Return of the New Jedi Order, Episode XXI: Rebel Stand by Aaron Allston

Star Wars books two days in a row? What is this, some kind of fanboy blog? Anyway, it's been seven months, but now it's time to wrap up my reviews of The New Jedi Order.

Mass market paperback, 367 pages
Published 2002
Acquired 2002(?)
Reread February 2015

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand
by Aaron Allston

Year Three of the Invasion (Months 3-4)
Perhaps the best and worst thing one can say about an Aaron Allston novel is that it contains competent space action. That is to say, this is a novel with little ambition that it accomplishes spectacularly well. There are space battles, interesting tactics, and quips, and there are definitely times I'll take successful nonambition over failed ambition. Allston knows what he wants this book to be, an he does it well, which is more than you can say for a lot of New Jedi Order novels.

One thing I will always remember about this book is thinking that Wedge Antilles could die. Chewbacca showed that main film characters weren't safe, and Anakin Solo showed that main novel characters weren't safe-- next to them, Wedge is small potatoes, so I was on the edge of my seat the first time I read it. The effect is somewhat muted thirteen years later, however.

Next Week: We finally find out what happened to Jacen Solo in Traitor!

Return of the New Jedi Order, Episode XX: Rebel Dream by Aaron Allston

Mass market paperback, 304 pages
Published 2002
Acquired 2002(?)
Reread December 2014

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream
by Aaron Allston

Year Three of the Invasion (Months 2-3)
If you've been read all of my reviews of The New Jedi Order, you might note that I spend my time either complaining that the book is deeply dull or otherwise flawed, or praising the book for being excellent. So far there's been a real dearth of solidly competent novels. Well, that changes here with the late Aaron Allston, who was probably the definition of "solidly competent" when it comes to Star Wars. This made him not a great fit for things like Legacy of the Force, alas, but spot on for books like this-- basically the function of this book is to provide a fun adventure during the lull between hardcovers. There's plenty of great fleet tactics, starfighter battles, and intelligence skullduggery-- no one ever really did Star-Wars-as-military-sf better than Aaron Allston and Michael Stackpole, and here Allston proves himself more adept at adapting his style to the needs of the overall NJO story than Stackpole was, by eschewing the Force stuff and just focusing on the space battles. Disposable, I suppose, but enjoyable.

New Republic Week: Star Wars: X-Wing, Book Seven: Solo Command by Aaron Allston

Mass market paperback, 341 pages
Published 1999
Reread June 2012

Star Wars: X-Wing, Book Seven: Solo Command

by Aaron Allston

Before reading The Courtship of Princess Leia, I decided to reread Solo Command, the X-Wing novel that serves as a prequel to it. It's the last of the "Wraith Squadron" novels, all of which I have not read for many years, though I remembered liking them.

It's okay. I honestly don't have a lot to say about it. Fans like to hold this book up as superior to the book it leads into, but I don't really see it. Warlord Zsinj and the other villains might have a little bit more style, but they have no more substance here than there; they are simple black hats on which to hang a plot. The pilots aren't exactly deeply characterized, either, though I wonder if they would pop more if I'd just read the previous two novels featuring them.  Wedge Antilles is the highlight here, a man burdened with responsibility but eminently capable of shouldering it. On the other hand, I found it hard to imagine Han Solo saying the lines here where he is being all general-like.

The best part is the uneasy and unofficial alliance the New Republic and the Galactic Empire make to take down Zsinj. Rogriss is how I like my Imperials: earnest and not gratuitously evil. It's a standout subplot in an otherwise average book.

Archival Review: Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury by Aaron Allston

Mass market paperback, 368 pages
Published 2007
Acquired and read December 2007

Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury
by Aaron Allston

By now, we all know what to expect from a Legacy of the Force novel: Jacen-- sorry, Darth Caedus--  will do evil, and the Jedi won't react enough to it.  They're going a bit more proactive in this installment of the series, but the metaplot is still only crawling along, even as the stakes heighten.  Caedus is a bit of a clumsy villain, too.  I feel that Allston is less suited to the grand plots found here and in The New Jedi Order and more to the smaller scale of his X-Wing novels, but he still writes a solid entry; his command of the characters, especially Luke, Ben, Wedge, Jag, and Han/Leia is what really recommends this book.  Mostly fluff, but enjoyable, well-written fluff.