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Star Wars: Legacy of the Force #8
Revelation
During this savage civil war, all efforts to end Jacen Solo’s tyranny of the Galactic Alliance have failed. Now with Jacen approaching the height of his dark powers, no one–not even the Solos and the Skywalkers–knows if anything can stop the Sith Lord before his plan to save the galaxy ends up destroying it.
Jacen Solo’s shadow of influence has threatened many, especially those closest to him. Jaina Solo is determined to bring her brother in, but in order to track him down, she must first learn unfamiliar skills from a man she finds ruthless, repellent, and dangerous. Meanwhile, Ben Skywalker, still haunted by suspicions that Jacen killed his mother, Mara, decides he must know the truth, even if it costs him his life. And as Luke Skywalker contemplates once unthinkable strategies to dethrone his nephew, the hour of reckoning for those on both sides draws near. The galaxy becomes a battlefield where all must face their true nature and darkest secrets, and live–or die–with the consequences.
Jacen Solo’s shadow of influence has threatened many, especially those closest to him. Jaina Solo is determined to bring her brother in, but in order to track him down, she must first learn unfamiliar skills from a man she finds ruthless, repellent, and dangerous. Meanwhile, Ben Skywalker, still haunted by suspicions that Jacen killed his mother, Mara, decides he must know the truth, even if it costs him his life. And as Luke Skywalker contemplates once unthinkable strategies to dethrone his nephew, the hour of reckoning for those on both sides draws near. The galaxy becomes a battlefield where all must face their true nature and darkest secrets, and live–or die–with the consequences.
436 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 26, 2008
131 people are currently reading
3040 people want to read
About the author
Karen Traviss
130 books1,544 followers#1 New York Times best-selling novelist, scriptwriter and comics author Karen Traviss has received critical acclaim for her award-nominated Wess'har series, and her work on Halo, Gears of War, Batman, G.I. Joe, and other major franchises has earned her a broad range of fans. She's best known for military science fiction, but GOING GREY and BLACK RUN, the first books in her new techno-thriller series RINGER, are set in the real world of today. A former defence correspondent and TV and newspaper journalist, she lives in Wiltshire, England. She's currently working on SACRIFICIAL RED, the third book in the Ringer series, and HERE WE STAND, book three in the NOMAD series.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 174 reviews
March 4, 2008
Okay... here is all I have to say... I love the journey that this series is taking the reader... but I really wish that they made Darth Caedus to be more of a bad ass. Its like, for the past 3 volumes he's been getting his butt kicked by every member of the Star Wars universe. Also, I don't understand how all of the people that hear that he is a dark lord are kinda like, "oh... okay." It just seems like a little bit of an understatement of the severity of the issues that are surrounding the story. Okay... here is what I really mean... the story simply feels like it has been going way too long and I kinda feel as though a lot of the major events have become trivalized (does anyone remember that he kidnapped his daughter? Or that he trashed the planet of the Wookies? Or that he's a FRICKIN' SITH!). Anyways... thats all I've got... waiting patiently for the final book.
October 10, 2014
"We don't have a word for hero. Being prepared to die for your family and friends, or what you hold dear, is a basic requirement for a Mando, so it's not worth a separate word. It's only cowards we had to find a special word for."
"It was just three words. But it was three too many for Boba Fett."
Karen Traviss has done it again. She has never failed me yet when she writes about Mandalorians and more precisely Boba Fett. This book is rich with how the gears in Mandalorians beliefs/culture works.
A must for all fans of the Fett.
"It was just three words. But it was three too many for Boba Fett."
Karen Traviss has done it again. She has never failed me yet when she writes about Mandalorians and more precisely Boba Fett. This book is rich with how the gears in Mandalorians beliefs/culture works.
A must for all fans of the Fett.
January 20, 2023
Good...but a lot of filler.
June 16, 2023
For 2023, I decided to reread the post-NJO books set after the Dark Nest trilogy, especially as I abandoned the Legacy of the Force series after Sacrifice all the way back in 2007. This shakes out to the nine books of the Legacy of the Force series, the nine books of the Fate of the Jedi series, three standalone novels, and five short stories.
This week’s focus: book eight in the Legacy of the Force series, Revelation by Karen Traviss.
SOME HISTORY:
Legacy of the Force: Revelation by Karen Traviss brought with it the return of a character from the Bantam era that I honestly never thought we would see again. After terrorizing the galaxy in Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy and Darksaber, Admiral Daala retired from her chaotic empire after rediscovering her former lover Liegeus Vorn at the end of Planet of Twilight by Barbara Hambly. That was the last we saw or heard of her for decades, but now Vorn is dead, she wants revenge against the Moffs who tried to assassinate her, and Admiral Pellaeon calls her in as his backup plan. She also seems to personally know Boba Fett, but everyone knows Fett in this series so I'll let that slide.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
As with Inferno, I am mostly going into this read blind and trying to avoid as many spoilers as possible.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
During this savage civil war, all attempts to end Jacen Solo's tyranny have failed—so his sister Jaina decides that she needs to learn new skills from a very unlikely source. Meanwhile, Ben Skywalker is still convinced that Jacen killed his mother, and undertakes an investigation to prove that he did it and how. And as Luke Skywalker contemplates unthinkable strategies to dethrone his nephew, this civil war only continues to escalate further…
THE PLOT:
Jaina decides that she needs Boba Fett to teach her how to defeat her brother, so she travels to Mandalore and seems to spend more time learning from Goran Beviin instead. Boba Fett is very busy with family drama: he found his ex-wife frozen in carbonite, they unfroze her but she’s suffering from her very long time in carbonite, his granddaughter wants to get married and he needs to lead Mandalore, blah blah blah. Ben teams up with Captain Shevu to investigate his mother's murder, and finds some shocking evidence to prove Jacen's involvement in it. Luke is secretly communicating with Jacen's Co-Chief of State Cha Niathal to hopefully capture Jacen (or worst case scenario, kill him), while Jacen sends Tahiri to bring the Imperial Remnant into this civil war. However, Admiral Pellaeon doesn’t feel good about Jacen so he calls in his secret reserves aka Daala. Finally, Jacen is training Tahiri as his Sith apprentice, and continues to believe that his path is correct and justified.
