. I'm loathe to blame Whitney-Robinson for that entirely, because I'm sure a lot of the awkward cramming in of movie characters and references was part of her mandate.
The worst thing about the book is that the story takes an almost slavishly-literal approach to adapting an MMORPG, down to including irrelevant side-quests and random encounters. Most of the time, in addition to not being written well (because how COULD you write them well), these episodes defy all logic and destroy any sense of verisimilitude. They also occasionally just outright violate the consistency of the characters.
At one point, for example, our heroes get passage to a world where a pirate lord owes the Rebel spy a favor. He wants to trade his favor in for a ship that they can take to the secret Rebel base on Corellia (yeah, I knooow). When they arrive, the pirate lord doesn't feel he owes quite that much, but he's willing to part with a ship if they'll run a small errand for him. It's something a Rebel spy and one additional person with zero combat experience can easily accomplish, but this *pirate lord* apparently lacks the resources to do it himself. But he does have an armory that he lets them raid to equip themselves (again, this is like watching someone play a video game).
The job he sends them on is to retrieve something that he wants that someone else has. It isn't his mind you, he just wants it. And the people who have it are just guarding it out in the middle of nowhere for no understandable reason. And our heroes just drop in and assassinate them and take it. And sure, this is a boilerplate MMORPG quest, but committing casual murder-for-hire on behalf of a criminal boss isn't exactly typical for the heroes of the Rebel Alliance.
So, anyway, they return to find Han Solo and Chewbacca standing by to escort them to Corellia in the Millennium Falcon . . . but not in the Falcon, you understand. They'll just be flying escort on the ship the pirate is loaning our protagonists. But wait, this is a Rebel agent, on a mission of vital importance. Why does he need to do shady murder favors for a pirate just to get a ride? Can't he call the Rebellion for a ride? Can't he just go with Han?! And this is of course ignoring why they couldn't have just booked passage to Corellia to begin with, or why they need to go to Corellia at all since they literally just go there to tell the Rebel leaders, "Hey, we're going over here." Which the Rebel leaders already knew, too. Just. What is this story.
The cherry on top is an utterly maddening final "twist" that I saw coming way in advance but thought I must be wrong, because "surely they wouldn't write something that dumb." Oh, also, this isn't the book's fault, but it was very distracting to have this nothing, throw-away character named Finn throughout the book when that name has picked up very different connotations within Star Wars in recent years.
I do have to give some real credit, though, for one particular element of this book: Whitney-Robinson really did write herself the perfect device to explain why her nobody character is crucial to everything that happens in the story. That worked, and worked well. And I would never have thought that a biologist character would turn out to have so many diverse and useful skills within a Star Wars story. Props for that. I see from her bio that Whitney-Robinson has a background in biology, which explains why this is the one element of the story that genuinely worked.
But it's not worth it. Don't read this.
F
Background: The Ruins of Dantooine was written by Voronica Whitney-Robinson and Haden Blackman W. and published in December 2003. It is Whitney-Robinson's only Star Wars work. The amount of Blackman's involvement in the book is unclear, but as project lead for Star Wars Galaxies, he presumably consulted on story elements relevant to the tie-in with the game.
The Ruins of Dantooine takes place one year after the Battle of Yavin. The main characters are Dusque Mistflier and Finn Darktrin, but also features appearances by Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, Threepio, Artoo, Lando, Wedge Antilles, and Darth Vader. The story takes place on Naboo, Corellia, Lok, and Dantooine.
Summary: Dusque Mistflier has experienced her share of family tragedy since the rise of the Empire, but all she wants to do is keep her head down and do her job as an Imperial bioengineer, a field she is truly passionate about. But her entire life is upended when she is approached by a dark, handsome Rebel spy with a plea that she can't get out of her mind, and nothing will ever be the same.
