Star Wars: Rogue Planet by Greg Bear (Century, £15.99)

GREG Bear is a heavyweight in the world of science-fiction, so seeing his name on a Star Wars spin-off novel is something of a surprise. By and large, such novels are high on energy and light on impact, and you can't see Bear falling into that trap.

In Rogue Planet, Obi-Wan Kenobi and the young Anakin, three years older than in The Phantom Menace, are despatched by the Jedi Council to a strange planet where ships are grown rather than built and where there are strange movements in the Force.

But the future Grand Moff Tarkin is plotting to seize this rogue planet for the Dark Side's forces. All well and good for a plot.

The problem is Bear is constrained from writing a novel of serious impact by his central characters.

Nothing too substantial can happen to Obi-Wan and his young apprentice, either good or bad, so you know the novel will be left tied up in a neat package which leaves them roughly where they began, give or take a scar.

Where Bear's genius glimmers through is in the setting and the supporting characters, where he can give his imagination free rein - and that's when the novel really becomes a page-turner.

Certainly one of the better Star Wars novels and, better yet, no Jar-Jar Binks.