CHARACTERS:
The initial reasoning for Jaina going to Mandalore made some sense to me: Kyle Katarn faced off against Jacen on Coruscant and wasn’t able to defeat him, so Jaina worries that she needs to learn new strategies to defeat her brother. Boba Fett being her teacher did surprise me, despite Traviss’s propensity for bringing Mandalorians into everything. My biggest problem was that he didn’t teach her anything! This plotline seemed more devoted to having Jaina finally decide that she has to be willing to kill Jacen—which I thought she had come to terms with in earlier books? Anyway, Boba Fett does not teach her a ton because he’s focused on his family drama, so Jaina spends more time with Goran Beviin. He shows her how the Mandalorians go berserker then return to normal, but don’t expect any Karate Kid/Empire Strikes Back training montages here. (More in the Issues section!)
Boba Fett is going through a lot. He had previously recalled all the Mandalorians back to Mandalore, but when Daala contacts him about a job they get involved in the Battle of Fondor. Fett is very concerned about Sintas Vel—after being unfrozen, she’s blind and suffering from memory loss, and he’s reluctant to tell her about their past. More than anything, I came out of Revelation feeling bad for Boba Fett. On the surface, he’s accomplished a lot, but he seems incapable of connecting with the people around him. Having now finished the three Traviss novels, I wish that the Boba stuff was its own separate story. It’s compelling, but it feels only tangentially related to the other books in the series. Perhaps if the other authors had integrated Fett and the Mandalorians better into the series, I wouldn’t feel that way—but a Boba Fett Novel or even Boba Fett trilogy would have given this Fett family drama space to be fleshed out and time to breathe.
After Sacrifice, in which Ben told his mom what was going on with Jacen and Inferno, in which Ben was really mad about the death of his mother and wanted to kill Jacen, Fury was more focused on Ben reconnecting with his dad. In Revelation, we take a step backward: Ben is still convinced that Jacen killed his mother, so he teams up with Captain Shevu of the Galactic Alliance Guard to investigate. They find Mara’s bloody hair in Jacen’s stealth X-Wing, and then Shevu records a conversation with Jacen in which he confirms his involvement in her murder. I get the sense that Traviss likes Ben, but Ben playing cop felt a little strange to me. He knows Shevu, they worked together in the GAG, but there’s more focus on “Ben the investigator” vs Ben the Jedi in training.
I also felt like Ben’s investigation was superseded by the Battle of Fondor. He has the evidence, it’s confirmed, he wants to talk to his dad and his aunt and uncle—but then we spend chapters and chapters on the Battle of Fondor, and Ben doesn’t share his findings until the very end. I’m glad that everyone is now on the same page, but this investigation got dropped for the pivotal big battle. Which made me wonder: did Mara need to die in book 5? Obviously I would prefer if they never killed her off, but it seemed like there were loads of Plot Reasons why they couldn’t find out Jacen did it, and it stretched my suspension of disbelief. Ben goes from anger and revenge to acceptance to questioning things again, and while I know that grief is never a straightforward process, his emotional journey felt all over the place.
There’s been this feeling of inertia hovering over the Jedi Order in these books, as they struggle to come up with any response to Jacen, and my disgruntled feelings about the Jedi’s non-approach carries over to my feelings about Luke. I’m glad that he’s talking with Niathal, that the Galactic Alliance and the Jedi agree that Jacen is a threat to the galaxy. But it feels like there were (and are) so many opportunities to go after Jacen, and even when the Jedi make an attempt they’ll just…stop. (I know that we’re meant to wait for the big showdown between Jacen and Jaina in book 9, but it’s frustrating to read!) Luke creates this Fallanassi illusion of ships that only Jacen can see, Luke is hounding Jacen, and then he just gives up. Jacen’s like “I’m better than Luke” and I want to scream “no you aren’t, you just have plot armor!”
Chief of State Cha Niathal finally accepts that Jacen is out of control. The tipping point for her seemed to be Jacen killing the lieutenant at the end of Fury, but he’s been a wackadoo for a while now. Like the Jedi, though, she seems hesitant to take actual action against Jacen until pretty far into the Battle of Fondor. There are so many people scared of Jacen and the consequences if they were to remove him from power, and Niathal has some awareness of the fact that she probably was manipulated into this whole situation. I don’t think Niathal is the best Chief of State for the Galactic Alliance, but she’s all they’ve got.
Admiral Pellaeon is now 92 years old, he’s close to death, but he’s still in charge of the Imperial Remnant. I like Pellaeon, but he felt off here. He came across as too overtly manipulative to me, and I didn’t get the strong sense of Honor that usually emanates off him. Perhaps it’s his age, but he felt a little sassy towards the Moffs—and also weirdly flirty with Daala? I can accept him calling Daala because they worked together in Darksaber but also…more on Daala later. Pellaeon’s distrust of Jacen is spot-on, especially after he withdraws Imperial forces when Fondor surrenders and Jacen reciprocates by having Tahiri Veila assassinate him. That was a terrible, heartbreaking scene, especially as Tahiri doesn’t even stay while Pellaeon is dying. He calls Daala in his final moments and the tide of the battle changes, but it was so sad to see him go like that.
(Side note: Cha Niathal repeatedly called Pellaeon by his first name, and that felt rude to me? It’s like when Luke called him Gilad in Force Heretic I: Remnant--um, that’s ADMIRAL Pellaeon to you!!)
I thought in the previous books that Jacen treated Tahiri like a minion, and there was no way he would consider her as a Sith apprentice because he was so dismissive of her. But with the loss of Ben, he really needs an apprentice and he’s invested all this time and energy into her so why not. I've already shared my thoughts about Tahiri falling down this dark path (I feel it’s disrespectful to the progress she made in the NJO), so all I’ll say about Tahiri was that she felt much younger than she should be. People refer to her as “the girl,” Jacen says that she has to wear shoes, and everyone seemed to treat her like a teen or a young adult. Isn’t she around 30 now? Tahiri’s not naive, and she definitely shouldn’t be at this point in time.