Review: I just realized why Voronica Whitney-Robinson was such a familiar name . . . I've read and enjoyed some of her Forgotten Realms stuff. So, when I say that this is one of the worst professionally-published novels I've ever read, I know it's not because she's a bad writer. The style of writing, though, feels like a very poor match for a Star Wars novel at almost every point. The characters speak in stilted, almost high-fantasy phrases (which I guess makes sense?). A lot of this reads like mediocre fan fiction. I'm loathe to blame Whitney-Robinson for that entirely, because I'm sure a lot of the awkward cramming in of movie characters and references was part of her mandate.
The worst thing about the book is that the story takes an almost slavishly-literal approach to adapting an MMORPG, down to including irrelevant side-quests and random encounters. Most of the time, in addition to not being written well (because how COULD you write them well), these episodes defy all logic and destroy any sense of verisimilitude. They also occasionally just outright violate the consistency of the characters.
At one point, for example, our heroes get passage to a world where a pirate lord owes the Rebel spy a favor. He wants to trade his favor in for a ship that they can take to the secret Rebel base on Corellia (yeah, I knooow). When they arrive, the pirate lord doesn't feel he owes quite that much, but he's willing to part with a ship if they'll run a small errand for him. It's something a Rebel spy and one additional person with zero combat experience can easily accomplish, but this *pirate lord* apparently lacks the resources to do it himself. But he does have an armory that he lets them raid to equip themselves (again, this is like watching someone play a video game).
The job he sends them on is to retrieve something that he wants that someone else has. It isn't his mind you, he just wants it. And the people who have it are just guarding it out in the middle of nowhere for no understandable reason. And our heroes just drop in and assassinate them and take it. And sure, this is a boilerplate MMORPG quest, but committing casual murder-for-hire on behalf of a criminal boss isn't exactly typical for the heroes of the Rebel Alliance.
So, anyway, they return to find Han Solo and Chewbacca standing by to escort them to Corellia in the Millennium Falcon . . . but not in the Falcon, you understand. They'll just be flying escort on the ship the pirate is loaning our protagonists. But wait, this is a Rebel agent, on a mission of vital importance. Why does he need to do shady murder favors for a pirate just to get a ride? Can't he call the Rebellion for a ride? Can't he just go with Han?! And this is of course ignoring why they couldn't have just booked passage to Corellia to begin with, or why they need to go to Corellia at all since they literally just go there to tell the Rebel leaders, "Hey, we're going over here." Which the Rebel leaders already knew, too. Just. What is this story.
The cherry on top is an utterly maddening final "twist" that I saw coming way in advance but thought I must be wrong, because "surely they wouldn't write something that dumb." Oh, also, this isn't the book's fault, but it was very distracting to have this nothing, throw-away character named Finn throughout the book when that name has picked up very different connotations within Star Wars in recent years.
I do have to give some real credit, though, for one particular element of this book: Whitney-Robinson really did write herself the perfect device to explain why her nobody character is crucial to everything that happens in the story. That worked, and worked well. And I would never have thought that a biologist character would turn out to have so many diverse and useful skills within a Star Wars story. Props for that. I see from her bio that Whitney-Robinson has a background in biology, which explains why this is the one element of the story that genuinely worked.
But it's not worth it. Don't read this.
F
September 17, 2023
Star Wars: Galaxies: The Ruins Of Dantooine By Voronica Whitney-Robinson, is one of the more maligned “Star Wars” novels, but it doesn’t commit any huge sins: It’s decently written in a young-adult novel kind of way, and it portrays the MMORPG game accurately. It’s quite readable, with a decent like able pair of main characters and fun cameos, but it’s ultimately rather shallow.
Although “Ruins of Dantooine” tells a self-contained story of Imperial bioengineer turned Rebel Dusque Mistflier and Rebel agent Finn Darktrin, it seems like authors Voronica Whitney-Robinson and Haden Blackman had in mind a larger saga based on the “Star Wars Galaxies” MMORPG. For one thing, like too many “Star Wars” novels, it gives the origin story of characters who are never heard from in subsequent tales. More notably, it introduces Inquisitor Loam Redge in the prologue, but he’s never mentioned again the rest of the book!
