Star Wars: Dooku: Jedi Lost
Audiobook
Written by Cavan Scott
Full cast audiobook narration (6 hours and 21 minutes)
Publisher: Random House Audio
Release date: April 30, 2019

Before he was the Count of Serenno, the leader of the Separatist Army and became known as Darth Tyranus, Dooku was a Padawan to Jedi Master Yoda and best friend to Sifo-Dyas. He also served as a teacher to a young Qui-Gon Jinn before leaving the Jedi Order entirely. This is the Dooku that assassin Asajj Ventress is interested in learning more about and how the story in Star Wars: Dooku: Jedi Lost sets down its roots.

As a young Padawan, Dooku immediately shows how immensely skilled he is as a Jedi. He is, in fact, one of the best the Order has ever seen. But a simple twist of fate leads him to discover his past — knowledge about the exceptionally powerful family from which he was taken as a baby — and makes him question his loyalty to the Order. Despite the pull to learn more about his past, he continues on with his training and becomes a Master himself.

This does not mean he isn’t working in defiance of the Order and its strict rules, though. Ever since that fateful day, he has maintained a secret line of communication with his lost sister, Jenza, thus giving him a finger on the pulse of the outside world and insight into the happenings that will lead to the fracturing of the Republic and pave the way for his role in its further decline.

Reading a prequel to the Star Wars prequels is very insightful. While limited in scope to just what Dooku sees and learns, we, as Star Wars fans, still finally get a deeper look into what led to the events we observed in The Phantom Menace and beyond. It certainly makes things a lot more interesting and believable. And let’s face it, Christopher Lee’s Count Dooku is just a badass. Anything with him at front and center is a good thing, period.

I have been harping for a long time now about how difficult audiobooks can be to listen to when you have a single narrative voice trying to play so many roles at once. The Audible version of Frank Herbert’s Dune really spoiled me. I even mentioned recently that a certain book I had listened to would benefit greatly from a full cast of voice actors.

Guess what. I GOT MY FULL CAST OF VOICE ACTORS!!

[Internally] The next audiobook Kevin reviews would benefit from a swimming pool full of $20 bills that he can jump around in Scrooge McDuck-style as he listens to the book. Anyone? Bueller?

I mournfully digress.

I have to admit that listening to Dooku: Jedi Lost is a very interesting experience if you’ve listened to a lot of Star Wars books in the past. It is the first-ever audio-only Star Wars tale (I’m told) and having that many voices playing their parts all at once is very fulfilling. However, without having a lot of the normal textual prompts to which you might otherwise be accustomed such as “Dooku said…” or “Yoda replied…” or any of that might make you suddenly wish that your audiobook had a visual element to it. And then it becomes the next A Star Wars Story movie. In all honesty, though, there were times that I lost track of who was who especially when you had jumps in time, such as from Dooku and Sifo-Dyas’ teen years to their adult lives. If not for the occasional calling out of a name by another character, sometimes awkwardly, I may never have recovered my footing.

It will be interesting to see how Random House Audio and Disney move forward with this style of canon storytelling. I’m certain I will be here to listen to it… as I dolphin paddle through tides of $20 bills in my guitar-shaped pool…

Had to give it another try.