What can I say about Jacen at this point? In that taped conversation with Captain Shevu, what especially came through for me was how Jacen has rationalized everything that he’s done. He wanted to kill civilians from the very beginning of the Battle of Fondor, to “make an example of them:” he’s willing to do anything to win, and killing civilians doesn’t bother him anymore. He justifies killing Mara because “she attacked me first” (partially true, but…); he justifies killing everyone thus far because he had to, even Nelani Dinn and that poor Lieutenant. It’s so sad to see how his character has changed, because after everything he’s done, he seems irredeemable now.
ISSUES:
Revelation took me much longer to read than I expected. Part of this was RL stuff (my grandmother turned 100!), but I also found the book far too easy to put down and ignore for extended periods of time.
First, a minor quibble: each chapter begins with an epigraph, and they’re communications between different characters: Daala to Boba Fett, or Luke Skywalker to the leader of Fondor. Traviss used a similar stylistic device in Bloodlines--that novel contained news clippings at the beginning of chapters—but I felt like the epigraphs weren’t needed here. They didn’t convey any new information, and you could learn all of that from the book itself.
Second, what does Jaina even learn on Mandalore?? She didn’t seem to learn any new techniques beyond that berserker stuff. If she learns any new style of fighting or fighting moves or weapons, it happens offpage. More than anything, Jaina’s time on Mandalore seemed to be spent feeling bad about her family and learning about the Mandalorians and being conflicted about how she’ll face her brother. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I finish Invincible, but Jaina’s Boba Fett training program seemed pointless.
I mentioned earlier that Ben’s investigation of Mara’s death felt somewhat superseded by the Second Battle of Fondor, but I think the biggest issue was that this investigation should have happened earlier in the series. I would have put Ben’s investigation either concurrently with his revenge track or immediately before, and it makes me question again whether Mara dying in book 5 was the best way to plot out this series—Ben has to withhold some info, and the Solo/Skywalkers appear way too unobservant if you hold off on the “Jacen killed Mara” revelation until book 8.
I didn’t talk about her in the Characters section, so…Daala. In the Bantam era, Daala was a chaotic non-planner; she seemed a little better in Darksaber, but you get the sense that she flies into action by the seat of her pants (and that often doesn’t end well for her). She lost almost all her Star Destroyers, she’s not a great strategic mind, so Daala retiring with her former lover seemed like the best possible ending for her. If she had kept running around the galaxy, she’d have ended up dead, because she wasn’t a great planner or admiral in the end.
I know that this book is decades later, and people can change and mature, but Pellaeon talked about Daala like she was the most amazing strategic mind and I was like “are we thinking about the same woman?” Daala was a mess! Daala was a good ground commander who was only promoted to Admiral because she was having a (morally queasy) affair with Tarkin! And on the continuity front, Pellaeon says “oh, if only we had a Moff like Daala” but there have been female Moffs before. I’m not sure we can count Tavira from I, Jedi because she just took over from her dead husband, but there was definitely a female Moff in the Force Heretic trilogy—so a female Moff isn’t a new concept.
IN CONCLUSION:
I found Revelation a difficult read at times. Traviss writes well, but I felt like her characterizations were off. Maybe Jaina’s time on Mandalore will make more sense in the next book, because it felt like an extended, needless, Fett-heavy part of the book. Boba Fett’s plotline was interesting, but I think it would have worked better as a standalone instead of being shoehorned into the Legacy of the Force series. However, events definitely escalated here: the Galactic Alliance has now fractured into two separate factions, Tahiri Veila assassinated Admiral Pellaeon and the Empire might be a mess for a while, and it all comes down to Jaina’s showdown with her brother in the next book.
Next up: the last book in the Legacy of the Force series, Invincible by Troy Denning.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/TIomtt9FVD0
This week’s focus: book eight in the Legacy of the Force series, Revelation by Karen Traviss.
SOME HISTORY:
Legacy of the Force: Revelation by Karen Traviss brought with it the return of a character from the Bantam era that I honestly never thought we would see again. After terrorizing the galaxy in Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy and Darksaber, Admiral Daala retired from her chaotic empire after rediscovering her former lover Liegeus Vorn at the end of Planet of Twilight by Barbara Hambly. That was the last we saw or heard of her for decades, but now Vorn is dead, she wants revenge against the Moffs who tried to assassinate her, and Admiral Pellaeon calls her in as his backup plan. She also seems to personally know Boba Fett, but everyone knows Fett in this series so I'll let that slide.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
As with Inferno, I am mostly going into this read blind and trying to avoid as many spoilers as possible.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
During this savage civil war, all attempts to end Jacen Solo's tyranny have failed—so his sister Jaina decides that she needs to learn new skills from a very unlikely source. Meanwhile, Ben Skywalker is still convinced that Jacen killed his mother, and undertakes an investigation to prove that he did it and how. And as Luke Skywalker contemplates unthinkable strategies to dethrone his nephew, this civil war only continues to escalate further…
THE PLOT:
Jaina decides that she needs Boba Fett to teach her how to defeat her brother, so she travels to Mandalore and seems to spend more time learning from Goran Beviin instead. Boba Fett is very busy with family drama: he found his ex-wife frozen in carbonite, they unfroze her but she’s suffering from her very long time in carbonite, his granddaughter wants to get married and he needs to lead Mandalore, blah blah blah. Ben teams up with Captain Shevu to investigate his mother's murder, and finds some shocking evidence to prove Jacen's involvement in it. Luke is secretly communicating with Jacen's Co-Chief of State Cha Niathal to hopefully capture Jacen (or worst case scenario, kill him), while Jacen sends Tahiri to bring the Imperial Remnant into this civil war. However, Admiral Pellaeon doesn’t feel good about Jacen so he calls in his secret reserves aka Daala. Finally, Jacen is training Tahiri as his Sith apprentice, and continues to believe that his path is correct and justified.
