Star Wars: Red Harvest

I am very excited about Star Wars branching out into other genres of storytelling within this universe. Usually Star Wars follows the template of an adventure-fantasy-historical mix. This time a horror story is told, a zombie story, that takes place thousands of years before the movie narratives. A Sith academy is infected with hungry, undead students and masters all because a Sith lord, Darth Scabrous, stubled upon a potion that could make him immortal. It makes him immortal, alright!
A couple of brother and sister Jedi Knights, a bounty hunter, a starship mechanic, a sentient orchid, and uninfected Sith pupils get caught up in their own story archs as they battle for survival on this bloody night. This is supposed to be the prequel to STAR WARS: DEATH TROOPERS by the same author.

A great break from the typical Jedi v Enemy; this book focuses a lot on the internal conflicts of Sith students as well (which I love(d)). Also, if you love zombies, you're in for a treat as well. I mean come on... Star Wars + Zombies?? It's a winner.

With the recent thirst for the undead, in popular culture, I suppose it should come as no surprise that it eventually made it into the Star Wars universe.
However, the way it was worked in, didn't actually stray that far from the story, by way of a Sith experiment gone horribly wrong. It has been well documented, in different novels, about the Sith's desire to hold onto their power indefinitely. What better way than by concocting a method of immortality? Unfortunately, as will all horror/action stories, there were unforeseen side effects, such as a small problem of the dead rising, and infecting the living to join their call of eternal damnation and rule! You actually find yourself rooting for the Sith, the normal "bad guys", in their struggle against the undead. The attacks are graphic and visceral in nature: blood fountains, torn flesh, and hanging limbs - to name a few. The method of attack, as well as the ending did borrow quite heavily from many horror movies I've actually seen. However, I did find the story engaging, different, and entertaining (Though, I don't recommend reading it before going to bed!). The ending, I found to be rather bitter sweet, but I'll leave you to your own conclusions.

Red Harvest by Joe Schreiber is a prequel to Schreiber's previous Star Wars tale, Death Troopers, which attempted to be the first Star Wars horror novel. I was not thrilled with Death Troopers, but if I ever get truly desperate for a read and pick it back up, maybe I'll discuss its problems on here.

You should know that I love Star Wars and the Star Wars universe. I have several shelves full of the books and own all but one of the movies (episode I, which I'm waiting to find cheap at a garage sale or something). However, that doesn't prevent me from taking a critical look at the stories or the novels either.

So back to my review. I said this was a prequel to Death Troopers. And it is....but it's not a normal prequel. This prequel take place a little over 3,000 years earlier. This means none of the same characters (thank goodness), a different setting, and no Stormtroopers around to get infected by virus that turns living creatures into ravaging zombies.

The story largely takes place around a Sith academy. Darth Scabrous seeks the key to immortality. He has gathered nearly all of the pieces. All he needs is the juice from a rare orchid. A hired bounty hunter discovers the flower in the care of Hestizo, a young woman who trained as a Jedi but didn't have the ability to become a full knight. Instead, she tends to this orchid, which has a strong force bond to her. If they are separated by too great a distance, the orchid will die. So, Hestizo is kidnapped with the flower and brought before the Sith lord.

Using the final ingredients, Scarbrous nears completion of his task. He injects part of a serum into a Sith Student and the student quickly turns into a mindless killing machine. The mind of the student is dead and is replaced with a powerful bloodlust - a zombie. True to zombie form, if any bodily fluids from a zombie comes in contact with your own fluids, you become infected as well. This Sith zombie escapes and soon more and more Sith students are nothing more than blood thirsty monsters. Darth Scarbrous still has one last thing to do before he can gain immortality and Hestizo wants nothing more that to get off the planet.

Despite not liking Death Troopers, I was hoping that Red Harvest would be better. For one, I knew it would have completely original characters and wouldn't attempt to bring in well known ones (Han Solo and Chewbacca in the case of Death Troopers). Plus, I find the time period interesting, especially with the Sith versus Jedi thread being extremely strong. I was rather disappointed to find Red Harvest barely better than its precursor.

