NOVEL REVIEWS

Vision of the Future (Hand of Thrawn Book Two of Two)  by Timothy Zahn
Plot:  Han, Leia, and Karrde try to find the Caamus Document while fending off Imperial incursions.  Luke and Mara discover the Hand of Thrawn on a Rim world.

While some of the plots sputtered out, like the Luke-Mara plot in parts and the Karrde plot as a whole, this was a masterpiece.  I couldn't put it down!  In addition to the brilliant strategizing, we had some really amazing sequences when Han and Lando are being chased across Bastion the Imperial capitol and the best scene of the novel when Mara learns about the hidden threats that are waiting out in the Unknown Regions, threats that Thrawn was secretly preparing for... wow!  This just totally changes the face of the SW universe, and it paints Thrawn out to be a messianic figure.  I love it!  I love the way Thrawn was built up to the galaxy's savoir here!  The Bothawai plot with Imperial spies was a tad slow.  The Karrde plot was the biggest waste of time along with all the Mystral crap, it just had little to do with the main plot when we needed more devealop on the main plot.  The ending just collapses in on itself, a bit of a non-ending, which is a shame.  But we get some really neat stuff; the Empire and NR finally make a peace treaty (the scene where Leia meets Pelleon for the first time was great) and Luke proposing to Mara (while this was well led to it was still a bit abrupt that he says this without ever even kissing her!).  I can't wait to see the next chapter of the SW saga when these aliens threats invade, here's hoping Thrawn does survive somehow!

Specter of the Past (Hand of Thrawn Book One of Two)  by Timothy Zahn 
Plot:  (Ten years after Thrawn's death)  A trio of Imperial masterminds create the false return of Grand Admiral Thrawn to unite the Empire as leader Pelleon calls for peace with the New Republic.  Bothans are found to have participated in an old catastrophe leading to the New Republic tearing itself apart to punish or not punish the Bothans.  Han and Leia recruit Talon Karrde to help the situation.  Luke and Mara Jade track mysterious alien ships to a Rim world.

The best Star Wars novel since Zahn's last novel, but fails to top the original three Thrawn books.  Its biggest fault is its total lack of a big ending confrontation and the teasing with Thrawn's return.  This Imperial trio are very interesting, but they don't come close to being as cool as Thrawn, he was just the biggest bad ass in the galaxy.  Still, like the other Zhan novels this is just a spectacle to read, totally engrossing and detailed with action scenes every chapter.  It's amazing how much stuff Zahn fits in these novels, one Zahn chapter is about equal to an entire non-Zahn book most of the time!  On the other hand, these actions sequences just don't stand up to the original Thrawn books, as good as they are.  The strange thing about this book is all the continuity from the previous novels; since the originals had no predecessors there was no continuity, it's just a little strange.  A slight annoyance is how EVERYBODY recalls the Thrawn Saga (before Thrawn returns) just by coincidense when they never talk about him in the other books, plus here Leia has Noghri bodyguards (a brilliant idea which I love!) yet she doesn't have them in the other books... why not?!  Unfortunately this novel doesn't have any kind of ending or cliffhanger, the subplots just stop for a moment.  I'm worried that this situation can devealop properly in only a two book series, but it's still great.

Hard Merchandise (Bounty Hunters Trilogy Book Three of Three) by K.W. Jeter 
Plot: (After New Hope) Fett learns the truth about his manipulators Xizor and Kudar.  (During Return Jedi)  Fett, Dengar, and
Neelah track down the truth about Neelah's identity and the plot to discredit Xizor, which are connected.