CHARACTERS:
The initial reasoning for Jaina going to Mandalore made some sense to me: Kyle Katarn faced off against Jacen on Coruscant and wasn’t able to defeat him, so Jaina worries that she needs to learn new strategies to defeat her brother. Boba Fett being her teacher did surprise me, despite Traviss’s propensity for bringing Mandalorians into everything. My biggest problem was that he didn’t teach her anything! This plotline seemed more devoted to having Jaina finally decide that she has to be willing to kill Jacen—which I thought she had come to terms with in earlier books? Anyway, Boba Fett does not teach her a ton because he’s focused on his family drama, so Jaina spends more time with Goran Beviin. He shows her how the Mandalorians go berserker then return to normal, but don’t expect any Karate Kid/Empire Strikes Back training montages here. (More in the Issues section!)
Boba Fett is going through a lot. He had previously recalled all the Mandalorians back to Mandalore, but when Daala contacts him about a job they get involved in the Battle of Fondor. Fett is very concerned about Sintas Vel—after being unfrozen, she’s blind and suffering from memory loss, and he’s reluctant to tell her about their past. More than anything, I came out of Revelation feeling bad for Boba Fett. On the surface, he’s accomplished a lot, but he seems incapable of connecting with the people around him. Having now finished the three Traviss novels, I wish that the Boba stuff was its own separate story. It’s compelling, but it feels only tangentially related to the other books in the series. Perhaps if the other authors had integrated Fett and the Mandalorians better into the series, I wouldn’t feel that way—but a Boba Fett Novel or even Boba Fett trilogy would have given this Fett family drama space to be fleshed out and time to breathe.
After Sacrifice, in which Ben told his mom what was going on with Jacen and Inferno, in which Ben was really mad about the death of his mother and wanted to kill Jacen, Fury was more focused on Ben reconnecting with his dad. In Revelation, we take a step backward: Ben is still convinced that Jacen killed his mother, so he teams up with Captain Shevu of the Galactic Alliance Guard to investigate. They find Mara’s bloody hair in Jacen’s stealth X-Wing, and then Shevu records a conversation with Jacen in which he confirms his involvement in her murder. I get the sense that Traviss likes Ben, but Ben playing cop felt a little strange to me. He knows Shevu, they worked together in the GAG, but there’s more focus on “Ben the investigator” vs Ben the Jedi in training.
I also felt like Ben’s investigation was superseded by the Battle of Fondor. He has the evidence, it’s confirmed, he wants to talk to his dad and his aunt and uncle—but then we spend chapters and chapters on the Battle of Fondor, and Ben doesn’t share his findings until the very end. I’m glad that everyone is now on the same page, but this investigation got dropped for the pivotal big battle. Which made me wonder: did Mara need to die in book 5? Obviously I would prefer if they never killed her off, but it seemed like there were loads of Plot Reasons why they couldn’t find out Jacen did it, and it stretched my suspension of disbelief. Ben goes from anger and revenge to acceptance to questioning things again, and while I know that grief is never a straightforward process, his emotional journey felt all over the place.
There’s been this feeling of inertia hovering over the Jedi Order in these books, as they struggle to come up with any response to Jacen, and my disgruntled feelings about the Jedi’s non-approach carries over to my feelings about Luke. I’m glad that he’s talking with Niathal, that the Galactic Alliance and the Jedi agree that Jacen is a threat to the galaxy. But it feels like there were (and are) so many opportunities to go after Jacen, and even when the Jedi make an attempt they’ll just…stop. (I know that we’re meant to wait for the big showdown between Jacen and Jaina in book 9, but it’s frustrating to read!) Luke creates this Fallanassi illusion of ships that only Jacen can see, Luke is hounding Jacen, and then he just gives up. Jacen’s like “I’m better than Luke” and I want to scream “no you aren’t, you just have plot armor!”
Chief of State Cha Niathal finally accepts that Jacen is out of control. The tipping point for her seemed to be Jacen killing the lieutenant at the end of Fury, but he’s been a wackadoo for a while now. Like the Jedi, though, she seems hesitant to take actual action against Jacen until pretty far into the Battle of Fondor. There are so many people scared of Jacen and the consequences if they were to remove him from power, and Niathal has some awareness of the fact that she probably was manipulated into this whole situation. I don’t think Niathal is the best Chief of State for the Galactic Alliance, but she’s all they’ve got.
Admiral Pellaeon is now 92 years old, he’s close to death, but he’s still in charge of the Imperial Remnant. I like Pellaeon, but he felt off here. He came across as too overtly manipulative to me, and I didn’t get the strong sense of Honor that usually emanates off him. Perhaps it’s his age, but he felt a little sassy towards the Moffs—and also weirdly flirty with Daala? I can accept him calling Daala because they worked together in Darksaber but also…more on Daala later. Pellaeon’s distrust of Jacen is spot-on, especially after he withdraws Imperial forces when Fondor surrenders and Jacen reciprocates by having Tahiri Veila assassinate him. That was a terrible, heartbreaking scene, especially as Tahiri doesn’t even stay while Pellaeon is dying. He calls Daala in his final moments and the tide of the battle changes, but it was so sad to see him go like that.
(Side note: Cha Niathal repeatedly called Pellaeon by his first name, and that felt rude to me? It’s like when Luke called him Gilad in Force Heretic I: Remnant--um, that’s ADMIRAL Pellaeon to you!!)
I thought in the previous books that Jacen treated Tahiri like a minion, and there was no way he would consider her as a Sith apprentice because he was so dismissive of her. But with the loss of Ben, he really needs an apprentice and he’s invested all this time and energy into her so why not. I've already shared my thoughts about Tahiri falling down this dark path (I feel it’s disrespectful to the progress she made in the NJO), so all I’ll say about Tahiri was that she felt much younger than she should be. People refer to her as “the girl,” Jacen says that she has to wear shoes, and everyone seemed to treat her like a teen or a young adult. Isn’t she around 30 now? Tahiri’s not naive, and she definitely shouldn’t be at this point in time.
