Andrew's Review of X-wing: Isard's Revenge

3/5 Rancors - Michael Stackpole returns to the adventures of Rogue Squadron with the eighth book in the X-wing series, Isard's Revenge. The first seven books were all set together in the chronological order of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but this volume takes place a couple of years later on the heels of Timothy Zahn's acclaimed Thrawn Trilogy. The first chapter actually places us into the Battle of Bilbringi, the climatic conflict of Zahn's The Last Command, offering a nice bit of continuity and a smooth way to rejoin the Rogue Squadron storyline.

Readers of the previous volumes will know that Wedge Antilles, hero of numerous Rebel Alliance victories, has repeatedly refused a promotion to General, fearing a life bound to a desk shuffling papers. He and Admiral Ackbar finally come to an accommodation which will allow Wedge to accept the promotion while still remaining in command of Rogue Squadron. After all the adventures and near-death escapes Wedge has had, it's rewarding to see his efforts recognized, especially considering he is the only pilot to have actually survived flying against both Death Stars.

This dealt with, Stackpole rapidly moves into the main plotline, establishing an adversary that will be familiar to readers of the Rogue Squadron comics (Stackpole had a hand in writing most of those comics and I highly recommend reading them as a supplement to this series). This time around, the Rogues must deal with Prince-Admiral Delak Krennel, an Imperial warlord who was also responsible for the death of Imperial ruler Sate Pestage. Interestingly, the attack against Krennel takes the form of a pre-emptive strike rather than a response to a particular provocation. The New Republic needs to show its strength in the wake of the Thrawn crisis, proving to the galaxy at large that the menace of the Empire is over and despotic warlords will no longer be tolerated. It's an interesting departure of form for the New Republic's government, running the risk that the populace might start to perceive them as bullies rather than saviors. To mitigate this risk, the government seeds the idea that Pestage's death (and the elimination of his family) is a driving factor in going after Krennel, even though no one mourns the loss of Pestage himself in the slightest.

Since this eighth book is actually titled Isard's Revenge, one might infer that Ysanne Isard herself, presumed dead at the end of the fourth book, returns. She does indeed return, and more, in a plot that involves both a logical escape from Thyferra and a somewhat strange and off-putting cloning element. Isard is working with Krennel, aiming to both restore her grasp on power and get her long-awaited revenge on Rogue Squadron. Isard is a good villain in the first four books, certainly more interesting than Krennel. However, I found the manner of her return to be overly complicated by introducing the clone storyline. One Isard is more than enough to be a convincing antagonist.

There's an interesting twist mid-book where the Rogues are forced to team up with some Imperials. This allows for new dynamics in the pilots' relationships and also has one of the most amusing sequences in the whole series, where the two astromechs Whistler and Gate stage an escape and travel alone through the galaxy seeking help. We don't often get an astromech's point-of-view in the EU, and this was just as much fun as reading about Lara Notsil's plotting with her astromech Tonin to take control of a Star Destroyer's mouse droids in Aaron Allston's Solo Command.

Ultimately, this book was a solid but not particularly outstanding entry in the nine-book series. The style is very much like Stackpole's first four books, but this time the story suffers from being a one-off rather than a multi-book arc. After just reading the Thrawn books, returning to Isard wasn't as engaging as perhaps a different villain might have been. Isard's Revenge is certainly worth reading if you've already read the earlier X-wing books, but it does suffer a bit from the law of diminishing returns by mining some very familiar ground.