“Ruins of Dantooine” attempts to give us an Everyperson hero. Dusque is just a run-of-the-mill bioengineer, but as the story goes on, Whitney-Robinson and Blackman can’t resist describing her as being attractive – it seems that every male who meets her lets their gaze linger — and having her rapidly soak up firearms knowledge from Finn. Plus, she’s immediately assigned to a crucial Rebel Alliance mission: She must track down a holocron containing names of key Rebel cell leaders before it falls into the hands of the Empire.
I guess it’s a difficult line to walk when you want your character to be both an Everyperson and a hero. “Ruins of Dantooine” provides a standard example of how someone who considers themselves uninterested in politics would switch from the Empire to the Rebellion: Dusque is betrayed by the Empire. She’s certainly sympathetic, but we saw a similar thing happen to Kyle Katarn in “Dark Forces,” to name just one of example.
The aforementioned holocron, basically the Rebels’ answer to the Imperials’ Death Star plans, is a maguffin if there ever was one. While it makes sense why Death Star plans would have to exist, one wonders why the Rebels put so much important information in one holocron.
The entirety of “Ruins of Dantooine” takes this type of simplistic approach, something you might expect from a game-based novel. The romance between Dusque and Finn flows naturally, but it’s as standard as they come, and the authors telegraph the big twist at the end – you’ll probably figure it out at the first of the many hints they drop. Adding to the simplicity, the book entirely follows Dusque and Finn with the exception of the out-of-place prologue. Cameos by main OT characters are peppered in nicely and logically, though.
As with their previous adventures on Naboo, Naboo’s moon of Rori, Lok, Talus and Corellia, our heroes face various predatory animals in the forest and caves of Dantooine as they search for the holocron with a convenient scanner. These feel sort of like video-game fetch quests, although they are more readable than the fight scenes in the “Force Unleashed” books, as the authors at least have some fun describing the creatures. When they do encounter the ruins on Dantooine, and it’s nothing more than a bunch of abandoned buildings. Kinda felt like a missed opportunity to connect it to Kotor.
The writing was decent, but I didn’t find it to be anything special. I found it rather bland, and with such an immersive and extensive universe as this one, the writing style did a bit of a disservice to several aspects of the novel. Some of the dialogue felt too stilted and forced, and I wasn’t a fan of the predictable betrayal. But it wasn’t anything egregiously bad. It just didn’t stand out for me. Not necessarily well-written, but not badly-written either. Just in the middle for me.
Additionally, the plot moved along a little too quickly. The Ruins Of Dantooine is about the average size for a book (around 280 pages in the paperback edition), but for each plot point, there was usually only a short time spent, and the transitory periods between them were virtually nonexistent. Dusque herself also had a bit too easy of a time overcoming many of the obstacles she encountered, but…okay, she’s is a trained imperial scientist. I wouldn’t say she was written as a Mary Sue, but it was closish.
All in all, As an addition to the extensive Star Wars universe that did some of the universe itself a slight disservice with indistinct writing, but fleshed out a original character in an inventive way. I could’ve grown to like Dusque if she had been featured in more stories by authors who could give her more depth as she went on various Rebel Alliance missions. As it stands, “The Ruins of Dantooine” is a mildly engaging path-not-taken. As video-game-based novels go, it’s better than some, but not in the same league as “Old Republic” or “Republic Commando” books.
Although “Ruins of Dantooine” tells a self-contained story of Imperial bioengineer turned Rebel Dusque Mistflier and Rebel agent Finn Darktrin, it seems like authors Voronica Whitney-Robinson and Haden Blackman had in mind a larger saga based on the “Star Wars Galaxies” MMORPG. For one thing, like too many “Star Wars” novels, it gives the origin story of characters who are never heard from in subsequent tales. More notably, it introduces Inquisitor Loam Redge in the prologue, but he’s never mentioned again the rest of the book!
“Ruins of Dantooine” attempts to give us an Everyperson hero. Dusque is just a run-of-the-mill bioengineer, but as the story goes on, Whitney-Robinson and Blackman can’t resist describing her as being attractive – it seems that every male who meets her lets their gaze linger — and having her rapidly soak up firearms knowledge from Finn. Plus, she’s immediately assigned to a crucial Rebel Alliance mission: She must track down a holocron containing names of key Rebel cell leaders before it falls into the hands of the Empire.