What can I say about Jacen at this point? In that taped conversation with Captain Shevu, what especially came through for me was how Jacen has rationalized everything that he’s done. He wanted to kill civilians from the very beginning of the Battle of Fondor, to “make an example of them:” he’s willing to do anything to win, and killing civilians doesn’t bother him anymore. He justifies killing Mara because “she attacked me first” (partially true, but…); he justifies killing everyone thus far because he had to, even Nelani Dinn and that poor Lieutenant. It’s so sad to see how his character has changed, because after everything he’s done, he seems irredeemable now.
ISSUES:
Revelation took me much longer to read than I expected. Part of this was RL stuff (my grandmother turned 100!), but I also found the book far too easy to put down and ignore for extended periods of time.
First, a minor quibble: each chapter begins with an epigraph, and they’re communications between different characters: Daala to Boba Fett, or Luke Skywalker to the leader of Fondor. Traviss used a similar stylistic device in Bloodlines--that novel contained news clippings at the beginning of chapters—but I felt like the epigraphs weren’t needed here. They didn’t convey any new information, and you could learn all of that from the book itself.
Second, what does Jaina even learn on Mandalore?? She didn’t seem to learn any new techniques beyond that berserker stuff. If she learns any new style of fighting or fighting moves or weapons, it happens offpage. More than anything, Jaina’s time on Mandalore seemed to be spent feeling bad about her family and learning about the Mandalorians and being conflicted about how she’ll face her brother. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I finish Invincible, but Jaina’s Boba Fett training program seemed pointless.
I mentioned earlier that Ben’s investigation of Mara’s death felt somewhat superseded by the Second Battle of Fondor, but I think the biggest issue was that this investigation should have happened earlier in the series. I would have put Ben’s investigation either concurrently with his revenge track or immediately before, and it makes me question again whether Mara dying in book 5 was the best way to plot out this series—Ben has to withhold some info, and the Solo/Skywalkers appear way too unobservant if you hold off on the “Jacen killed Mara” revelation until book 8.
I didn’t talk about her in the Characters section, so…Daala. In the Bantam era, Daala was a chaotic non-planner; she seemed a little better in Darksaber, but you get the sense that she flies into action by the seat of her pants (and that often doesn’t end well for her). She lost almost all her Star Destroyers, she’s not a great strategic mind, so Daala retiring with her former lover seemed like the best possible ending for her. If she had kept running around the galaxy, she’d have ended up dead, because she wasn’t a great planner or admiral in the end.
I know that this book is decades later, and people can change and mature, but Pellaeon talked about Daala like she was the most amazing strategic mind and I was like “are we thinking about the same woman?” Daala was a mess! Daala was a good ground commander who was only promoted to Admiral because she was having a (morally queasy) affair with Tarkin! And on the continuity front, Pellaeon says “oh, if only we had a Moff like Daala” but there have been female Moffs before. I’m not sure we can count Tavira from I, Jedi because she just took over from her dead husband, but there was definitely a female Moff in the Force Heretic trilogy—so a female Moff isn’t a new concept.
IN CONCLUSION:
I found Revelation a difficult read at times. Traviss writes well, but I felt like her characterizations were off. Maybe Jaina’s time on Mandalore will make more sense in the next book, because it felt like an extended, needless, Fett-heavy part of the book. Boba Fett’s plotline was interesting, but I think it would have worked better as a standalone instead of being shoehorned into the Legacy of the Force series. However, events definitely escalated here: the Galactic Alliance has now fractured into two separate factions, Tahiri Veila assassinated Admiral Pellaeon and the Empire might be a mess for a while, and it all comes down to Jaina’s showdown with her brother in the next book.
Next up: the last book in the Legacy of the Force series, Invincible by Troy Denning.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/TIomtt9FVD0
August 11, 2016
I think it is really hard to judge the perfect "length" of a series. I am in no doubt that 'The Legacy of the Force' series was designed to maximise profits. But, the authors have done a great job within their respective books of building the overall tension and making each adventure (mostly) worth the readers time.
We come to a a climax of sorts in this story and I think that they have managed Jacen's decent into the darkside well and even given us an ambiguous glimmer of goodness at the end. I am not sure that they need an entire 9th book to act as an epilogue, but I will check the final installment out regardless.
We come to a a climax of sorts in this story and I think that they have managed Jacen's decent into the darkside well and even given us an ambiguous glimmer of goodness at the end. I am not sure that they need an entire 9th book to act as an epilogue, but I will check the final installment out regardless.
March 27, 2021
Damn. What a book. The Mando storyline is really good and I might like it better then the actual main story. I'm definitely gonna have to read republic commando since there's so many tie ins apparently as well.
March 1, 2021
the penultimate novel of the series brought so many things to the table! Definitely anticipating the exciting end with book 9!
I enjoyed this. action packed, moving, and really engrossing. But the last few chapters pulled out all the stops.
Kudos to Ben Skywalker with the family meeting and that last scene with Luke nearly made my eyes water.
"Oh, sweetheart... you found me." *deep sigh*
I enjoyed this. action packed, moving, and really engrossing. But the last few chapters pulled out all the stops.
Kudos to Ben Skywalker with the family meeting and that last scene with Luke nearly made my eyes water.
"Oh, sweetheart... you found me." *deep sigh*
March 30, 2009
Meh.
Some interesting twists here, but Traviss's poor dialogue writing and her portrayal of Boba Fett as a daddy's boy is too distracting. Example: "By the way Lieutenant, I have a new title, Caedus, Darth Caedus. I would like you to start calling me that now." WTF? Really? That's how someone reveals themselves to be a Sith Lord. Not to mention the philosophical conundrum of Jacen himself. Jacen adopted Sith tactics and teachings because he thinks they can help him bring peace to the galaxy. He doesn't view the act as evil, or his power as evil in and of itself. He thinks that Sith have had moral failings which lead to a universal label of evil, which he intends to avoid. By this book, Traviss has him behaving in a way that acknowledges that he is evil and has turned him into a typically flat caricature of a typical Star Wars bad guy. I understand that the story is supposed to show his transformation and how one wrong decisions or misperception can lead to a deep slide down a path that you don't intend. But I just don't feel it...
