David's Review of Darksaber

4/5 Rancors - Darksaber by Kevin J. Anderson is the second book in a series of three that amounts to a de facto trilogy thought of as the Callista Trilogy. The first book was Barbara Hambly’s Children of the Jedi, and the third will be her Planet of Twilight. I much prefer Mr. Anderson’s effort. Reading Darksaber is like meeting up with old friends again. We get the whole gang – Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, R2, and Threepio. Set just after the events of Children of the Jedi, Mr. Anderson’s tale tracks Luke and Callista as they try to find a way of bringing back Callista’s Jedi powers. At the same time, Durga the Hutt has “hired” Bevel Lemelisk, co-designer of the original Death Star, to build a new version of the Death Star to enable Durga to expand his empire. Then we find that Admiral Daala has proved to be difficult to kill and is in fact leading efforts to unite the warlords and reassert the dominance of the Empire. The book has a lot going on and is an extremely entertaining story.

Admittedly, some of the book could be thought of as a little far-fetched even if you think that the normal Star Wars activities are perfectly normal. As I did with Children of the Jedi, I still have trouble accepting the relationship between Luke and Callista. They fell in love when she was a spirit living purely as a form of consciousness. Now she has a body and Luke is deeply in love with her. The only problem is that she has lost her Jedi powers, so much of the plotline revolves Luke and Callista and their struggles.

One other moment that could be slightly over the top takes place on Hoth. Luke, Callista, and some others are attacked by a vicious band of wampas led by a one-armed wampa who apparently has met Luke before. Possibly we didn’t need the specific tie back to The Empire Strikes Back, but the sequence is well done and exciting in any case.

The action in the book is great fun to read. Lemelisk has his problems in trying to build a new version of the Death Star for Durga, and Admiral Daala is bent on wreaking havoc on any Republic forces she can find. Our heroes are exerting their best efforts to prevent any of this from happening.

Mr. Anderson was the author of the three books in the Jedi Academy Trilogy, and I thought they were extremely well done. If you enjoyed those books, you will definitely like Darksaber. Plus, you just have to like a book that opens with the following sentence: “The banthas plodded in single file, leaving only a narrow trail of scuffed footprints across the dunes.” Yes!