I guess it’s a difficult line to walk when you want your character to be both an Everyperson and a hero. “Ruins of Dantooine” provides a standard example of how someone who considers themselves uninterested in politics would switch from the Empire to the Rebellion: Dusque is betrayed by the Empire. She’s certainly sympathetic, but we saw a similar thing happen to Kyle Katarn in “Dark Forces,” to name just one of example.
The aforementioned holocron, basically the Rebels’ answer to the Imperials’ Death Star plans, is a maguffin if there ever was one. While it makes sense why Death Star plans would have to exist, one wonders why the Rebels put so much important information in one holocron.
The entirety of “Ruins of Dantooine” takes this type of simplistic approach, something you might expect from a game-based novel. The romance between Dusque and Finn flows naturally, but it’s as standard as they come, and the authors telegraph the big twist at the end – you’ll probably figure it out at the first of the many hints they drop. Adding to the simplicity, the book entirely follows Dusque and Finn with the exception of the out-of-place prologue. Cameos by main OT characters are peppered in nicely and logically, though.
As with their previous adventures on Naboo, Naboo’s moon of Rori, Lok, Talus and Corellia, our heroes face various predatory animals in the forest and caves of Dantooine as they search for the holocron with a convenient scanner. These feel sort of like video-game fetch quests, although they are more readable than the fight scenes in the “Force Unleashed” books, as the authors at least have some fun describing the creatures. When they do encounter the ruins on Dantooine, and it’s nothing more than a bunch of abandoned buildings. Kinda felt like a missed opportunity to connect it to Kotor.
The writing was decent, but I didn’t find it to be anything special. I found it rather bland, and with such an immersive and extensive universe as this one, the writing style did a bit of a disservice to several aspects of the novel. Some of the dialogue felt too stilted and forced, and I wasn’t a fan of the predictable betrayal. But it wasn’t anything egregiously bad. It just didn’t stand out for me. Not necessarily well-written, but not badly-written either. Just in the middle for me.
Additionally, the plot moved along a little too quickly. The Ruins Of Dantooine is about the average size for a book (around 280 pages in the paperback edition), but for each plot point, there was usually only a short time spent, and the transitory periods between them were virtually nonexistent. Dusque herself also had a bit too easy of a time overcoming many of the obstacles she encountered, but…okay, she’s is a trained imperial scientist. I wouldn’t say she was written as a Mary Sue, but it was closish.
All in all, As an addition to the extensive Star Wars universe that did some of the universe itself a slight disservice with indistinct writing, but fleshed out a original character in an inventive way. I could’ve grown to like Dusque if she had been featured in more stories by authors who could give her more depth as she went on various Rebel Alliance missions. As it stands, “The Ruins of Dantooine” is a mildly engaging path-not-taken. As video-game-based novels go, it’s better than some, but not in the same league as “Old Republic” or “Republic Commando” books.
January 17, 2018
Well, I thought I had hit rock bottom in the Expanded Universe with the L. Neil Smith books, but little did I know the worst was yet to come. The storytelling here is about as subtle as a brick to the head, and as exciting as watching Two-and-a-Half Men. It's terrible.
Neither the story nor the characters (or even the plot) in this book are that deep. It's part of the Star Wars Galaxies computer game, and having not played the game, I don't know how much of the story might relate to the game. I do know that it doesn't matter. The two main characters, Dusque and Finn (not the same Finn from The Force Awakens, mind you) are as flat as a dinner mint, with questionable motivations, and even if they do feature in the game, what the author does with them is criminal.
The entire book is told in a dry, clinical style, and relies far too much on telling. There's no emotion or feeling connected to anything that happens in the book, so we don't care much about what happens. Near the beginning of the book, Whitney-Robinson tells us that Dusque is a feminist, but she neglects to show us how she is. In fact, as much as she depends on Finn and becomes a damsel in distress, I don't know how the author expects us to believe her statement about Dusque.
