Andrew's Review of Darksaber

2/5 Rancors - Kevin J. Anderson's Darksaber is the second novel in the unofficially named Callista Trilogy. Introduced in Barbara Hambly's Children of the Jedi, Callista is a Jedi Knight from the Clone Wars era and is also Luke Skywalker's love interest. She provides a common thread through these three otherwise-loosely connected novels (the third is Hambly's Planet of Twilight). Anderson returns to many of the themes and approaches found in his earlier Jedi Academy Trilogy, including a surplus of action, fast-moving, basic prose, and a marked predilection for superweapons.

This time around we get two new weapons of mass destruction for the Expanded Universe. The first is the titular Darksaber, a massive lightsaber-shaped weapon being constructed under the auspices of Durga the Hutt. Like many petty tyrants before him, Durga dreams of galactic conquest and believes the Darksaber is his golden ticket (despite the abysmal track record the Empire's Death Stars bore). Additionally, a massive black Super Star Destroyer named the Knight Hammer shows up. The extent to which Anderson ran with the superweapon theme based only on the Death Stars is rather amusing once you list all the ones he has introduced. The concept is fine but loses its luster when used too often.

Admiral Daala makes a return appearance from the Jedi Academy Trilogy. Much like her portrayal there, we are told she is very threatening but she doesn't appear to have any actual tactical sense. In a nice touch, Grand Admiral Thrawn's second-in-command Pellaeon also appears here working with Daala, but sadly he is not really given much of significance to do. It seems his inclusion was intended to bolster Daala's credibility: he used to work for Thrawn, now he works for her, so Daala is as good a leader as Thrawn!

There is an interesting tie to The Empire Strikes Back with a lengthy sequence set on Hoth. I found the wampa attack to be one of the most exciting, primal sequences of the story. My only quibble here is the tie to one specific wampa takes things a bit too far. Tatooine also makes an appearance, and while I'll acknowledge it's easily possible to overuse these movie locations, I do enjoy seeing them in print occasionally and I'm glad Anderson dropped them in.

As I did in Children of the Jedi, I continued to find Luke and Callista's relationship tedious and unconvincing. Their romance has no strong foundation and so there's not much for Anderson to work with. Too many novels feature an uncertain and weak Luke mooning about over one thing or another, and this is no exception. The EU as a whole would have been well-served by a nuanced portrayal of a questioning yet confident Luke Skywalker, the one who was perfectly set up by Return of the Jedi.

The shift in authors makes this book a very different entry from the first in the Callista Trilogy. Darksaber is a breezy read and the action clips right along, so despite some significant reservations about the story choices and direction taken I still found it a step up from its predecessor. If you enjoyed the Jedi Academy Trilogy, odds are you'll like this one as well.