David's Review of The Jedi Academy Trilogy Vol. 2: Dark Apprentice

4/5 Rancors - Dark Apprentice by Kevin J. Anderson is Volume 2 of The Jedi Academy Trilogy. The story is an excellent follow-up to the first volume Jedi Search. Our heroes are spread out all across the galaxy, and they all face immense difficulties throughout the book. Luke spends his time on the fourth moon of Yavin where he has established a Jedi Academy. His focus throughout the trilogy is to find potential Jedi candidates, convince them that they truly want to be Jedi, and then train them in the ways of the Force. His primary concern with the training, and a concern that turns out to be well founded, is to keep his new Jedi from embracing the dark side of the Force.

Leia is once again torn between her ever-increasing duties to the New Republic and her desire to spend more time with her three children. In an especially gripping chapter early in the book, Leia is a passenger in an expanded B-wing fighter that is crashed by Admiral Ackbar into the famous Cathedral of Winds on the planet Vortex. Leia’s diplomatic duties during the book increase as Mon Mothma has mysterious health problems.

Admiral Daala leads the remaining Imperial Star Destroyers and is intent on wreaking havoc on the New Republic. Han and Lando take turns owning the Millennium Falcon with the ownership based on the outcome of sabacc games. Chewie and Threepio are drafted into sitting duties for Han and Leia’s twins, and it does not go well.

Much of the emphasis in the book is on Luke’s concern with the dark side as he trains Jedi candidates on Yavin 4. Gantoris mysteriously learns how to construct a lightsaber and exhibits increasingly strange behavior. Kyp Durron arrives at the academy as a particularly promising candidate but falls under the influence of Exar Kun, a dreaded Sith Lord from thousands of years earlier. This is really the only area where I quibbled with the story. Luke seems indecisive and fairly weak through several episodes, certainly not the Luke Skywalker we have come to expect.

Dark Apprentice is an excellent story. I always wanted to read just one more chapter before stopping. I very much look forward to Volume 3 Champions of the Force.

David's Review of The Jedi Academy Trilogy Vol. 1: Jedi Search

4/5 Rancors - Jedi Search by Kevin J. Anderson is Volume 1 of The Jedi Academy Trilogy. The series is set in a time when the Republic is still fighting scattered forces of the old Empire. Leia and Han have three kids with the twins Jacen and Jaina making an appearance in this book. Leia is completely swamped with her responsibilities as the chief diplomat for the Republic but still tries to find time to be a mother to the twins when they are brought to Coruscant. Han spends most of the book with Chewbacca on what was supposed to be a diplomatic mission to Kessel but turns out to be much more than that. Luke’s primary focus in the tale is to reestablish the Jedi Order by finding new potential Jedi and establishing a Jedi academy for their training.

On the whole, I very much enjoyed the book. In the early stages, several different paths of the story are set up. I especially enjoyed a scene where Luke surveys the towers of Coruscant from a shuttle-landing platform while he is biding his time until he walks into the assembly chamber of the New Republic Senate and requests permission to address the assembled delegates. He approaches them with the need to find new Jedi, recreate the Order, and establish an academy. He receives official permission from the Senate to proceed. The concept of actually finding potential new Jedi was fascinating. Luke could get a very good idea of the potential by doing a type of mind meld with individuals. However, you clearly just can’t walk up to random individuals on the street and test them for awareness of the Force. He establishes parameters and enlists the invaluable aid of R2-D2 and C-3PO to search through vast databases to find possible Jedi candidates. Then we are able to follow Luke as he heads off to check out potential new Jedi face to face. Luke goes through his own ordeal in investigating Gantoris before determining that he is an acceptable Jedi candidate. The ordeal is presented in such a way as to make Luke appear to be weak and indecisive. The session with Gantoris was difficult to accept. Luke’s meeting on Bespin with Streen, the second candidate, is much better done. All of this makes you appreciate what a difficult task a search for new Jedi would be.

In the meantime, Han and Chewie arrive at Kessel only to receive an extremely rude welcome and end up working as slaves in the spice mines. Not a good place to be. They manage to make their escape along with Kyp Durron, a fellow prisoner. In their frenzied efforts to escape the planet they end up forced to navigate into the dreaded black holes of the Maw. They succeed in that through the efforts of Kyp only to end up at a secret Imperial base with four Super Destroyers. The base was established under the orders of Grand Moff Tarkin and has been hidden away for ten years under the leadership of Admiral Daala. Her orders were to stay in place and continue their scientific research on a new super weapon until they were told otherwise. No news has come in or gone out during the entire time the base has been in place. The action from this point is pretty much nonstop and involves most of our favorite heroes. I also love the idea of a secret base.

Mr. Anderson also introduces us early in the book to one of the most unforgettable droids ever, a walking factory described as a construction droid. These droids are 40 stories tall, have thousands of articulated arms, and are responsible for the demolition of much of Coruscant that has been destroyed during various battles. The droids wade into derelict buildings, take them apart, absorb all of the wreckage, and then divide it into useful materials and junk. If the droid is shut down, it takes three days to fire it up again. I just love the idea of a 40-story droid.

