True Colors (Star Wars: Republic Commando, Book 3) | 
 enlarge | Author: Karen Traviss
Publisher: Del Rey
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy New: $3.95
You Save: $4.04 (51%)
New (39) Used (13) from $3.33
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 6260
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0345498003
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780345498007
ASIN: 0345498003
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
As the savage Clone Wars rage unchecked, the Republic’s deadliest warriors face the grim truth that the Separatists aren’t their only enemy–or even their worst.
In the Grand Army’s desperate fight to crush the Separatists, the secret special ops missions of its elite clone warriors have never been more critical . . . or more dangerous. A growing menace threatens Republic victory, and the members of Omega Squad make a shocking discovery that shakes their very loyalty.
As the lines continue to blur between friend and enemy, citizens–from civilians and sergeants to Jedi and generals–find themselves up against a new foe: the doubt in their own hearts and minds. The truth is a fragile, shifting illusion–and only the approaching inferno will reveal both sides in their true colors.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 Another Great Addition To The Republic Commando Series October 28, 2008
Karen Traviss continues with the great storytelling that she started in the first two novels in the Republic Commando series; Hard Contact (Star Wars: Republic Commando) and Triple Zero (Star Wars: Republic Commando), and continues with the fourth installment, Order 66 (Star Wars: Republic Commando). The best thing about this series of Star Wars novels, is the simple tact she takes with developing the characters and making you feel for them, rather than having absurd and absurd battles of some sort all the time. Yes, there is plenty of action, but it takes a back seat to the story telling of each of these characters as they tackle internal turmoil about what they are doing, who they are doing it for, and most importantly why?
I really liked the way that Traviss "humanizes" the clones and the Jedi so that you can really get to know them and their individual personal struggles that they are going through with the various facets of their lives.
The story is well written and it is very easy to read. Perhaps too much in some cases, as I seem to read for hours before ever putting the book down. But if that is my only complaint, I guess that would be more of a positive comment than a negative. In any regards, you really should pick up this series and start reading it. It harkens back to the days of Timothy Zahn and the Heir to the Empire Trilogy, which if you haven't read you definitely need to do so.
Heir to the Empire (Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Vol. 1)
Dark Force Rising (Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Book 2)
The Last Command (Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Vol. 3)
Also check out these two also written by Timothy Zahn.
Specter of the Past (Star Wars: The Hand of Thrawn, Book 1)
Outbound Flight (Star Wars)
Shawn Kovacich
Star Wars Fan and Author of the Achieving Kicking Excellence series.
W00t! October 25, 2008
I'd completely recommend this book to any fan of Star Wars! Extremely well written! While reading this book I felt like I really connected with the characters... - Daughter of Mr. Y. Wang
Commando's September 10, 2008
True Colors, book 3 of 4, brings about the ethical side of the Clone Wars. What happens to crippled and aged clones? Are clones people or just cannon fodder like droids? Sarg. Skirata will do what he can to help his boys to make sure they have a future, General Etain will attempt to give Darman a glimpse of what it is to be a "normal" person. A great book, very well written, gripping from beginning to end. I look forward to the last installment.
awsome September 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
story line improves with each on the trilogy. Mrs. Traviss is a great military author.
Traviss raises the bar for SW novels March 20, 2008
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
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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