Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice #4: The Mark of the Crown Book Review

Added: 2026-06-08

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[00:00:08]Hello and welcome to my channel. My name is Jonathan Cone and today I have my book review of the book Star Wars Jedi Apprentice number four The Mark of the Crown by Jude Watson. This is the fourth book in the Star Wars Jedi Apprentice series. I've reviewed all of the books so far, the first three that I've read so far. The first book The Rising Force, loved it. The second book, it was good.

[00:00:35]It wasn't amazing, but it was serviceable for a kids book The Dark Rival. And then the Hidden Past, which I really loved. So, we've had generally a pretty good track record with these books. And with Mark of the Crown, I was very excited to see the story get back to the main story. So, book three, you know, book one, you or I said I'll start with the beginning. Book one features Obi-Wan being sent away. He's not going to become anyone's Padawan. And then book two, Qui-Gon, he works with Qui-Gon and Qui-Gon finally agrees to take him on as his Padawan.

[00:01:06]Book three is the start of this uh adventure. It's the start of their first mission together. However, they get derailed and so they This book is basically one big side quest. And so this is their first official major mission as master and Padawan. And this book tells the story of the political situation on the planet Gala. And on the political situation is there is the uh queen whose husband has died, the king, and rather than just give the power to her son, she has decided to give the people a popular vote. She has decided to go from a strict monarchy to an elected government. And so because of that, she has opened it up and there are three people running. You have a populist running, you have a bureaucrat running, and you have her son, the prince, as a royalist running. And the three of them each have excellent support.

[00:02:06]And one of the things that Jude Watson does is she writes some fantastic political thriller concepts, but also just political concepts in general.

[00:02:17]What I normally do with these is I start spoiler-free and then get into the spoilers. And my spoiler-free thoughts on this are that I really enjoyed this one. I don't think it's strong as book one. It might be about the level of book three, but it's it's it's a very strong book.

[00:02:34]The problem is that this book has some themes that it tries to do, and it doesn't really do the themes well. It does explore ideas, and those are different from themes. It explores political ideas, but the themes regarding legacy in this book aren't that strong. And I'll get into all of that I'll get into that later. I will say that I thought that the themes were a bit better in The Hidden Past and in uh, The Rising Force. But that being said, this is still a great book. I So so I really enjoyed it. So let's go ahead and get into the actual story itself. Cuz you know, this is a short book. If you're not caught up, it's going to take you like no time at all to to read it.

[00:03:18]It's it's like a one-to-two sitting book. You read it. It's really quick.

[00:03:21]It's like 130 pages.

[00:03:23]So, on Naboo, you have these three people running. However, the queen reveals to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan that she is dying. And with that, she is reveals that her husband had an illegitimate daughter who really could be viewed as the real heir. And she wouldn't mind passing it on to that heir. Which first of all is an interesting concept to have a woman who finds out that her husband was had a child before she met him >> [clears throat] >> cuz she wasn't queen at the time. She wasn't married to the king, but the king had a child with someone else and then that child and the mother went away and now she's trying to bring that child in cuz she thinks he'd be a better leader than her own son.

[00:04:10]Really interesting idea to explore there. And so Qui-Gon goes off to find the missing child and Obi-Wan is left to try to A, oversee the political situation and B, try to uncover what's going on with the queen because she's dying and she's not that old and something curious is happening.

[00:04:31]And so that's one of the reasons that the queen has accelerated the elections is because she does not want to die and to leave it all to her son who is running. She's not going to stop him from running, but she does not want her son to win the election. And you briefly met her son in the hidden past and he's pretty obviously an idiot who wants power. And in this book it really is interesting that there is an obvious choice that most authors would go with and Jude Watson doesn't do that with with with who should be the political leader. I'll get there in a moment.

[00:05:07]Let me touch on the theme I mentioned earlier. So, I talked about the idea of legacy and in the very beginning of this book in like the first or second chapter, Qui-Gon has a short mental moment where he's thinking about what his legacy is going to be, what he will leave behind. And that idea is entirely abandoned for the middle of the book and you could make a connection between that and the storyline of the queen that the queen of of Gala doesn't want her kingdom to be handed over to her son.

[00:05:42]She wants her legacy to be that she's the one that opened it up to popular vote. That could be an interesting idea, but the connection there is not really strongly made, and it isn't really made until the end of the book, and it's very, very light there. It very much feels like Jude Watson was going over the first draft and was like, "Oh, I had this thing in there. I better throw that in later."

[00:06:06]Whereas the the theme about uh Obi-Wan with patience in the previous book, the theme with Obi-Wan about trusting Qui-Gon, with the themes with Qui-Gon about trusting his apprentice, I think were much stronger in The Hidden Past and With the Rising Force, and I they just it just wasn't a strong theme.

[00:06:25]That's the only real knock I have on this book.

