True Colors (Star Wars: Republic Commando)

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Customer Reviews:

Couldn't stop putting it down. [Posted on 2008-02-24]
**Contains spoilers**

I've written a review for each of her books now and it seems to be a lot of the same. Looks like my biggest complaint remains that for a group of men raised in a warrior tribe they sure do like living in peace. I mean, every single clone, despite how they are represented in EVERY OTHER FACET of the clone wars, including those Lucas seems to have more influence over, appearantly inside of every clone (which has been trained from birth to be a battle-hardened soldier who only knows to kill) is a remorseful farmer who just can't stand war.

Possible spoiler ahead. Beware







I mean, even in this book an ARC (Advanced Recon Clone) Those baddest of the bad, trained by Jango Fett himself to be the epitome of soldier and the best fighter the Kaminoans can create, a batch of Clones NOT emotionally coddled by Kal Skiratta, decides to defect and live in peace.

These are men who have even had their genetic code tampered with to make them EVEN MORE hostile and aggressive and volitle and yet every single one of them seems to get rosey cheeked when a cute twi'lek saunters past. Each one of them just wants to put down their gun and get married and have kids, despite the fact that they by and large have never known any kind of affection in their life. In Hard Contact the author mentions that entire batches are "lost" due presumably to quality control by the Kaminoans, from their earliest years they are put through the most arduous military training that teaches them to conform and work as one, each of them having almost identical experiances with everyone in their batch, yet not a one of them suffers from anything akin to PTSD? None of them are actually cold and stoic, all of them just big children with the same face.

Even REAL people who ACTUALLY used to be peace loving farmers and pacifists come home from war or off of leave a little hardened to violence. In this story she doesn't focus on the battles at all, and when she does throw in some action all the characters are thinking is, "gee, I sure hope the kids aren't mad at me for being short with them."

These are MERCINARIES who make their living off killing things cold bloodedly and come from a culture of war, but all they seem to do is go around posturing and actually being one Meg Ryan movie away from bursting in to tears.

I got so frustrated I could only read 5 pages at a time. I forced myself to finish this book because I felt I owed it to myself after drudging through the last two.

I wish the publishers would give this series to someone who understands what soldiers might ACTUALLY be thinking or doing.

Very good book and trilogy [Posted on 2008-03-02]
This is the third of a series, still following the same major characters: two elite Republic squads of clones, their Jedi leaders, and Mandalorian squad leaders/trainers. Traviss does a very good job with the action, along with delving into the characters emotions and internal conflicts, stemming from their disenchantments with the Republic. What is shown well is the soldiers' willingness to fight and die for their comrades in arms, rather than some sense of allegiance to their command.

Traviss raises the bar for SW novels [Posted on 2008-03-20]
True Colors is what most SW books are not: intelligent, dramatic, internally realistic, and morally complex.

A sequel to the previous Republic Commando novel, Triple Zero, True Colors follows Delta and Omega Squads as they seek to capture scientist Ko Sai, the master geneticist of the Republic's clone army. Having fled Kamino with records of the cloning program, she's now being hunted by Palpatine and other commercial cloners eager to appropriate her work. But where these parties are motivated by commercial and political potential, Delta and Omega Squads have a more personal interest, to coerce the scientist into prolonging their lives by slowing down the quick-aging process built into their genetic code.

It's a fairly simple story made complex by attention to character and theme, something most Star Wars writers glance over if they think of it at all. Many employ a comfortable shorthand in which certain kinds of characters or characteristics are good, others bad, and the situations in which they find themselves clear cut. Traviss, though, paints in shades of gray, in which heroes have faults, bad guys are sometimes good, and the choices they have to make rarely easy.

The clone soldiers struggle to comprehend the enormity - and irony - of their burden, to die for a Republic that claims to defend freedom and liberty but values its clone warriors less than machines. Though content to do that for which they have been bred, the clones begin to resent being taken for granted, especially by their Jedi generals, men and women who through their relationship with the Force claim to have a wider and deeper appreciation of life in all its forms. The Jedi are painfully aware of their responsibilities to the clones, but find themselves trapped by tradition and circumstance serving the Republic, setting aside the rights of their soldiers to first fight the greater threat posed by the Separatists.

With no one to look after their interests but themselves, the clone commandos and their Mandalorian trainers set in motion a plan to free themselves from the tyranny of genetics and societal neglect, to give themselves an opportunity to live a life of normal men. But to do that they have to go against their breeding and training to disobey orders, aid deserters, deceive trusted comrades, kill fellow clone troopers and Mandalorians, and put civilian associates at risk. Complicit in their schemes are two Jedi commanders who discover first hand the dangers of attachment to loved ones and the equally dangerous detachment from avoiding difficult decisions.

In the end the commandos and the Jedi find that by looking closely at the thing you hate, you begin to understand it, to see that it exists much the same as you, as the expression of conditions that brought you into existence. Ko Sai is from a society that as a result of ecological disaster had to euthanize weaker members of its species to survive. For the Kaminoans the universe is a cold and harsh place that demands difficult choices, choices other species seem unable to take, but from which the commandos do not shy. In taking extraordinary measures to protect their own kind, in not being able to depend on the help of outsiders, the clones and Ko Sai find they have something in common. And in a universe in which many see the clones as little more than crude fighting machines, the Jedi begin to see that what they might have considered brutish behavior is as much a result of breeding as it is the tasks the Jedi and the Republic call upon the clones to perform.

This is the finest Star Wars novel ever written. Where Triple Zero was weighed down by excessive detail on weaponry, technology, and Mandalorian culture, True Colors pulses with the warmth of life and the honest portrayal of human conflict. There is no SW novel that can compare in depth of character and ethical complexity (though Matthew Stover's novels come close). On the one hand I'm glad Traviss wrote it. It was a fine read and shows that licensed fiction need not be hackneyed product. On the other, I despair of reading anything as fine until Traviss' next Republic Commando novel.

If you enjoyed True Colors, then by all means check out Traviss Wess'har series, which covers much of the same thematic ground.

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Traviss understands her characters' shades of grey. [Posted on 2008-05-19]
I never thought I would be enthralled more by a SW expanded univerise element, more so than I was with the original movies as a child. You know the clone troopers are ultimately used as a tool of evil but you find your self completely pulling for them. Traviss' characters show heart and soul and not just sterotypical SW shallow characteristics. I can't wait to see how she further develops this series with "Order 66".

awsome [Posted on 2008-09-02]
story line improves with each on the trilogy. Mrs. Traviss is a great military author.

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