DOCTOR APHRA (STAR WARS) (audiobook) by Sarah Kuhn

 





Published in 2020 by Random House Audio.

Performed by multiple voice actors.
Duration: 4 hours, 35 minutes.
Unabridged.

Set in the time between Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode IV) and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Episode V), Doctor Aphra is the story of a rogue archaeologist who specializes in weapons of the past. It is based on a comic series. She doesn't collect them to stick them in a museum, she collects them to use them. She thinks an ancient weapon unused is a travesty, like an ancient symphony left unplayed. So, she specializes in tracking down weapons that were locked away and hidden so no one could get their hands on them. Her other skill is modifying ships and droids to make them effective weapons.

While Dr. Aphra is looking for the operating system of a murderous protocol droid (he hates "organics" and loves to torture), she is captured by Darth Vader. Vader doesn't care about the droid software, but he does want to use Dr. Aphra's skills to track down a few things, including the location of the young pilot from Tatooine that destroyed the Death Star...

I found the general plot outline of the book to be intriguing. The problem is that the author seems determined to make Doctor Aphra the funniest character in the Star Wars universe. Her dialogue is a non-stop stream of sarcastic comments and odd observations. Her murderous protocol droid has a relentless string of comments that amount to "I want to torture!" He is also a dead ringer for C-3PO. Doctor Aphra also has an R2 unit that is basically a tiny tank because it is full of weapons. I can imagine that this was an effective sight gag in the comics ("Look at the evil C3P0 and R2 blowing things up!") - for a while. It got old for this listener.

The audiobook was filled with sound effects from the movies, bits of the John Williams' soundtracks and performed by multiple actors, each playing a different character. That was well done, but I only give the story 3 stars out of 5. 

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: DOCTOR APHRA (STAR WARS) (audiobook) by Sarah Kuhn.

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