[00:06:28]Going back to the story, Obi-Wan realizes that the that the queen is being poisoned. And so, he starts exploring who's poisoning the queen, and he realizes that the person behind it is one of these advisers who basically wants to make the prince his puppet. I said the prince was pretty much an idiot who just wants power. Well, the person pulling the strings, the chief of staff, the person really behind it all is is is this adviser. And this adviser, it was pretty obvious. When you meet the adviser, you're like, yeah, that's going to be the guy. He's he's going to be the bad guy. And even though it's framed as a mystery, I think that kids might take an extra second to figure it out, and they might it might be the right level of mystery. As an adult, I pegged it instantly. But, it's still pretty fun.

[00:07:12]And so, Obi-Wan basically figures it out, but is trying to figure out, okay, how do I get proof? How do I keep the queen alive? How do I stop her from be continuing to be poisoned?

[00:07:22]While at the same time, political demonstrations are happening, and the voting is about to start, and all this stuff. And Obi-Wan realizes that the populist is only popular as he is because of outside funding, because of the uh these these different cartels that are funding him. And it's so interesting because the concept of a populist doing what the people would want is what most authors would write about. But Jude Watson doesn't put that in the best light. She doesn't put populism in exactly the best light, but she also is no monarchist in the way that she writes. Instead, this is really fascinating, the morally correct person to for everyone to throw their support behind at the end of the book and who ends up winning the election and ends up getting support is the bureaucrat character. The bureaucrat is the one who has experience, the person who is dedicated to governmental service, but is not a monarch and so therefore will continue to be elected and listen to the people, but is not a populist in sense that they will be tethered to what the people want and will be more of a true leader rather than just a person in in front of a a group. And it's such an interesting idea to to make the bureaucrat the leader. And I think that Jude Watson did a great job unveiling that. And she doesn't even use that many words to do that, but it's just a really creative decision on her part.

[00:08:53]And I have to give her real kudos for that.

[00:08:55]I will also say that this book deals with great stuff with Obi-Wan having to work by himself, his first mission, and his master leaves and he has to not only uncover the mystery himself, but he has to basically pretend that his master is just, "Oh, he was just in the the gardens. He's not here now. Oh, uh, Qui-Gon isn't, uh, Qui-Gon's just sleeping. Uh, he's not feeling well today. He's staying."

[00:09:21]He has to cover for his master and lie.

[00:09:22]And it's just so creative because this is his first time working with Qui-Gon on a real mission. The last one was more of a side quest. This is a real mission.

[00:09:32]Qui-Gon's storyline was good. It was well written. He goes to try to find the illegit, not illegit child, but the the the daughter of the king and he ends up finding her and she wants nothing to do with any of that. She's part of the hill people who are feel they're ostracized. They don't want part of any of that and Qui-Gon basically convinces her, "Just come and talk to some of the people. Come to talk to the queen."

[00:09:56]Not her mother, obviously, but you know, the wife of her father. Go talk to her, go meet with the bureaucrat and she ends up putting her people support behind the bureaucrat and that's what ends up getting the bureaucrat getting enough votes to win the election. And so the stat story was good, but I found myself going, "I'd rather be reading about what's happening with Obi-Wan right now." And maybe that's because I felt there were more tense stakes, whereas anytime there was action with Qui-Gon, I was like, "Ah, he's fine." And I guess I could have felt that too cuz I knew that Obi-Wan would be survive cuz look, this is kids book about Jedi apprentice.

[00:10:29]They're not going to kill off the apprentice in the series. But at the same time, I felt the stakes more with Obi-Wan, with what's happening with him than was happening with Qui-Gon. So that was another thing where it's not bad, it just didn't work quite as well. And maybe it's because of the framing devices and whatnot.

[00:10:45]There's also the discussion about like the real mark of the crown in that who's the real legitimate king or who's to be the legitimate monarch and it's going to reveal itself to the real one and the prince doesn't reveal itself for him, but it will for the girl, for the for the for the daughter. I get all of that.

[00:11:06]I didn't think that that was a strong enough play. I didn't think that the the magic behind it or the story, I didn't think that that was a strong enough and that's the the titular idea, the mark of the crown. It just didn't feel like it was a strong story concept. I think that that could have been done better.

[00:11:21]That being said, cover-wise, this is the most Jesus looking that Qui-Gon has ever looked. I do think that this cover actually at least makes sense. I understand what this cover is trying to present. You know, you have the cliffs you have the city you stuff in the background. You also have the mark of the crown itself. You have Qui-Gon using the force. That makes sense. I am still baffled by the cover of book three and nobody in the comments nobody in anything has been able to explain to me what the cover of book three is meant to be but yeah that's that's that's book three.

[00:11:59]But book four I I enjoy I think the cover is a lot better.

[00:12:04]I think that the book overall is a fun ride. Is it as good as the first book?

[00:12:09]No. Is it even as good as the side quest in book three? Not quite as good as that but it's on the level of book three.

[00:12:17]It's on that level. It's certainly in my opinion better than the dark rival but I again I don't think dark rival which is the weakest of the four so far is bad. I just don't think it's great. I just think it's it's a good book. It's like a seven out of 10. It's a good book but this I would give like an eight and a half out of 10. I think it's pretty solid. I enjoyed it and I think that other readers will as well.

[00:12:38]So that is my review of The Mark of the Crown. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below and until next time I'm Jonathan and thank you for watching.