She also telegraphs the truth behind Finn's character, enough so that part of me wondered if she were setting him up that way to play with our expectations of him. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, because there's nothing else in the story to suggest the author would do something this subtle. In the end, I can't say I was disappointed to find out that he was exactly the character she was leading us to believe he was.
The whole book feels like a juvenile book, which in itself is an insult to books like the Harry Potter series, or any of Jude Watson's EU books. Those books used subtlety of character and plot to make the stories more engaging and significant; The Ruins of Dantooine just barrels on through like a train determined to come into the station on time. It was a fast read, yes, but it certainly wasn't a good read. I can't say I'm surprised that Lucas only released one book in this particular franchise.
Neither the story nor the characters (or even the plot) in this book are that deep. It's part of the Star Wars Galaxies computer game, and having not played the game, I don't know how much of the story might relate to the game. I do know that it doesn't matter. The two main characters, Dusque and Finn (not the same Finn from The Force Awakens, mind you) are as flat as a dinner mint, with questionable motivations, and even if they do feature in the game, what the author does with them is criminal.
The entire book is told in a dry, clinical style, and relies far too much on telling. There's no emotion or feeling connected to anything that happens in the book, so we don't care much about what happens. Near the beginning of the book, Whitney-Robinson tells us that Dusque is a feminist, but she neglects to show us how she is. In fact, as much as she depends on Finn and becomes a damsel in distress, I don't know how the author expects us to believe her statement about Dusque.
She also telegraphs the truth behind Finn's character, enough so that part of me wondered if she were setting him up that way to play with our expectations of him. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, because there's nothing else in the story to suggest the author would do something this subtle. In the end, I can't say I was disappointed to find out that he was exactly the character she was leading us to believe he was.
The whole book feels like a juvenile book, which in itself is an insult to books like the Harry Potter series, or any of Jude Watson's EU books. Those books used subtlety of character and plot to make the stories more engaging and significant; The Ruins of Dantooine just barrels on through like a train determined to come into the station on time. It was a fast read, yes, but it certainly wasn't a good read. I can't say I'm surprised that Lucas only released one book in this particular franchise.
May 5, 2022
"It was okay." - 2 out of 5 stars.
Unfortunately I missed out on Star Wars Galaxies, which is apparently what this book is built around. Maybe if I had more of a nostalgia connection as a player this book would have been more enjoyable.
This starts off strong so with Lord Vader speaking to his Inquisitor to go forth and do the will of the Sith... however that it is pretty much all downhill from there and then turns into a mediocre slog fest of a read that just feels way too slow. And if the poor pacing wasn't enough, there is heavy emphasis on a romance that is just not well done either.
I think maybe the target audience for this is former Galaxies players, or someone seeking a Star Wars romance written by a female authors perspective. Without these two factors holding zero weight whatsoever for me, this was quite a miss.
There are quite a few 1 star reviews for this calling The Ruins of Dantooine calling it the worst extended universe Star Wars book. I will have to disagree on that one, there are far worse ones out there. +1 star for great Vader intro and aliens/alien worlds/planet exploration which is fair to rate as "it was okay."
Unfortunately I missed out on Star Wars Galaxies, which is apparently what this book is built around. Maybe if I had more of a nostalgia connection as a player this book would have been more enjoyable.
This starts off strong so with Lord Vader speaking to his Inquisitor to go forth and do the will of the Sith... however that it is pretty much all downhill from there and then turns into a mediocre slog fest of a read that just feels way too slow. And if the poor pacing wasn't enough, there is heavy emphasis on a romance that is just not well done either.
I think maybe the target audience for this is former Galaxies players, or someone seeking a Star Wars romance written by a female authors perspective. Without these two factors holding zero weight whatsoever for me, this was quite a miss.
There are quite a few 1 star reviews for this calling The Ruins of Dantooine calling it the worst extended universe Star Wars book. I will have to disagree on that one, there are far worse ones out there. +1 star for great Vader intro and aliens/alien worlds/planet exploration which is fair to rate as "it was okay."
