As someone online on tvtropes noted, *A New Dawn* is a good title for this book in a meta-sense. In-story, this is about the beginnings of rebellion against the Empire, and of Kanan Jarrus taking his life in a new direction, but as a the first book in the new *Star Wars* "canon" since Disney took over, the title is quite apt.
The story takes place about eight years after *Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith*, and about six years prior to the start of the *Star Wars: Rebels* animated series. Since Kanan and Hera, the two main protagonists of the novel are two of the characters on *Rebels*, this is obviously more of a prequel novel than anything else.
The novel follows the exploits of Kanan Jarrus, who holds a secret - he is the Jedi Caleb Dume, a Padawan of Jedi Master Depa Bilaba, who gave her life to save Kanan from the clones who turned on them at Palpatine's orders.
A quick note here. It should be stated that, according to one of the showrunners of *Rebels*, the clones had no choice in the matter due to stuff implanted in them at birth. They HAD to kill the Jedi when given the code by Palpatine. As of this time the book takes place, not just volunteers like Skelly, but actual clone troopers are not just dealing with clone illnesses like those dealt with in the also Canon *Star Wars: The Clone Wars* series, but also immense guilt over murdering the Jedi against their own will. Moreover, with his grip on the galaxy seemingly solidified, Palpatine's Empire is starting to show it's true colors. The galaxy is a hugely horrific, brutal place to live under the Empire.
Anyways, as of the moment the story opens, Kanan is in a sorry state. He is a cynic who hates his past life and wants to just hop from place to place to avoid detection and survive. Having been on the run for nearly a decade has turned him into a womanizing, selfish man. At least, that is what he *wants* it to make him. Underneath that cold, self-centered exterior is the idealistic super-hero wannabe, Caleb.
When a troublemaker forces Kanan to use the Force to save himself and others, he decides to leave his current planet of choice, Gorse, and go find work elsewhere. He already has stayed longer than he should have, he muses, and so on his way he goes. Then he sees a beautiful Twilek woman named Hera, and is swept up in an insane adventure with her, and other characters, doing a very "Caleb" thing, much to his chagrin.
Hera is the second main character, and she manages to get under Kanan's skin, much to her amusement, chagrin, and (when Kanan proves to be useful for stopping the plans of the Empire) pleasure. It's funny to see her go from someone who is annoyed, but amused, at Kanan's flirting, to someone who is intrigued, though not romantically interested, with him.
What made Hera cool is that she is badass. She is not to Kanan's level, given Kanan's old training and access to the Force, but she is skilled enough that you might conclude she'd outstrip him if he wasn't a Jedi. She is more idealistic than Kanan, but has a strange cynicism in her own way. It's hard to explain how without being too spoilery, but just suffice it to say that she must learn that not everything in life can be second-fiddle to her crusade.
I said earlier that Kanan has the super-hero wannabe inside in his old "Caleb Dume" identity. I can kinda empathize. When I went in the Army, I was the uber-patriotic guy, and still am I would argue, but I had rose-colored blinders on then that have since been lifted. I thought it would be heroic and being the "good guy". Actual war dissuaded me of that notion. It's hard, harsh, difficult, nerve-wracking, guilt inducing, so on. Real-world war heroes are not like comic book folks, but they are fallible because they are real. I am more jaded now, and I didn't have a galaxy-spanning Empire try to murder me.
The story was half-introductory adventure and half-mystery. Since the bad guy is a political servant of the Emperor trying to gain more influence on Coruscant (the capital world), he naturally has others nipping at his heels. The heroes end up exploiting this to make headway in stopping the bad guy. Some might find the ending kinda sudden, but if they view it as political intrigue and study how such things go in real-life authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, it actually has some realism... uh, other than the sci-fi/fantasy stuff, I mean.
The reason I didn't give this book the highest rating, despite enjoying it so much was because the story started out a tad slow. It picked up in interest about a hundred pages through or so. Then it was fun.
The only problem I have with the bad guy is that he is almost cartoonish in his villainy. I almost expected him to grow a cybernetic mustache to twirl. He was a bit cliched, and that hurt the novel. Other than that, the characters were fun and kinda realistic to who they were in this environment. If you stripped away the fantastical elements, they make sense given their histories and what not.
I loved this first entry in the new, integrated (movies, television, books, so on) *Star Wars* Canon, and I heartily recommend it and the *Star Wars: Rebels* series, by the by. Good stuff.
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