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October 2, 2005
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 The paperback Medstar duology from veteran Star Wars authors Steve Perry and Michael Reaves is something of a guilty pleasure. Guilty, for it's laundry list of genre clichés and liberal borrowing of previous sci-fi, and pleasurable for it's classic Star Wars feel and relatively engaging cast of characters.
Jos Vondar is a battle surgeon, knee deep in the blood of clone troopers on the remote world of Drongar. Jos and his mates are serving the Republic during the Clone Wars, sewing up the seemingly endless stream of wounded troopers filtering in and out of their 'RIMSOO' on a forsaken backwater world at the ass end of space. Joining him are his best friend and fellow surgeon Zan, a comely nurse named Tolk, the Sullustan war correspondent Den Dhur, and Jedi healer Barriss Offee.
Fans of Star Wars who also like ER will feel at home here, as the authors describe in gory detail the process of stitching up clone troopers who are shipped in droves from the battlefront, as well as the myriad activities undertaken during rare moments of leisure. Dhur, and most of the doctors, spend an inordinate amount of time getting drunk, gambling, and having sex, which I suppose makes sense for individuals up to their necks in blood and guts in the middle of a war zone, but is also mildly shocking to read in a Star Wars novel. Adult fans of the franchise have had little to call their own in recent years, but if Medstar is any indication, there are at least two EU authors who, blessedly, write for a mature audience.
Battle Surgeons and Jedi Healer include many welcome nods to classic Star Wars, including a wookiee pulling a droid's arm from its socket over a game of Dejarik, and repeated attempts to get a droid drunk. The duology has a sublime sense of humor, with several of the characters playing against type and generating some Star Wars chuckles. If you ever wanted to know how to say 'shit-faced' in Sullustan, for example, this is your book.
Despite the occasional brevity though, there is some real emotional weight here, even when the presentation sometimes misses the mark. Reaves and Perry have created genuinely likable characters, and plopping them in the middle of a war zone rife with gut-wrenching emotional decisions makes for good drama.
Chief among these emotional issues is an undercurrent of upper-class denial, hinted at in Steven Barnes' Cestus Deception, and expanded upon here, wherein the clones are examined as real people with real feelings, despite the fact that they are programmed killing machines with thousands of twin brothers. Particularly poignant is the loss of a clone on Jos' operating table, and the emotional response of the trooper's 'vat-mate,' both of whom are known to the surgeon only by their numerical designations. Jos seeks out the surviving clone, and realizes through another's grief that he has been dehumanizing his patients in an effort to keep the horrors of the war at arm's length.
Similar internalized struggles constitute the bulk of the conflict in the duology, even though the characters inhabit a world where extreme violence is an everyday occurrence. The second novel is strangely absent a villain, save for perhaps the war itself and a minor Black Sun operative, whereas the first novel features the nefarious Admiral Bleyd and the psychotic mercenary Phow Ji. The former comes off reasonably well, though his fate may leave some fans wanting more, while the latter seems to have been imported from the mind of your average Star Wars Galaxies player, complete with clichéd Teras Kasi template and lack of motivation for berserker rages of violence that I assume will appeal to the 'kill 'em all' crowd.
Most of the other principals are well drawn, with the exception of the nurse Tolk, who, despite continued ambiguity in regard to her love for the protagonist, is not much more than attractive window dressing. Regrettably, she has few discernible motives beyond serving as a plot device (is she a Separatist spy or does she truly love Jos?).
The Sullustan Den Dhur fares much better, and is easily one of my favorite EU characters in some time, despite being closely related to the clichéd archetype of the cynical reporter. Reaves also brings back the droid I-Five, whom sharp-eyed fans will recognize from his previous entry in EU canon, and, while the idea of an artificial being wrestling with concepts of soul and humanity is not a new one, rarely has it been touched on in Star Wars lore, and never with as much poignancy and humor as the Medstar series.
The Jedi padawan Barris Offee also shines, and while it's not hard to paint a female Jedi in an attractive light, she comes off better than most sexualized warrior-women. You sense there's a real person beneath the lightsaber swings and the indecision that comes from being parsecs away from her mentor, and it doesn't hurt that she's fond of flexibility exercises and looks fetching in a jumpsuit.
Unfortunately, she's also used to present a new angle on the Force, one that will seem extremely familiar to readers of Frank Herbert's classic novels. Apparently, there's a narcotic plant called bota that only grows on one planet in the whole galaxy (hence the Republic and Separatists clashing over Drongar), and it also conveniently accelerates healing while allowing Force users like Barriss to alter their minds and become one with the universe. Stop me if you've heard this one before, Dune fans.
More problematic is Jos, the Corellian surgeon who serves as the duology's moral, and narrative, center. We're told repeatedly that he's a Corellian (like Han Solo, for those of you new to EU), but his characterization is more than a little wooden, and with only a bare minimum of physical description, it's hard to get a feel for exactly who this guy is. Also, much of his inner conflict revolves around the nurse Tolk, and whether or not he should risk ostracization from his family by having a relationship with her (apparently Corellians are racists, or, in Star Wars speak, speciests). While this makes for somewhat engaging drama, all the discussion of sects, bloodlines, and arcane traditions kept me picturing Jos as an alien, maybe a Zabrak, rather than an average human born on the planet Corellia.
Despite these flaws, the two novels are a pleasurable Star Wars experience. There's a bit of something for everyone here: Jedi fans will be pleased by the depiction of Barriss, both in combat and while being the titular Jedi Healer. Lovers of drama will enjoy the emotional responses generated by the authors' willingness to kill off major characters, as well as the touching transformation of the world-weary reporter Den Dhur, who risks his life to retrieve a compatriot's musical instrument during a death-defying evacuation under fire.
Overall, the duology is an enjoyable page-turner, offering a decent amount of emotional depth to counteract some of it's less than original ideas. In the overcrowded world of EU fiction, you could do a lot worse.
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