1) The first thing Schreiber did was wrong was having a sentient plant A sentient, force sensitive plant who's only purpose was the be the catalyst for the zombie-disease and encourage the good guys. Yes, I know Star Wars has a sentient planet, but the planet actually had purpose, character, and even had a back-story. This flower is just a flower that talks. That it is sentient adds nothing substantial to the story.

2) The characters are extremely weak. Back story is kept to a bare minimum, replaced by characters mulling over their ultimate goal or watching people getting bitten by zombies. Darth Scarbrous wants to be immortal, but that is really all we know. I want to know about his standing as a Sith. I want to know how much power he truly holds. I don't know him at all. I also don't know Hestizo. So she didn't end up being a Jedi, I get that. But that seems to be the only thing behind her. I don't care about her. I don't care if she lives or dies, because she doesn't seem real. The only character I really started to like and who I wanted to see more of died 1/4th the way through the story...

3) Writing the word "blood" does not make this a horror novel. But Schreiber seems to think that. Horror should stem from the circumstances and the characters, not the presence of gratuitous violence. Honestly, the violence isn't even realistic sounding. All Schreiber seems to do is write about blood flying. Perhaps he's going for the `slasher' genre, but even then the amount he dedicates to writing about the violence is more than a scene demands. It was a short book already (under 300 pages) and it felt like he wrote more violent scenes just to beef up the size a bit.

Still, I think that the horror element failed. The first task should be to make me feel any emotion besides apathy toward the characters. Then, the characters have to go through ordeals in which I honestly don't know how they'll be affected. Sure, if it's half way through the book I figure the lead won't die, but that doesn't mean horrific things can't happen or affect them!

A horror story needs more than zombies.

Finally, as a part of the Star Wars universe, it wasn't particularly strong. We don't learn a whole lot about the Sith, which is regrettable. Until recently there were very few books or stories about the times when Sith were as plentiful as Jedi. This book could've benefited from an inside look at the Sith since most of the story takes place on a Sith world. Given that it is a Sith academy, we could learn about the teachings of the Sith. We could learn about Sith students. We get a bit in the Darth Bane books, but being over thousand years earlier, this easily could've given us strong insight into the Sith view of the force. Fatal Alliance, set only a little before this, did a much better job at delving into the Sith teachings and practices. A main character was a Sith apprentice who was a character I actually cared to know more about. The story went through twists and turns that kept it interesting, and it played on the Sith versus Jedi dynamic. I am looking forward to Deceived, and hope it continues the arc, since Red Harvest just didn't do it for me.

1.5/5

Great writing, terrible plot. Horribly, so wrongly, really terrible plot. Introduced new force powers just to justify the happenings that created the zombies. I would read it if you are a Star Wars fan, but expect to complain aloud to your spouse while reading.

I was trying to read the Star Wars books chronologically and this was next on the list. Do not waste your time. This is just another stupid zombie plot line wrapped up in the Star Wars universe, ridiculous. I could not finish it. I learned my lesson, read a review of the plot line before buying.

What part of "Teenage sith zombies" sounds like a good idea? It seems like this was an idea thought up in a board room as a way to cash in on two different groups of readers, those that read Star Wars and those that read horror. The end result is this awful book. At least it is short, only 256 pages, and the print is rather large.

There is little in this book that has continuity with the rest of the Star Wars Universe, from the beginning where Schreiber misunderstands what type of Jedi end up in the agricultural corps (basically, those who failed the trials or were never chosen to be a Jedi's padawan), having someone bleed when cut with a lightsaber when the wound would have been cauterized, and Jedi who are aware of their family history, which was not allowed under the Jedi doctorine. Those are just a few issues that I noticed.

There is very little character development, and I feel like Schreiber jumped from one person's viewpoint to another way too quickly. Generally, readers don't like to be quickly jerked around from one person's mind to another. If we are going to be in so many different people's viewpoints, there needs to be a reason behind it. Too many characters were introduced without us knowing anything about them other than superficial facts - the guys is a Sith, this guy is a better Sith, this guy isn't that great of a Sith, now here's the Jedi's point of view! We don't ever get to know enough about any of the characters, except for perhaps the talking flower, to care about what happens to them.