Some interesting twists here, but Traviss's poor dialogue writing and her portrayal of Boba Fett as a daddy's boy is too distracting. Example: "By the way Lieutenant, I have a new title, Caedus, Darth Caedus. I would like you to start calling me that now." WTF? Really? That's how someone reveals themselves to be a Sith Lord. Not to mention the philosophical conundrum of Jacen himself. Jacen adopted Sith tactics and teachings because he thinks they can help him bring peace to the galaxy. He doesn't view the act as evil, or his power as evil in and of itself. He thinks that Sith have had moral failings which lead to a universal label of evil, which he intends to avoid. By this book, Traviss has him behaving in a way that acknowledges that he is evil and has turned him into a typically flat caricature of a typical Star Wars bad guy. I understand that the story is supposed to show his transformation and how one wrong decisions or misperception can lead to a deep slide down a path that you don't intend. But I just don't feel it...
April 6, 2024
This series just isn't seeming like Star Wars to me. If it weren't under that umbrella, it would make great story on its own. Everything about it feels like an alternate Star Wars universe, though. I guess that's partly why EU works are now referred to as "legends." Too late now, though. Got to finish what I start.
May 16, 2020
Yet another long-winded book full of fluff and yakkity-yak just to draw out the story, saying in 410 pages what could have more interestingly been told in 90. At least there's only one book left to go in this series.
December 29, 2017
I think this storyline is so much better than the Disney Movies.
March 26, 2024
You know, Captain, I feel the hand of history on my shoulder. I really do.
You know it's bad when Tony Blair chimes in.
Legacy of the Force: Revelation is the worst Star Wars novel I have ever read. It suffers from all the same faults as its Traviss-penned predecessors, doing them one "better" more often than not, while introducing a host of new issues in tandem. There is not a single page in this book that wasn't stupid, or at the very least painful to slog through. What a gigantic waste of time this book was.
Normally I would dedicate a couple of paragraphs to reviewing all the different narrative or stylistic choices made in here, but honestly, what do I even say? I reckon I would just repeat most of what I'd already said about Bloodlines and Sacrifice in my reviews on those books, respectively. There are only so many creative ways of conveying that there are no twists and turns to be found in the plot, that every character has the same voice and (nearly) every scene follows the same basic structure of people standing around and confirming what had already been established before. Caedus has succumbed to being a Tony Blair caricature once more (which still makes him more interesting than the other two authors' visions of him but that's neither here nor there...), the GA has been carelessly transformed to GB similar to LOTF 2 (this time featuring political caricatures and tabloid newspapers!), and the Mando subplot is, indeed, just there to waste time... for the most part.
This is where the new issues pop up: The Mando boys are no longer mere fanboy window dressing, but rather a device for Jaina Solo to learn how best to approach fighting her brother, which as it turns out means approaching combat with a trickster-type persona and wait a second didn't Jaina do just that in NJO already and wait a second Traviss even mentions the Yuuzhan Vong goddess Yun-Harla in the text and oh my god the headaches are coming back. There's also some really nasty commentary on how Force-sensitives are innately evil just for being different or whatever but I'd rather not delve too deeply into that for my own sanity. Other Revelation-specific highlights I recall are how every single character in here seems to respect the Traviss OC Captain Shevu for some reason, which blows because I actually kinda liked the guy in the other books; Luke thinking in the Mandalorian language for some reason; Mara's inexplicably cryptic appearance to Ben (thereby ruining what would've otherwise been this novel's one redeeming subplot...); the continued (i.e. following Inferno) bimbofication of what was once one of the setting's strongest female cast members in Tahiri Veila; eight separate mentions of the planet Naboo, not a single one of them feeling natural; StealthX X-Wings with grabbing arms (???); general sloppiness in terms of character's thoughts and consistency; the return of . Gotta love a touch of the absurd. Oh, and Caedus gets whooped by a bunch of generic Mandos because having a competent villain is what LOTF is most interested in. Though I suppose Fury all but declared the guy insane... which would explain some of his choices in here, at least.
Let's see how Denning brings this failure of a story arc to a close.
You know it's bad when Tony Blair chimes in.
Legacy of the Force: Revelation is the worst Star Wars novel I have ever read. It suffers from all the same faults as its Traviss-penned predecessors, doing them one "better" more often than not, while introducing a host of new issues in tandem. There is not a single page in this book that wasn't stupid, or at the very least painful to slog through. What a gigantic waste of time this book was.
Normally I would dedicate a couple of paragraphs to reviewing all the different narrative or stylistic choices made in here, but honestly, what do I even say? I reckon I would just repeat most of what I'd already said about Bloodlines and Sacrifice in my reviews on those books, respectively. There are only so many creative ways of conveying that there are no twists and turns to be found in the plot, that every character has the same voice and (nearly) every scene follows the same basic structure of people standing around and confirming what had already been established before. Caedus has succumbed to being a Tony Blair caricature once more (which still makes him more interesting than the other two authors' visions of him but that's neither here nor there...), the GA has been carelessly transformed to GB similar to LOTF 2 (this time featuring political caricatures and tabloid newspapers!), and the Mando subplot is, indeed, just there to waste time... for the most part.
This is where the new issues pop up: The Mando boys are no longer mere fanboy window dressing, but rather a device for Jaina Solo to learn how best to approach fighting her brother, which as it turns out means approaching combat with a trickster-type persona and wait a second didn't Jaina do just that in NJO already and wait a second Traviss even mentions the Yuuzhan Vong goddess Yun-Harla in the text and oh my god the headaches are coming back. There's also some really nasty commentary on how Force-sensitives are innately evil just for being different or whatever but I'd rather not delve too deeply into that for my own sanity. Other Revelation-specific highlights I recall are how every single character in here seems to respect the Traviss OC Captain Shevu for some reason, which blows because I actually kinda liked the guy in the other books; Luke thinking in the Mandalorian language for some reason; Mara's inexplicably cryptic appearance to Ben (thereby ruining what would've otherwise been this novel's one redeeming subplot...); the continued (i.e. following Inferno) bimbofication of what was once one of the setting's strongest female cast members in Tahiri Veila; eight separate mentions of the planet Naboo, not a single one of them feeling natural; StealthX X-Wings with grabbing arms (???); general sloppiness in terms of character's thoughts and consistency; the return of . Gotta love a touch of the absurd. Oh, and Caedus gets whooped by a bunch of generic Mandos because having a competent villain is what LOTF is most interested in. Though I suppose Fury all but declared the guy insane... which would explain some of his choices in here, at least.