January 3, 2023
Man, what a book.
The beginning of this this was unruly. Just confused and bad. The main character's an Imperial scientist who's whole family got killed or worked to near death by the Empire, and she goes to a space circus to watch space cock fights, despite loving all animals. She goes to a casino and wins at the roulette tables 12 times in a row Guessing numbers, not colors! With no force powers involved!!
The opening is bad and nonsense and I felt so rowdy reading it. Like, how could the put this out, it's so bad. Then the next 150 pages were a mixture of teenage star wars mmo fanfic / the most boring and tired nothing. Just words on pages signifying nothing. 20 pages from the end this was a 1-2 star story AT BEST.
But then the ending surprised me. I had a lot of expectations and most of those were met with such obvious forecasting, but the end and the characters final decisions were refreshingly unexpected. I kinda loved how tragic it was.
The book is not good. I could never recommend it. But it certainly lives up to the absolute garbage cover, at least.
The beginning of this this was unruly. Just confused and bad. The main character's an Imperial scientist who's whole family got killed or worked to near death by the Empire, and she goes to a space circus to watch space cock fights, despite loving all animals. She goes to a casino and wins at the roulette tables 12 times in a row Guessing numbers, not colors! With no force powers involved!!
The opening is bad and nonsense and I felt so rowdy reading it. Like, how could the put this out, it's so bad. Then the next 150 pages were a mixture of teenage star wars mmo fanfic / the most boring and tired nothing. Just words on pages signifying nothing. 20 pages from the end this was a 1-2 star story AT BEST.
But then the ending surprised me. I had a lot of expectations and most of those were met with such obvious forecasting, but the end and the characters final decisions were refreshingly unexpected. I kinda loved how tragic it was.
The book is not good. I could never recommend it. But it certainly lives up to the absolute garbage cover, at least.
February 5, 2025
Dusque is an Imperial bioengineer but her loyalty to the Empire will soon be tested - not that she had much of it to begin with. After she crosses paths with Finn, a Rebel, her life switches from collecting samples to dodging both creatures and Imperials. Her new task: find a holocron containing a list of people sympathetic to the Rebel Alliance. It must NOT fall into the hands of any Imperial.
This book has a reputation in some circles as being the worst Legends book. Nope, not by a long shot. But it's not good. The writing is clunky, the characters feel two dimensional, the prologue spoils a plot development early on and video game elements are shoehorned in on practically every page. There's also some weird decisions that don't make sense (why didn't Han and Chewie fly our heroes to the base??). That said, the pacing is surprisingly good, even with a literal side quest in the middle. I actually enjoyed that part. Less enjoyable was the romance, which would usually be my jam. All in all, a forgettable Legends entry but I'd still read it again.
This book has a reputation in some circles as being the worst Legends book. Nope, not by a long shot. But it's not good. The writing is clunky, the characters feel two dimensional, the prologue spoils a plot development early on and video game elements are shoehorned in on practically every page. There's also some weird decisions that don't make sense (why didn't Han and Chewie fly our heroes to the base??). That said, the pacing is surprisingly good, even with a literal side quest in the middle. I actually enjoyed that part. Less enjoyable was the romance, which would usually be my jam. All in all, a forgettable Legends entry but I'd still read it again.
February 17, 2018
I never got to play Galaxies. But I enjoyed this. Following Dusques story as she works through being thrown out of her comfort zone, forced to ask herself hard question about what she believes, what she is willing to risk and discovering she has a hero inside is like getting a glimpse at what it might be like to be in her position. She has to question everything she knows.
It didn't hurt that she was into animal research and I love animals, this is a person I'd relate to if I could live in that galaxy!
The twists were kind of painful. The first I never saw coming. The second, even when I saw hints I didn't want to believe them for her sake.
I'm really sorry we never saw her or Finn Darktrin in any other stories. I'd have loved to see what she got up to afterwards. Scouting for new bases perhaps.
