Dooku: Jedi Lost is the first of its kind, audio-only production in the Star Wars Canon. Written by Calvin Scott, the author who brought us the “Adventures In Wild Space” series, and narrated by a full and impressive cast, this audio production lives up to the hype. Just two weeks after the release of Master & Apprentice, which dives into the backstory of Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Calvin Scott delves into both Dooku’s and Asajj Ventress’ origin stories.

As so many Star Wars novels do, this story follows the “story within a story” format. The first layer tells of Asajj Ventress, and how she initially became entangled with Count Dooku as his private assassin. The second layer emerges as flashbacks of Dooku’s youth and early years as Ventress discovers databanks and journals during her first mission to find and rescue Dooku’s kidnapped sister.

The second layer tells of:

• Dooku’s early years in the Jedi Temple with his close friend Sifo-Dyas
• how he discovers that Serenno is his home-world
• his early encounters with the dark side of the force
• how he is chosen as Yoda’s apprentice
• how he leaves the Jedi Council to become the Count of Serenno.

Stories such as this one are extremely gratifying to Star Wars fans who – although they already know how the story ends – are intensely curious about how it happened.

While this story wasn’t as impactful to the Star Wars Universe as Master & Apprentice, it compared in excitement by uncovering additional bits of the story that set the stage for the Prequel Trilogy. My only complaint is the order of release. I would have much rather listened to Dooku: Jedi Lost before Master & Apprentice in order to preserve the proper chronology of the story. For anyone planning to read/listen to both of these stories, I recommend doing so in chronological order. This way the reader/listener can experience the building of events that lead to the Galactic Civil War and eventual collapse of the Republic.

The telling of this story only added to its excitement. The audio production was very well done. Many Star Wars audio novels are known for being highly entertaining and animated, complete with music from John Williams and Star Wars-esque sound effects. The difference between this audio-only production and other high-fidelity audio books are 1) the full cast of voice actors representing the various characters in the novel and 2) the absence of connector phrases such as “he said excitedly…” and “she laughed with delight.” The luxury of an audio-only production is that instead of describing who said what and how it was delivered, the listener experiences it first hand through the audio production. At first this was a bit distracting, but progressively became highly entertaining. My only complaint was the voice of adult Dooku. While Christopher Lee’s voice may be hard to match, they could have done a much better job.

Listening to this story, then reading Master & Apprentice and even Dark Disciple (a canon novel released in 2015 featuring Asajj Ventress’ years after becoming free from Dooku’s grip) will make the experience of watching Episodes I, II, & III much richer. Something many fans may not realize is that the story of Palpatine’s plotting in the Prequel Trilogy may have significant implications to the upcoming resolution of the Star Wars Saga in Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker. Brushing up on these early years will only make experiencing the upcoming film that much better. I highly recommend this audio production for any Star Wars fan.

Click Here or the image below to pick this up via digital audio. We would like to thank Random House for providing the review sample