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“It is obvious that this contest cannot be decided by our knowledge of the Force—but by our skills with a lightsaber.” -Count Dooku, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
Dooku: Jedi Lost explores the backstory of both Count Dooku and his apprentice Asajj Ventress. It was originally only available as an audiobook, though now is available in print, and the audiobook is performed as an audio drama with a complete cast of narrators. It reads more as a script than a novel and is the first of its kind in the Star Wars canon.
Written by: Cavan Scott (author of From a Certain Point of View short story)
Published: April 30, 2019
When does Dooku: Jedi Lost take place?
That is an excellent question. I had to do some digging to find this out because it isn’t obvious exactly when Dooku: Jedi Lost takes place in the Star Wars timeline. This is the best I could come up with:
There are two storylines—one in present day and one that spans decades of Dooku’s past. The present day storyline takes place around 22 BBY (around Attack of the Clones) and the past storyline starts around 92 BBY and ends around 41 BBY (long before The Phantom Menace.)
Synopsis
Dooku: Jedi Lost is as much about Count Dooku’s fall from the Jedi Order as it is about his apprentice’s own struggle with the dark side. Asajj Ventress is tasked with finding Dooku’s missing sister Jenza. In her search for clues as to Jenza’s whereabouts, she sorts through old holomessages and journal entries of Dooku’s. Asajj discovers Dooku’s journey of becoming a Jedi Padawan, Master, the Count of Serenno, and finally—a dark lord of the Sith.
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Listening to Dooku: Jedi Lost as an audio drama was a unique experience. It was so much more than a regular audiobook with sound effects, music, and an entire cast of narrators. However, this made it not always easy to follow along. Since it was read as a script, there were no dialogue tags, making it difficult for the first few chapters to figure out who was speaking before I got to know the voices. Most of the audiobooks I listen to are books I’ve read before so I can just have them playing in the background, but Dooku: Jedi Lost requires some very active listening. I did listen to it twice for this blog post to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
But overall I did really enjoy it. This book is basically Dooku’s backstory in fast-forward and I liked getting to know the character who suddenly shows up as the big bad guy in Attack of the Clones. During Dooku’s time as a Jedi, he was close friends with Sifo-Dyas so this book also gives fans a chance to get to know this mysterious Jedi.
The dynamic of Asajj Ventress’ character in Dooku: Jedi Lost was another highlight of this book. Her backstory is also explored, but the focus is on her struggle with joining the dark side. She still hears her Jedi Master, Ky Narec’s voice as he tries to guide her back to the light side. In the end she must choose between fully giving herself over to the dark side and risk losing her connection with Ky forever or leaving Dooku’s side.
I would recommend reading Master and Apprentice first because Cavan Scott worked closely with Claudia Gray on the character of Rael Averross. Rael shows up in Dooku: Jedi Lost with little introduction and I think it is important to know his story from Master and Apprentice. Another connection was a common theme I found between these two books which was they both paint the Jedi Order, especially the Jedi Council, as not necessarily as flawless as previously shown. Star Wars seems to be moving away from the classic good-guy-verses-bad-guy trope with having more multi-layered storylines. It really stuck out to me in Dooku: Jedi Lost when Dooku’s homeworld of Serenno is being invaded and his sister puts out a cry for help. The Jedi and Senate refuse to help because Serenno did not pay their season’s levy. This just doesn’t seem very Jedi-y.
One part of this story I found a bit disappointing was the lack of time Yoda and Dooku spent together. Yoda chose Dooku to be his apprentice, and I know he is busy as the Grand Master, but Dooku was pretty much trained exclusively by Sifo-Dyas’ Master instead. I wanted to compare Yoda’s training in the temple to his training on Dagobah, but as usual, he spends most of his time with the Jedi Council.
I would recommend Dooku: Jedi Lost to anyone who loves The Clone Wars or who wants to learn more about Count Dooku or Asajj Ventress.
Have you read Dooku: Jedi Lost? Which other ‘Fallen Jedi’ would you like to learn more about?
Next Week: Dark Disciple
Complete list of Star Wars Canon novels
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