23 April 2014

Return of the New Jedi Order, Episode VIII: Ruin by Michael A. Stackpole

Mass market paperback, 292 pages
Published 2000

Acquired 2000(?)
Reread April 2014
Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide: Ruin
by Michael A. Stackpole

Year One of the Invasion (Month 5)
Ruin is a curiously diffuse book, setting up plots that seem to come out of and go nowhere: Luke tracks down a Jedi who is going to get a superweapon because the Yuuzhan Vong killed her boyfriend, but he catches her and she doesn't, no fanfare. Or the New Republic scouts the Sernpidal system and discovers the Yuuzhan Vong are building a big spaceship, and do nothing about it. Jaina makes friends with Rogue Squadron off-page, and then her friends die off-page. Meanwhile Corran Horn is kicking butt on Garqi and Elegos A'Kla (who I remember liking in I, Jedi) is trying to understand Yuuzhan Vong commander Shedao Shai. Ruin plays to Stackpole's strengths more than Onslaught, in that it's more of a military novel, and Shedao Shai is a good villain, but we've still got a slow-building story with somewhat flat characters that seems to be focusing on all the wrong things.

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