By the novel's end all the many many loose threads were neatly wrapped up, after a hectic novel of revelations that somehow didn't feel rushed.  For this novel, only the first third took place in the past, with the big confrontation between Fett, Xizor, and Kudar.  This wrapped up most of the Bounty Hunter War thread as Fett learned the truth and Kudar was killed.  And of course Xizor gets killed in between the flashback and the present story.  For a 'Bounty Hunter Wars' Trilogy, only the first book was really about a Bounty Hunter War, the rest has been about the conspiracy involving Fett, Xizor, and Kuat.  Neelah appeared too much this time around, and while her origan (involved in a scheme to overthrow Kuat) nicely tied in with the conspiracy thread, the whole Neelah thing just got a tad annoying.  While this novel was an excellent mystery, by the end all the Neelah stuff got a little irritating.  After playing such a major role in the first two books, Bossk didn't get much closure here; he got non-violent revenge against Fett and continued being alive and washed up.  I was hoping for something more here.  And
while we're on the subject of bounty hunters, Zuckuss appears in the first chapter... and then doesn't appear in the rest of the book.  I guess this was a sort of introductory chapter, but it was misleading.  The 'climax' at Kuat Drive Yards was suitably entertaining, though mostly for the Fett-Kuat confrontation.  Their conversation revealed all, but by this point the conspiracy was so damn complicated (worse than the X-Files!) that it had to be read twice to understand it.  In the end, it was all about a plot of Kuat's to discredit his old enemy Xizor.  While this jives, we never saw Kuat in the flashbacks and up until this point the two characters were never mentioned in connection towards each other, so it did seem a bit out of left field.  The Rebel bit was also entertaining, because it adds in another party to this affair.  The best thing about this trilogy was how it B5-ized the Star Wars universe, introducing many many different groups at conflict with each other, creating a complicated multi-faceted political situation.   Kuat and Xizor most of all made grand additions to the Star Wars tapestry, though unforunately Vader and the Emperor didn't appear in this novel after being so important in the first one (and the Emperor has the biggest face of the cover, and Stormtroopers are all over the cover when we don't see a single one in the book!).

Showdown at Centerpoint (Corellian Trilogy Book Three of Three)  by Roger MacBride Allen 
Plot:  Luke and Lando investigate the gigantic Centerpoint Station, which is the source of the starbuster plot.  Han and Leia find themselves semi-captives of the Selonians.  The Solo kids and Chewie manage to activate a planetary repulsor on Drall, but Thracken Solo discovers this and captures them.  The true villians behind the starbuster plot are revealed.

On the whole this was an enjoyable conclusion to the trilogy, and though the ending came a bit apruptly it was the logical progression of everything that came before.  The Centerpoint sequence was pretty exciting (when our heroes must escape the center area before it goes nova), and the revelations come flying fast and furious.  Unfortunately some of these revelations are stupid; the earlier novels would suggest that the ancient creators of the Correllian system were the arch-villians, but actually it was just the lame ass Saccorians, who never actually appear in the novel except for their lame-ass fleet!  What the hell!  The Selonian bit got a little stupid, though the Solo kids-Thracken bits were very exciting.  Once again another disappointing bit of the trilogy was how lame-ass Thracken and his Human League became.  In novel one they're masterminds who control everything and have infiltrated NRI.  But here they're total incompetents who get beaten by the Solo kids, and their infiltration of the NRI just looks ridiculous now. The ending space battle was pretty damn exciting, plus it had a shocking twist where Adm Ossilidge and Galadriel (the Bakuran babe of Luke's) get killed.  I didn't see that coming!  However it was ridiculous that Leia fought in the battle considering she's the goddamn President!!!  The ending also addressed a major concern of mine, how the Republic couldn't get any ships, so it made for a good ending.  Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a wrapup at ALL after the conclusion.  We never see the Saccorians, only hear a word that they're being cooperative in light of their defeat.  Cooperative?!  They murdered thousands of people and would have murdered billions!  What the hell?!  Plus we don't get much resolution to the Lando-Tenda romance.  Once again, thank god for the summary of the previous novels at the top!  And again, this trilogy did the unachievable and made the Solo kids genuinely interesting, particularly Anakin and his abilities with technology.

Assault at Selonia (Corellian Trilogy Book Two of Three)  by Roger MacBride Allen 
Plot:  Han and Leia are prisoners of the Human League, but eventually escape, Han with some Selonians and Leia with Mara Jade.  Luke and Lando raise a Bakuran fleet to assult Corellia thanks to Luke's old friends there.  Chewie and the Solo kids hide on Dral where they discover a vast planetary repulsor.

