Return of the New Jedi Order, Episode XXV: Remnant by Sean Williams and Shane Dix

I've finally built up a couple week's buffer here, which means I can finally get back to my other reviewing duties: I have a whole pile of Big Finish audio dramas that I've listened to but not yet reviewed at Unreality SF. The first is up now (and hopefully more follow, as it's my spring break this week): Doctor Who: The War Doctor: Infernal Devices.

Mass market paperback, 413 pages
Published 2003
Acquired 2003(?)
Reread June 2015

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic I: Remnant
by Sean Williams and Shane Dix

Year Four of the Invasion (Month 8)
This is one of those 400-page books that you're hard-pressed to explain how it could possibly be as long as it is. There are basically three plots: the first is Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, and company, en route to the Unknown Regions, helping the Imperial Remnant (hence the title, I guess, though I've no idea why this trilogy is called "Force Heretic") fend of a Yuuzhan Vong attack. This is, for what it's worth, the most interesting of the plots. Which isn't worth very much. It's always nice to see Pellaeon, but otherwise little of interest goes on here.

But that said, the other two plots are even worse. Han and Leia are sent off on the Millennium Falcon to see how some far-flung parts of the galaxy are faring during the invasion, and the answer is utterly tedious. Local politics, blah blah blah, pointless bickering, blah blah blah. Like, it would be hard to imagine a duller plot to inject in the middle of your galaxy-spanning invasion series. Even the Tahiri subplot is utterly dull: I like the idea that her Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong sides have to be reconciled, but Williams and Dix handle it in the most uninteresting way imaginable.

Finally, Nom Anor is getting up to cult hijinks underground on Coruscant. Again, should be interesting; again, sure is dull. I love Nom Anor, but this meanders and goes nowhere.

All that said, this is probably the best of the "Force Heretic" books!

Next Week: A comic book side trip into the universe of video games in "Equals & Opposites"!