It tries to be scary - and it isn't. There isn't much suspence, just lots of scense that basically go "OMG ZOMBIES" and either end in "LOL, we're okay" or "Lol, now I'm a Zombie." I just didn't care if a character became a zombie or not becuause I didn't care about any of the characters. Honestly, the book was interesting up until the point the zombies started running around, because there was some actal sustanance to the book up to that point. And in the end, everything is perfectly fine, no need to warn the rest of the galaxy what just happened, life just goes on as usual for everyone without there being any consequences. Also, why go through the trouble of making the zomibes force users, and not have them use any special powers?

It was just bad. I read Death Troopers, and while I had my issues with that book it certainly had suspence, it didn't have continuinity issues, and we were given more of a backstory so that the book felt like it truly belonged in the Star Wars universe, unlike this book which felt like if you switched out a few key words, could have happened on a remote island at a ninja training facility or something similar.

I DO NOT recommend this book! If you do read it, please don't pay full price for it!

It's Star Wars! But with flaming Sith zombie librarian Ents. Decent enough book, but it was gratuitously violent with no basis, and the story felt divorced from anything else Star Wars, even in the lack of context in-universe to any other galactic events despite the fact that it is set during the Old Republic video game and book series. If Star Wars decides to go horror again in the near future, let me know so I can slap em out of it.

The book arrived super fast in brand new condition. Very happy with my purchase, and I will be sure to order from this person again. Any Star Wars fans should read the books you'll get lost in them.

Star Wars: Red Harvest audiobook did not completely pull me into the story as the previous authors Star Wars: Death Troopers did. That being said I still found it to be an enjoyable listen, a good way to kill a few hours.

I thought it was fairly predictable. About a little more than half-way through the book, I kind of figured the outcome was going to go one of two ways. The end definitely had a twist, which honestly bumped it from a 2-star rating to a 3-star rating, but I felt there were so many characters and it jumped around from each character it was hard to get an attachment to any of them except the main character. Wasn't horrible, but wasn't great.

let me preface this particular review by saying, generally, i don't even start books i don't think i'll really enjoy - so pretty much everything i've read is about something i've already been interested in or something that came highly recommended to me. also, like some video games, it is easy to lose interest in something if it's boring or poorly written.

that being said, Red Harvest is the worst book i've ever read. any good aspects of the story were completely overshadowed by what boils down to be poor writing and the fact that mr. schreiber had absolutely no place writing a star wars book. here's a quote from page 53:

"Listen to me," Trace told him. "I don't know who you are, but I am in possession of a very special set of skills. If you bring my sister back right now, unharmed, then I'll let you go. But if you don't, I promise you, I will track you down. I will find you. And I will make you pay."

sound familiar? it's paraphrasing the movie Taken, and the worst part about it was that it was completely unnecessary. it's from a jedi who is trying to telepathically send out a message to someone he knows will never receive it.

all of the star wars aspects of this book appear to be thrown in just so it can have star wars in the title. there is one part where the author mixes up two names, and toward the end when he's trying to show what's happening from another person's perspective he completely messes up the order of events. it could have been a good book and i read it through because it was set in the old republic era, but it was just so poorly written and edited that it makes me a little angry that it was ever published. the only capacity this piece of literature should have ever existed in was on the fan fiction section of some obscure horror forums under the title "STAR WARS ZOMBIES!". long story short, if bad writing, overused ideas, supporting mediocrity, and poorly injected star wars aspects bother you - skip this book. everything else in the old republic era is worth your time and money, but not this.

The book will sell well simply because it is Star Wars, but it is a futile attempt to take advantage of the growing zombie craze in recent years. Death Troopers and Red Harvest really have no place in the EU and are just another way for Lucas to chase the almighty dollar

Horribke book, written without regard to the logic or lore of the star wars universe. This book is unintrigueing and un engaging and the characters are hollow and thin. Dont buy this book, dont read it ever, i still wish i never had.

this book seriously is awesome from the very begining to the very end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this happens to be one of my favorite star wars books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!