The only part of the book that I really had any trouble with was the Umgullian blob races. Yes, that’s right – blobs racing around an obstacle. The blob races tie in with the plot OK, but there has to have been a better way. It’s as if Mr. Anderson decided his story needed some comic relief.

Jedi Search is well worth reading but could have been even better with some strengthening in a few places.

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

3/5 Rancors - The X-wing series has been one of the highlights of the Star wars Expanded Universe for me. Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston have done good jobs writing the stories, and the characters have been memorable. However, Isard’s Revenge does not come up to the level of the previous books. It is still fun to read, but not as much as it could have been.

We have most of the same characters from the earlier books, i.e., Wedge Antilles and his band of Rogue Squadron pilots, Admiral Ackbar, Iella Wessiri of Republic Intelligence, Booster Terrik, and Mirax Terrik. The book actually begins at the Battle of Bilbringi where we had ended up at the end of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy. I like the characters. I pull for them, and I am sad if they don’t make it. We also have a major surprise with the reappearance of Ysanne Isard. It turns out that she was not killed earlier in the series after all. Of course, she immediately becomes the villain of the piece, but she is not the only bad person. We also have Warlord Admiral Krennel with his ambition to take over the galaxy and assume the position of the deceased Emperor Palpatine.

The plot of the book is best described as overly complicated, and that is the primary reason that I only gave the book three stars. Much of the plot involves political manipulation and Machiavellian intrigue, and we are also introduced to an Isard clone that is a little hard to accept. The battle scenes involving Rogue Squadron and their efforts to free the remaining prisoners who were with Corran Horn on the Lusankya make for excellent reading. We just needed more of that.

The book does have one of my favorite chapters in all of Star Wars. Two droids – Gate (Wedge’s R5 unit) and Whistler (Corran’s R2 unit) - are imprisoned on an Imperial vessel with restraining bolts in place. They manage to power up, deftly escape from the vessel, and make their way to find help for the Rogue Squadron pilots who are also being held by Isard. Watching the droids make all the right moves is just excellent fun.

Andrew's Review of Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force

3/5 Rancors - Patterns of Force is the final entry in the Coruscant Nights trilogy by frequent Star Wars contributor Michael Reaves. It picks up threads both from the first two books in the series along with elements from his earlier novels Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter and the Medstar duology. The story takes place shortly after Revenge of the Sith, although it is evident from multiple date problems it was originally intended to be later in the timeline, right before A New Hope. Over the course of these novels, Reaves has created his own enjoyable stable of recurring characters and utilizes them well.

My personal favorite of his creations is the sarcastic droid-with-a-soul I-5YQ. I-5 has lent himself to some fascinating explorations of the thin line between sentient artificial life and traditional organic beings and that journey reaches a peak in Patterns of Force. I-5 has developed a capacity to experience actual emotion and doing so makes him visible in the Force. I-5’s continued evolution to a higher state raises questions both about his right to self-determination and, specific to the plot of this book, the risk that if he participates in a plot to assassinate Emperor Palpatine, he might be foiled in the attempt by his Force emanations.

I-5’s closest friends Jax Pavan and Den Dhur also play significant parts in Patterns of Force, along with several characters introduced in the prior two books. Most welcome to me was the return and deft handling of Gray Paladin Laranth Tarak. Somewhat of a 2-D character previously, her relationship with Pavan matures here and she becomes more fully realized. Den plays his usual wise-cracking, loyal despite himself role, but is mostly on the sidelines.

The storyline of this book was on the thin side; most of the focus is on developing the characters. As I mentioned, there is a plot brewing to assassinate the Emperor and Jax and his friends get involved. While the idea is tremendously exciting, I didn’t find much payoff. The other plot element I couldn’t wait to see was the inevitable confrontation between Jax and Darth Vader, and while that comes, I also thought there would be more to it. However, that’s a delicate line to walk for Reaves. Obviously Vader shouldn’t be in any mortal danger in a duel during the Dark Times, and many fans would react negatively to a fight which featured anything but Vader handing Jax’s rear to him on a platter. That said, I can see how Reaves came up with the climax. It does balance handling Vader in a realistic way while still having some sort of physical action between him and Jax.

I’m always interested in Star Wars novels that mainly utilize peripheral or brand-new characters, such as the Republic Commando or X-wing series, and in that context the Coruscant Nights trilogy is a welcome expansion of the timeline. Overall, I enjoyed the characters more than the storylines, which dragged in places, but I recommend the books to anyone interested in learning more about the Dark Times era, a part of Star Wars history that still has plenty of room to grow.

Still reading....

For anyone wondering where new reviews are, we've been catching up on a variety of non-Star Wars titles lately. After I finish the excellent compendium of Robert E. Howard I'm currently reading, I'll be getting back into our list with I, Jedi next in the queue.

Too many good books, too little time!