Hmm, this one had much more action and with all the characters seperated it moved quickly between them, ending in a nice semi-reunion at the end.  Perhaps the best thing about this was the mystery of what is actually going on in Corellia, we've seen several hints that the Human League is some incompetant front for the true foe, seen the ancient planetary-scale repulsors on each planet, and gotten a big fat hint that it's all from Centerpoint Station (of which Book 3 is named!).  It was a very intriguing mystery that really moves the book along; 2/3 of the way through I was confident that the Selonians were the hidden foe, but the ending proved me wrong.  Speaking of Selonians, Han's time with them was one of the weaker plots, I don't really know why it just wasn't interesting.  After a big lead-in, Thracken Solo only appears a little at the beginning to tourture Han, then when Han escapes we don't see him again!  Leia and Mara's escape from the palace on the other hand was a VERY exciting action element.  Chewie and the Solo kids on Dral investigating the planetary repulsor got a little slow, but again this author makes the Solo kids INTERESTING no small feat, I especially like the way Jacen and Jaina are 'mothering' Anakin with their parents gone.  And the two Dral characters were interesting, they seem like British stereotypes to me very proper and so such, but they were investing the mystery sot they had my attention.  The Bakura plot was a little off for me, mainly because I read the Bakura book when it first came some 5-odd years ago and don't remember a single damn thing about it least of all this Luke romance.  However the ending was a great, a neat spacebattle that sees the planetary repulsor in use, plus a frantic evacuation of a planet which gets 'starbusted'.  Very dramatic.  Unfortunately Wedge appears in the evacuation plot, I'm sick of him damnit!  It's funny though, according to this book he's always been a fighter pilot, yet in Darksaber he was captain of a whole freakin' fleet!!  On a minor note, this novel is the first Star Wars novel I've read that gives a summary of the previous novel.  I LOVE IT!!!  All of them should do this!  Lovely!

Ambush at Corellia (Corellian Trilogy Book One of Three)  by Roger MacBride Allen 
Plot:  The Solo family visits the Corellian system, which is under a besieged New Republic Intelligence watch and on the brink of racial revolt.  The Human League, the racist human movement, reveals itself with unknown technology and a Hidden Leader from Han Solo's past.  Meanwhile, Luke accompanies Lando on a search for a rich wife.

Though slow in pace and action, this novel was very entertaining.  It gave extremely interesting discourses on two heretofore relatively unexplored ideas; the Corellian system and the Solo family life.  Corellia was given lots of interesting backstory and situations, the racial situation, the former Imperial situation, the ancient ruints of alien technology recently discovered, etc.  Also, it was great to finanlly see Han, Leia, and the three kids living together.  Especially interesting is the way Jacen and Jaina interact with the 'wierd' Anakin, who has a special ability with machines.  In fact, after seeing The Phantom Menace this is even more spooky cause his grandfather Anakin (aka Darth Vader) also had an affinity for technology and building droids!  Sure the plot could have moved more, and the final Human League coup happened essentially offscreen, but it was still good.  Plus, the Luke-Lando subplot was pretty good.  We get to see Mon Mothma for the first time since she retired, introducing a very interesting idea; Luke as a political leader.  Lando's frankness in looking for a rich wife, and explaining how most cultures do this, is a refreshing look at love.  Plus, his first choice turns out to be a vampire!  The comic bits were good without being stupid, and Lando gets to meet a true love briefly.  As for the end, this whole lost cousin of Han Solo thing is a little strange (especially how they're identical in appearance and voice), I know about Thracken from the Han Solo Trilogy but this might turn out stupid.  Oh and obviously the alien ruins are what's creating that system-wide interdiction field!  And NRI agent Kalenda was pretty cool.

Tyrant’s Test (Black Fleet Crisis Book Three of Three)  by Michael P. Kube-McDowell 
Plot:  Leia is threatened with loosing the Presidency as the New Republic goes to war with the Yevetha.  Chewbacca leads a Wookie team to rescue Han from the Yevetha.  Luke’s search for the Falnassi leads him to Yevetha space.  Lando learns the truth about the alien derelict.