Let's see how Denning brings this failure of a story arc to a close.
August 2, 2025
honestly i wasn't planning to write a review but she pissed me off so bad that i had to write.
first of all it was literally like written by one of those empire defenders on twitter. i genuinely don't understand why would someone write a book about jedi if she hates jedi? i hated how misconstruction of the clone wars and how jedi was portrayed. also the way she actually wrote luke defending the soldiers on death star??? WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?? i'm not even mentioning the sexist writing on this one. i hated how both jaina and tahiri was written and even alleged "misandrist" daala made that sexist comment about her?? i really can't believe how it's written by a woman.
first of all it was literally like written by one of those empire defenders on twitter. i genuinely don't understand why would someone write a book about jedi if she hates jedi? i hated how misconstruction of the clone wars and how jedi was portrayed. also the way she actually wrote luke defending the soldiers on death star??? WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?? i'm not even mentioning the sexist writing on this one. i hated how both jaina and tahiri was written and even alleged "misandrist" daala made that sexist comment about her?? i really can't believe how it's written by a woman.
April 15, 2025
Decent series. Having read Traviss’s clone wars series this was really a fun ending for Jaina Solo to find out more about the history of the Fett lineage and some of those characters come back up here. Daala being brought back into the fold is great too. RIP to Gillead Pelleon. What a legend! I’m sad Tahiri has such a heel turn to sith apprentice too. She was a favorite character in the NJO series. Excited to read the final installment in this series.
January 28, 2024
I almost put this down at 50%. Karen Traviss tried her hand at writing intimacy, and now I'm worried about her personal life. She also managed to impress her SW colleagues by turning Daala into a piece of meat, and giving the badass Sintas an unnecessary rape back-story. I stuck it out for Jaina and Ben. Most of Pellaeon's scenes were cool too.
September 29, 2020
Exciting book. I do like having Jaina working with Boba Fett. Darth Caedus is not quite as evil as Darth Vader but I don't think that many would be.
October 19, 2021
What a fantastic read, getting inside many of your favorite characters mindset. Finding out what anchors and drives them. Highly reccomended.
January 25, 2026
A pretty solid Star Wars series. The author starts to wrap up some of the numerous plot lines and sets the events of the final novel in motion. I thought the discussions between Jaina and the Mandalorians was really good writing.
October 5, 2017
Personal Response
I think that overall this was a very good read and that the author mixed it up from the nonstop action to sometimes a more calmer state. Also she did very well in making very unexpected moments and tense moments along with those.
Plot
The book starts off with Jacen wanting to attack Fondor which he does ,but before he does, he tries to enlist the help of the Imperial Remnant under Admiral Palleon. Jacen sends Tahiri to enlist there help after that the Imperial Remnant decides to join the Galactic Alliance if it gets more territories. Then Admiral Niathal, Jacen, and Admiral Palleon attack Fondor. There minelayers are destroyed on the spot and they arrive later. Then they destroy the planetary shield ,but then, the Fondorian Fleet appears from hyperspace. Niathal removes Jacen from command as the battle ensues when he tries and succeeds in destroying much of Fondor's largest city. When it looks as if the GA might lose another Imperial Fleet arrives and destroys a lot of Fondor's and Jacen's Fleets. Then Jacen went in a med evac ship to the Imperial Flagship "Bloodfin" to save his Sith Apprentice. He succeeds in saving her and leaves Fondor
Recommendation
I would recommend this to boys who like action, tense moments, and unexpected moments. I would not recommend this to most girls they usually do not like fighting or violence in general.
I think that overall this was a very good read and that the author mixed it up from the nonstop action to sometimes a more calmer state. Also she did very well in making very unexpected moments and tense moments along with those.
Plot
The book starts off with Jacen wanting to attack Fondor which he does ,but before he does, he tries to enlist the help of the Imperial Remnant under Admiral Palleon. Jacen sends Tahiri to enlist there help after that the Imperial Remnant decides to join the Galactic Alliance if it gets more territories. Then Admiral Niathal, Jacen, and Admiral Palleon attack Fondor. There minelayers are destroyed on the spot and they arrive later. Then they destroy the planetary shield ,but then, the Fondorian Fleet appears from hyperspace. Niathal removes Jacen from command as the battle ensues when he tries and succeeds in destroying much of Fondor's largest city. When it looks as if the GA might lose another Imperial Fleet arrives and destroys a lot of Fondor's and Jacen's Fleets. Then Jacen went in a med evac ship to the Imperial Flagship "Bloodfin" to save his Sith Apprentice. He succeeds in saving her and leaves Fondor
Recommendation
I would recommend this to boys who like action, tense moments, and unexpected moments. I would not recommend this to most girls they usually do not like fighting or violence in general.
January 16, 2018
This is obviously the penultimate novel of the subseries, and it brings us to what we anticipate to be an exciting end.
Jaina seeks out Boba Fett in order to have something in her own arsenal that can help her fight Jacen. That is a fantastic clashing of subplots. We get a LOT of information on Mandalorian battle/close fighting tactics, and see exactly why/how they can best Jedi.
It's fascinating, and Traviss is the perfect person to have written this.
Amazingly, there is a heck of a lot more on the Jacen arc than on the Mandos.
I love Shevu. He is so awesome.
And Niathal is not horrid. She's manipulative and crafty, but she's not a bad being. She understands humans as well as Ackbar did. And she knows Jacen extremely well and knows just what to say to trigger or placate him.
