Note: While the below text represents a brief review of this specific Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear entry, a greater retrospective on the entire series, complete with images and footnotes, can be found here on my site, dendrobibliography.

Clones is, like the Doomsday Ship, another fun Galaxy of Fear yarn held back by a couple significant issues. While Whitman's writing and attention to narrative structure are still improving since the first few novellas in early '97, Clones features a story that would immediately be removed from EU canon by the Phantom Menace and the prequel's timeline and use of cloning. It also features some really tacky and out-of-place stereotypes.

Tash, Zak and Hoole land on Dantooine hoping to return to Hoole's comfortable life as an anthropologist. They spend weeks living with a local nomadic tribe. The tribe come off like a mash of tribal stereotypes from Earth, speaking in broken English and getting terrified of anything technologically or magical. (It's silly, bad writing -- but not exactly out of place for Star Wars (hello, Jar Jar; hi Watto). To its credit, Clones does go out of the way, however condescending the method may be, to say that technology and cultural advancement do not necessarily reflect intelligence.) Nearby are some ancient Jedi ruins, as well as a more recent abandoned rebel base. The mystery of the ruins draws the twins away from the nomadic tribe, who are particularly drawn by Tash's force sensitivity: Something not-quite-right is occurring there, and a wave of Dark Force energy fills the Jedi ruins themselves.

The title and cover are a bit of a spoiler. The longer our heroes stay within distance of the ruins, the more clones they run into: Of the rebels who lived there before, of themselves, of Hoole...of Darth Vader. And none of them are quite right, mentally. Everything and everyone is only half there.

After Zak's somewhat uneventful story with the Doomsday Ship, focus returns to Tash and her growth into her Force sensitivity. Clones develops her masterfully, and she'll spend the novella struggling to come to grips with the lure of the Dark Side: By channeling her frustration and anger against the Empire for killing her family, her Force abilities multiply ten-fold in an matter of seconds. The lure of the Dark Side offers an easy way out, and Tash has to come to grips with balancing that pull with compassion and empathy.

The characterization of Clones keeps it up with the series' best, and continues to show where the series could have gone had we stayed with twins through their adolescence, and seen them grow and evolve a la Harry Potter. The story itself, though, never quite makes sense, and is, like the clones, only half there.

As a warning, this entry features some surprising violence. Clones of Tash, Zak, and Hoole are freely murdered without any care in the end. The story just throws away their lives as somewhat meaningless or not worth consideration. It seems like a dark choice. Also, an significant plotline about a mysterious stranger attacking the entire tribe is abandoned by the end.

John Whitman's Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear (1997–1998):
#10 The Doomsday Ship | #12 The Hunger ( )