Overall a good novel, though the Lando plot ruined the pacing and the ending was way to fast and easy.  This time, there was the Yevetha plot then Lando ‘interludes’.  While the fate of the New Republic hangs in the balance, these constant shifts to Lando stuck on the derelict were ruining the epic feel of the other plot, and the plot remains just as boring as last book.  The main plot was great, though all the political crap with Leia was very confused.  Fortunately we got some great action scenes (though not nearly enough as there should have been).  The Wookie rescue mission on the Yevetha’s Super Star Destroyer was classic Star Wars, the best action sequence of this trilogy, on spar with the Zahn books.  Plus, the inclusion of the Fallnassi into the war was great (gave that subplot some actual relevance thank god!), particularly how they covertly hid peoples from the Yevetha and how in the end they created phantom fleets for the assult.  The Luke subplot improved much, because he actually FOUND the Fallnassi and learned their secrets.  Unfortunately we learn that Akannah was lying about knowing Luke’s mother, so the whole plot seems kinda pointless except for how it made Luke back into a social person again after his hermatige in the first book.  Still, dangling Luke’s mother like that and not giving anything was a cheap trick.  The final resolution of the Yevetha battle was awsome, but way to easy.  These Imperial captives come out of nowhere and abscone with the entire Imperial part of the Yevetha fleet?!  Yeah right!  Like the Yevetha, who we see are technilogical geniuses, would allow these ‘vermin’ to have enough access to take over every single Imperial ship in their fleet!  And all the Yevetha on board can’t just overpower the Imperials?!  Come on!  Plus, it took Nil Spaar out of the battle before it began, even worse it took his Super Star Destroyer out of the battle before it began, thus the battle was a shadow of what it should have been.  Plus, after all the buildup in book two, Plat Mallar the former Imperial pilot and friend of Ackbar’s dies a death off screen!  Why?!  It makes all that Mallar-Ackbar crap in book two even more of a waste!  And we only see the battle at the capitol world, not anywhere else.  And fortunately the Yevetha abandoned their newly conquered planets.  The worse thing though, is the non-ending.  We never learn what happened after the Yevetha FLEET was destroyed, what happens to the actual people sitting on the planet?!  We never learn!  We never learn what happened to Leia, whether she got impeached or not!  In fact she disappears in the last one hundred pages of the freakin’ book!  What happened?!  As lame as the Lando plot was, the ending was nice where they learn how the aliens sent the ship to revive them from hibernation after their planet thawed, and the bit with Luke making up with Leia (and destroying his hermit cave/Vader’s castle) was nice.

Shield of Lies (Black Fleet Crisis Book Two of Three)  by Michael P. Kube-McDowell 
Plot:  The New Republic faces dissention on what to do about the Yetha’s eradication of their neighbors.  Meanwhile, Luke and Akanah search for her people unsucessfully and Lando remains trapped aboard the alien derelict.

After a stellar first book, this novel went absoluetly NOWHERE.  Only roughly the last chapter of each plot actually advanced the plot, literally!  Plus, the novel was horrendiously arranged, with each of the three plots shown all at once in little ‘books’, which would make for teidous reading had I not read a chapter of each at a time, requring three different bookmarks.  Extremely annoying!  The Luke and Lando plots were extremely tedious and boring, going nowhere they were a chore to read.  The Lando stuff basically involves Lando & co walking around the ship… for a hundred pages!  There are two worthwhile bits here; one point where 3PO discusses his sentience and alienation from other droids with Lando, and the ending involving the Imperials finding the derelict.  That’s it!  The Luke plot was just as horrible, it was essentially about the tedious process of Luke and Akanah flying from planet to planet, involving all the things like buying hangers waiting in traffic, etc, and finding nothing!  Sure it was vaguely interesting to see how you actually fly from world to world, and to see all these realistic worlds, but it was so boring!  Good god, there was zero action.  There wasn’t even a climax, just them going to the next destination, yawn.  The New Republic v. Yeveltha plot was much MUCH better, but save for the last 40 pages it too goes nowhere!  It’s essentially 100 pages of infighting that goes nowhere, and Ackbar bonding with an Imperial survivor of the Yevletha attack.  Ugh!  Even the potentially interesting infighting is horrendous, for example Leia gets brought up on a vote of no-confidence (interestingly just like the Chancellor in The Phantom Menace was, at Amidala’s insist!) but then it fails and suddenly the New Republic is behind her, then suddenly she gets a vote of no confidense or something like that again.  The last 40 pages were great though; the Fifth Fleet gets into a fight with the Yeveltha (finally!) and LOOSES, they send a recon raid into enemy space and just find lots of advanced ships, and for the best cliffhanger of all Han Solo is captured by the Yeveltha!  Wow!  Up to this point, Han did NOTHING in this trilogy so it’s nice to see him involved, unfortuantely it was a bit contrived.  HAN, who’s been retired for years, is put in charge of a massive fleet to attack Yeveltha?!  Oh please!  The only justification is Han leading the Smugglers against the Empire at the Battle of Nar Shadda (Han Solo Trilogy Book Two) but it’s never mentioned.  But man, Han a prisoner of these insane fanaitcs?!  Wow!  I can’t wait to see how he’s saved.  Another bad thing, Drayson the CIA guy does nothing in this chapter.  Well, here’s to high hopes for Book  Three!