Not as an intense adventure perhaps as some might like but for me, I really enjoyed it. And one thing I always loved about Star Wars was there was such a variety for everyone.
It didn't hurt that she was into animal research and I love animals, this is a person I'd relate to if I could live in that galaxy!
The twists were kind of painful. The first I never saw coming. The second, even when I saw hints I didn't want to believe them for her sake.
I'm really sorry we never saw her or Finn Darktrin in any other stories. I'd have loved to see what she got up to afterwards. Scouting for new bases perhaps.
Not as an intense adventure perhaps as some might like but for me, I really enjoyed it. And one thing I always loved about Star Wars was there was such a variety for everyone.
March 30, 2019
Really bad. That's something I almost never say about a book, but this was just awful. The plot is hollow, the characters are 2-D at best, and the entire book feels like some poorly written fan fiction you'd read on a forum somewhere. I mean how did this get published? I know that it's supposed to be essentially an advertisement for SWG, which is a game I played from beginning to end and loved more than any other MMO I've ever played, but still. This book borders on unreadable. It's got everything you could want in terms of bad fiction. A poorly written female lead that isn't a Mary Sue (she's not really good at much) but still reflects on her gender endlessly throughout the book. Add to that the most forced, shallow romance subplot of all time and you get a truly horrible story that feels like some half-assed science fiction love story written by someone who read Twilight once and thought "hey. I can do this."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2023
Absolutely dreadful. A clichéd plot with a "twist" I called as early as the prologue, utterly simplistic prose, insipid character writing... The Ruins of Dantooine is just not a good work, even as far as video game tie-ins go. Add in the forced Star Wars movie character cameos and, worse yet, the constant allusions to video game mechanics, and you end up with the closest this franchise has ever gotten to officially publishing a wattpad fanfiction. What a waste this novel is. At least stuff like the Jedi Academy trilogy or the Bounty Hunter Wars had good ideas sprinkled in. This is just a giant pile of nothing.
All of that said, I really don't blame the author(s) for its failure. The entire thing was apparently written in a very short period of time, probably the result of someone behind the scenes rushing the writing process. Much like the MMORPG it's based on, Ruins of Dantooine would have done good had it received double of its allotted development time.
All of that said, I really don't blame the author(s) for its failure. The entire thing was apparently written in a very short period of time, probably the result of someone behind the scenes rushing the writing process. Much like the MMORPG it's based on, Ruins of Dantooine would have done good had it received double of its allotted development time.
December 29, 2017
This was actually a good book for being based off a video game. I liked that it had a separate story arc than the heroes stories and just used them to set the time line.
Basically this story is about an Imperial biologist, Dusque, that is approached by an Alliance operative to assist the rebellion with finding a Holocron that was abandoned on Dantooine. Dantooine turns out to have a lot of dangerous animals that having a biologist around to help navigate is a very good idea. Her Rebel operative, Finn, gives her a taste of what the galaxy is like outside of the Empire. Learning that she could be more that just a cog in the wheel.
The writing in the book is simplistic and a very easy read. The foreshadowing is almost annoying at how naive Dusque is. I saw things coming chapters before they did.
Basically this story is about an Imperial biologist, Dusque, that is approached by an Alliance operative to assist the rebellion with finding a Holocron that was abandoned on Dantooine. Dantooine turns out to have a lot of dangerous animals that having a biologist around to help navigate is a very good idea. Her Rebel operative, Finn, gives her a taste of what the galaxy is like outside of the Empire. Learning that she could be more that just a cog in the wheel.
The writing in the book is simplistic and a very easy read. The foreshadowing is almost annoying at how naive Dusque is. I saw things coming chapters before they did.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 1, 2025
This book feels like the definition of 3 stars. It’s a fun read for the most part and I found myself flying through sections of the book. It does however feel very much like a video game tie in.
I have not played Star Wars Galaxies but by what the book was doing I can guess it was attempting to showcase different features such as crafting, exploration and planet hopping.
Dusque and Finn are a good team up. I think their chemistry works well most of the time.
