Return of the New Jedi Order, Episode XXIV: Ylesia by Walter Jon Williams

PDF eBook, 90 pages
Published 2002
Reread April 2015

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Ylesia
by Walter Jon Williams

Year Four of the Invasion (Month 3)
This is another New Jedi Order side story that I'd read before, but never in context: I don't know if this is true, but it reads as if it was cut right out of the middle of Destiny's Way, and it was released as an eBook alongside it. I don't think I read it until three years later, though, when it was printed in the back of Dark Nest I: The Joiner King. On its own, I seem to recall, it's a fun side adventure: the Galactic Alliance has to take the Hutt world of Ylesia from the Yuuzhan Vong and the Peace Brigade, only it's currently being run by the weaselly Thrackan Sal-Solo, cousin of Han. Thrackan is a dumb-but-fun villain, and it's enjoyable to see all his plans unravel. But while I remember enjoying Ylesia when I originally read it back in 2005, if you pause Destiny's Way in the middle to read it, it comes across as irrelevant padding: it's only a distraction to the main plot of the novel it was (presumably) snipped from. I would have been better off reading this on its own than in the middle of the bigger story.

Next Week: It's the beginning of the end of The New Jedi Order, as Luke Skywalker goes looking for a Remnant!

Return of the New Jedi Order, Episode XXIII: Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams

Hardcover, 448 pages
Published 2002
Acquired December 2002
Reread May 2015

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Destiny's Way
by Walter Jon Williams

Year Four of the Invasion (Months 1-4)
The New Jedi Order really peaks in the middle: Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Star by Star, and Traitor are all top-notch, and much of the surrounding work is solid. But Destiny's Way is basically just perfunctory. It has its occasional fun bit, like Han and Leia talking to Pellaeon, or the return of Admiral Ackbar, or Lando playing politics (they should have made him president), and the final space battle is pretty good-- but I don't care for the genocide subplot, some of the politicking is dumb/boring, and Walter Jon Williams clearly did not read Traitor, as the Vergere here is a totally different character from the one in that book. More than any other NJO hardcover, this one feels like it's just there to take up space, to bridge the gap between the New Republic being on the verge of defeat in Star by Star with the requirement that it has to be able to win the war in five books' time. There are worse NJO books, but there are more ambitious ones as well.

In Two Weeks: Discover what happened in the middle of this novel, which was snipped out and made into its own release called Ylesia!