Before the Storm (Black Fleet Crisis Book One of Three)  by Michael P. Kube-McDowell  
Plot:  Leia faces curious negotiations with Nil Spaar, the leader of the mysterious Yevetha from uncharted Imperial space, who are secretly preparing for a fanatical war to wipe out the 'vermin' of the galaxy (non-Yevethas) with their Black Fleet.  Lando joins the Navy to track down a mysterious ghost ship which might carry great wealth aboard.  Luke isolates himself from the rest of the world but is forced out of his isolation when a woman offers him information on his lost mother, who was part of a Jedi-like religion The Current who was hunted by the Empire.

This was a very intriguing novel which like the Bounty Hunter Trilogy creates a detailed political tapestry full of opposing forces, much like Babylon 5.  While the novel didn't have a lot of action at all, the threat of war loomed over the entire book making it an entertaining read.  The best thing about this book is the way it creates a shadow CIA-type government in the New Republic, led by Ackbar, various other military heads, and the super-secretive Admiral Drayson.  This guy is awsome!  He illegally gains information and Leia doesn't even know he exists, he manipulates the events to the better way.  Wow!  Unfortunately for this shadow government stuff to work so wonderfully, Leia had to act like an idiot which she does for the entire novel.  She's ridiculously idealistic but gets all fussy because of Spaar's go-nowhere negotiations so she gets pissed at Luke for leaving and starts firing military commanders because they were doing what she should of.  This is not the Leia from the movies, but I think I prefer her this way because it gives these new shadow government characters a chance to shine.  The Yevetha are pretty damn cool so far, especially the way Spaar manipulated the tenous political situation on Coruscant to make the Senate hate Leia!  It was brilliant!  It's great to see a brilliant and powerful enemy again, like Grand Admiral Thrawn.  Their first 'purge' of non-alligned systems was very dramatic and cruel, showing they are powerful enemies (actually on reading this passage I thought these were Republic worlds and the war had started, alas no).  And plus these bad guys aren't cardboard Empire types, they have a legitimate motivation, if a fanatical one but hey there's fanatics everywhere.  The Lando plot was also very entertaining, mainly to see him mess with Naval authority and because of the mystery about the ghost ship.  This plot got extremely little space in the book though.  It was neat to see Lobot from "Empire" actually do something and be Lando's friend.  The Luke plot was easily the weakest (and the shortest) but still strong.  The opening was the best part; he leaves the Jedi Acadamy and holes up in Vader's Castle on Coruscant.  How freaky is this?  The writer is actually taking some risks with the character, and I like them.  It suggests that all Jedi Masters get like this (Obi-Wan and Yoda were in the movies as they point out), very interesting.  The search for his mother was pretty lame so far (they check one village wow!) and this woman isn't too interesting so far either.  Plus, how can there be a 'Current' if the Force is everything?  Still, it's interesting to hear about a 'second' Force.  As lame and ridiculous short as this plot was, there was a really cool bit where two Imperial spies hold the woman hostage, and Luke mercilessly uses the Force to crush their guns, blow out their minds, then slice 'em with his lightsaber!  Wow!  He was so merciless!  Come to think of it the big three (Luke, Han, Leia) played minor roles in this novel, it was instead starring the twenty or so supporting characters created in this book.  While I like this, this makes for an extremely confusing book especially given all these unpronouncable names used (I couldn't keep track of who was who at first!).  Still, it was neat seeing the Navy and secret government of the New Republic at work; they see a threat and they bend the rules.  Cool!  But the best thing about it; no unneccessary movie character cameos!  Very little Chewbacca!  NO WEDGE AT ALL!  ALL RIGHT!