There are some things in the story that are really obvious. As in they try to build up a mystery but it’s very easy to solve, like 100 or so pages before the story solves the mystery itself. This does happen a few times
Also something I don’t like is that all of the main characters from the original trilogy just show up for no reason and leave as quickly as they came in. That did take me out of the story for a bit.
Overall, I’d probably just recommend this for someone looking for a Star Wars fix without needing to be too involved in the story. It’s a popcorn book at the end of the day. It was enjoyable but I don’t think I’ll be coming back to re-read it any time soon
I have not played Star Wars Galaxies but by what the book was doing I can guess it was attempting to showcase different features such as crafting, exploration and planet hopping.
Dusque and Finn are a good team up. I think their chemistry works well most of the time.
There are some things in the story that are really obvious. As in they try to build up a mystery but it’s very easy to solve, like 100 or so pages before the story solves the mystery itself. This does happen a few times
Also something I don’t like is that all of the main characters from the original trilogy just show up for no reason and leave as quickly as they came in. That did take me out of the story for a bit.
Overall, I’d probably just recommend this for someone looking for a Star Wars fix without needing to be too involved in the story. It’s a popcorn book at the end of the day. It was enjoyable but I don’t think I’ll be coming back to re-read it any time soon
November 14, 2020
This story is a bit too obvious. We the reader realize quite early on what is going on, but the main character doesn't and I believe that this works against what the Author is intending. The Author is trying to portray a strong woman in a man's world, but the obvious clues make her seem unintelligent in a way. I disagree with some of the other portrayals in the story since the author was clearly going for a feminist slant. I assume that's the fault of the men that she had to work with, but that's just a guess.
I did start enjoying the book more, and liking the main character the more I got into the story, but overall I think that it's pretty poorly crafted.
I did start enjoying the book more, and liking the main character the more I got into the story, but overall I think that it's pretty poorly crafted.
November 29, 2022
I liked it, despite it being a very middle of the road Star Wars story. The basic plot is one that I've seen quite a few times in the expanded universe. There is a character who doesn't really like the Empire, but gets sucked into the conflict against their natural instinct to stay out of it. They must take on a mission that seems important, but will largely have no great impact on the overall story. There is the hint of possible betrayal (nowhere close to a mystery in this novel), and a few major characters pop up and then do almost nothing.
Yet, I still liked it. It was fine. It's a short and fast read. An adventure with a romance aspect that is a bit melodramatic, and is set in the Star Wars universe.
Yet, I still liked it. It was fine. It's a short and fast read. An adventure with a romance aspect that is a bit melodramatic, and is set in the Star Wars universe.
March 24, 2025
Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine had the potential to be an exciting addition to the Star Wars universe, but unfortunately, it fell flat. The story lacked the depth and intrigue expected from a Star Wars adventure, dragging through a dull plot with forgettable characters. The writing felt uninspired, failing to capture the epic scale and excitement of the franchise. To make matters worse, the cover looked like something pulled from a late-’90s video game, doing little to entice readers. While die-hard fans of Star Wars Galaxies might appreciate the attempt at expanding the lore, this book ultimately felt like a missed opportunity. A disappointing two-star read.
Sara | Book Confessions of an ExBallerina | Instagram
Sara | Book Confessions of an ExBallerina | Instagram
June 4, 2025
My biggest gripe with this book has to do with the fundamental question of why the Empire had to have Dusque go with their spy to get the holocron. They literally could've chosen anyone. I get that she's a decent bioengineer (even though the book sometimes can't agree if she is or not), but c'mon.
I know this book was probably written hastily for marketing purposes, but the potential for such a good location like the Jedi ruins of Dantooine felt wasted. This book does deserve better than 2 stars, but Goodreads doesn't have half stars. So 2.5/5 stars from me (still better than Atlas Six)
I know this book was probably written hastily for marketing purposes, but the potential for such a good location like the Jedi ruins of Dantooine felt wasted. This book does deserve better than 2 stars, but Goodreads doesn't have half stars. So 2.5/5 stars from me (still better than Atlas Six)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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