Book Review: Star Wars Legends - Red Harvest by Joe Schrieber

Depending on what king of Star Wars fool you are, you may recognize that the title of this book is a joke. After all, the working title of Return of the Jedi was Blue Harvest (also the name of a fun "Family Guy" parody of Episode IV - and yes, I'll still stick up for aughts "Family Guy"!).

But this book is no joke.

Red Harvest is a "Legends" book, which means it came out prior to Disney purchasing Lucasfilm and thus is not included within the current continuity - although I've there's no reason not to include it since it takes place in the Old Republic era, almost 3500 years before Luke blew up the first Death Star. The crux of this time period is the all-out war between the Jedi and the Sith (who are a full army/civilization at this point, not governed by the Rule of Two). In fact, almost all of this book takes place at a Sith academy.

In this book, the Sith master Darth Scabrous hires a bounty hunter to steal a sentient orchid (!) from a Jedi greenhouse floating in space (!!) in order to complete a spell to become the absolute embodiment of the dark side of the force. When the bounty hunter finds the orchid, he finds out that the Jedi caretaker needs to come with the orchid in order for it to live. Yes, there are Jedi gardeners, and yes, they mind-meld with the plants. Brilliant, if you ask me.

When the potion is completed, the dark side embodiments are basically the zombies from 28 Days Later - undead, quick, and violent, who can spread their change through bites and/or blood contact (and yes, midichlorians do come into play). Will the plant Jedi escape? Will her brother (also a Jedi) find her? Will they be able to stop the zombification from spreading across the galaxy?

As mentioned above, this book is no joke - there's no vague sci-fi fighting here, it's a straight up HORROR book. Blood will be spilled, limbs will be severed, people will be disemboweled. And in one unsettling instance, one bounty hunter will be forced to eat the boiled head of his former copilot (!!!).

Yes, this is the most Halloweeny Star Wars book I've ever read - even more so than Death Troopers (also written by the same author). Pretty engaging read - eight out of ten hot dogs.