Darksaber by Kevin J. Anderson 
Plot: Durga the Hutt contructs Darksaber, a mini-Death Star and plans to use it against the New Republic.  Admiral Dala unites the factions of the Empire to lead a massive strike against the New Republic and the Jedi Acadamy at Yavin 4.  Luke searches for a way for his love Callista to regain her Jedi powers.

This was a very entertaining novel, especially the action-packed conclusion which recalls the heady days of the Thrawn trilogy.  Sure the Hutt plot was pretty stupid, and Anderson's use of yet another idiotic Empire weapons scientist really hurts, especially his many executions at the hands of the Emperor.  At least it gave Leia some interesting stuff to do, and allowed us to visit the always interesting Nal Hutta and Nar Shadda again.  And this whole Imperial superweapon thing is a dead horse that's been whacked too many times!  Enough with the superweapons!  At least here there was a nuke analogy when the New Republic reps talked about the need to keep these out of the hands of terrorists.  Unfortunately, the Wedge and Qwi Xux romance from the Jedi Acadamy Trilogy continues, why does this plot exist?  It's stupid!  Furthermore, Wedge is now suddenly commander of half the freakin' Navy!  Why does Anderson give this character, a bit character without a personality from the movies, so much power?!  On that subject, Anderson is obsessed with the original movies; his novels make it seem like the entire galaxy revolves around the few worlds we saw in the movies!  Here we visit Tatooine, Hoth, the Hoth Asteroid Belt, Yavin 4, come on!  And most ludicrous of all, on Hoth Luke encounters the Wampa whose arm he lopped off, leading a horde of Wampas attacking Echo Base!  Please!  And plus, this novel obssesses with the events of the Jedi Acadamy trilogy!  While the Luke-Callista relationship was very interesting (I didn't read her introduction book) their 'adventures' were really stupid.  Surprizingly, this novel barely features the main characters.  It essentially stars Durga the Hutt, Levilsk the scientist, Crix Madine, Callista, Kyp Durron, Dorsk 81, Admiral Daala, Vice Admiral Pealleon, etc, etc.  I'm not complaining, it's just interesting.  It was great to see the Jedi Acadamy again, and see Kyp now redeemed and a very effective Jedi.  Kyp infiltrating the Core Systems and learning about the impending Imperial invasion was great!  And Dorsk 81 got some cool backstory, in the Jedi Acadamy I was anxious to learn more about him.  By far the best plot is the Empire plot, because it actually has some dramatic import.  It was nice to see Daala effective, and not comic relief like she was in the Jedi Acadamy.  It was really great the way she united the Imperial factions and made them into a fighting force, an actual threat to the Empire.  There follows a slam bam action-packed final hundred or so pages that are classic!  The best thing about the ending is it isn't afraid to have consequences; Crix Madine gets executed by Durga the Hutt, Yavin 4 gets wreacked (though it should have obliterated dammnit!), many New Republic worlds were wasted including Dorsk 81's homeworld, Dorsk 81 was killed, Callista left Luke (she should have died dammnit!).  The battle featured some great naval strategy (like the Thrawn trilogy) and even neater it had Jedi fighting the Empire, which we've never seen before.  It was awsome!  Realistic battles where the Empire makes some real victories!  Unfortunately the Darksaber plot was a stupid anti-climax the damn thing blew up in the asteroid field before doing anything.  What was the freakin' point?!  Another unfortunate thing about the ending; the Empire has this colossal fleet, of which they only use a small fraction of for this attack.  Yet at the end, Pealleon acts like they've been defeated!  Use the other ships dammnit!  It was a little dumb in the first half and the Darksaber plot blew, but the Empire final battle was 4 stars all the way!