It humors me that Jacen is constantly questioned as to if he's so powerful, why can't he do X, Y, or Z?
Jacen manages to get Pellaeon and the Imperial Remnant on his side. Seeing Tahiri and Pellaeon together makes me remember what eventually comes next.
It's wonderful to see how immersed with the Force Mara is in order to communicate with Ben. Talk about being redeemed!
Daala.
I do find it odd that both Mirta and Pellaeon call Tahiri Jacen's "villip."
Jaina seeks out Boba Fett in order to have something in her own arsenal that can help her fight Jacen. That is a fantastic clashing of subplots. We get a LOT of information on Mandalorian battle/close fighting tactics, and see exactly why/how they can best Jedi.
It's fascinating, and Traviss is the perfect person to have written this.
Amazingly, there is a heck of a lot more on the Jacen arc than on the Mandos.
I love Shevu. He is so awesome.
And Niathal is not horrid. She's manipulative and crafty, but she's not a bad being. She understands humans as well as Ackbar did. And she knows Jacen extremely well and knows just what to say to trigger or placate him.
It humors me that Jacen is constantly questioned as to if he's so powerful, why can't he do X, Y, or Z?
Jacen manages to get Pellaeon and the Imperial Remnant on his side. Seeing Tahiri and Pellaeon together makes me remember what eventually comes next.
It's wonderful to see how immersed with the Force Mara is in order to communicate with Ben. Talk about being redeemed!
Daala.
I do find it odd that both Mirta and Pellaeon call Tahiri Jacen's "villip."
August 3, 2013
This series has been very good. Despite its slow points this book does not disappoint. It opens up more about the Boba Fett story line and you can really see how he tries to make sense of a life lived for all the wrong reasons. The story opens up with Jaina Solo leaving to find Boba Fett to ask him to train her. She learns that there is more than one way to fight and that there some secrets that are better left uncovered. In what seems like an unlikely turn of events we see Jaina realizing that Mandolorians are not that different than her own family and not just mercenaries.
While there is very little in the way a Luke, Han, or Leia in the story. We get to see Ben grow up considerably when we finally gets the hard proof that Jacen was indeed the one that killed his mother. Later in the story Jacen admits it out loud and is recorded.
The Story moves along at a good pace and the slow points are few and far between. While interesting i think that the Mandolorian story like could almost have been stripped out and made into its own series.
While there is very little in the way a Luke, Han, or Leia in the story. We get to see Ben grow up considerably when we finally gets the hard proof that Jacen was indeed the one that killed his mother. Later in the story Jacen admits it out loud and is recorded.
The Story moves along at a good pace and the slow points are few and far between. While interesting i think that the Mandolorian story like could almost have been stripped out and made into its own series.
August 21, 2018
Well, this was one of the better books in the series, which says little since this series has been a little bit of a letdown.
There were a few surprising deaths by Caedus's apprentice Tahiri, which was unexpected.
Luke gets into the action in going after Caedus in the ultimate fool you trick. That was interesting to read.
Some good stuff with the Mando's training Jainia.
Ben finally finds the proof of who killed his mom Mara. That seemed to take way too long in the series.
The bad is that I am still unconvinced that Caedus is truly a great war leader. He lost another battle and things really haven't gone good for him, but yet there he is. I just don't see how his staff and soldiers are loyal to him.
And the artwork cover of the book is bad. He doesn't look like he is in his late 20's.
There were a few surprising deaths by Caedus's apprentice Tahiri, which was unexpected.
Luke gets into the action in going after Caedus in the ultimate fool you trick. That was interesting to read.
Some good stuff with the Mando's training Jainia.
Ben finally finds the proof of who killed his mom Mara. That seemed to take way too long in the series.
The bad is that I am still unconvinced that Caedus is truly a great war leader. He lost another battle and things really haven't gone good for him, but yet there he is. I just don't see how his staff and soldiers are loyal to him.
And the artwork cover of the book is bad. He doesn't look like he is in his late 20's.
March 14, 2023
I loved jumping back into this series and I appreciate how Traviss makes use of Boba Fett. I will say that I didn't appreciate the introduction of some elements that I use Star Wars to avoid, namely sexual assault and misogyny. None of it is in poor taste or overdone, but for me SW is an escape and I like to imagine that these issues don't exist in a galaxy far, far away, although maybe that says something not so flattering about me. Boba training Jaina I thought was great though, and I was happy that Traviss used her and is setting it up for a fight between the two. Boba's wife also being unfrozen from carbonite was great and I hope that they address that in the last book. Overall this was a great entry and I'm ready for the end!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 13, 2015
It seems that as this series progresses along it keeps getting better and better. Jacen finally reveals his true colors to the galaxy and Jaina fully embraces her destiny paving the way for the biggest showdown in Star Wars history since the Anakin Skywalker/Obi-Wan Kenobi showdown in Episode III. But the most satisfying part of this addition to an incredible series is to finally see Ben Skywalker fully grow into his role as a Jedi. He may possess a great deal of self-doubt about his own abilities and moral compass, but I think he will be a great Jedi Knight one day, just like his father. All in all, a great Star Wars novel.
June 26, 2008
Great entry in the series. A couple very minor flaws related to continuity, but who can write in this incredibly busy universe without any mistake?
Nice plot driven adventure, good pacing. Characterizations are also well served by the portrayals here, great treatments of the Mandalorians and Jaina.
For my dime, Karen Traviss could have done a better job with some of the poorer entries in this series. Fine work! Very enjoyable.
Nice plot driven adventure, good pacing. Characterizations are also well served by the portrayals here, great treatments of the Mandalorians and Jaina.
For my dime, Karen Traviss could have done a better job with some of the poorer entries in this series. Fine work! Very enjoyable.
November 5, 2021
-Jacen says to random people that he's a sith
-Tahiri story makes no sense, why isn't anyone trying to get her back or at least ask where is she?!
7,5/10
-Tahiri story makes no sense, why isn't anyone trying to get her back or at least ask where is she?!
7,5/10
December 13, 2025
OKAY LET'S GO:
-The entire premise of this book is unhinged. Why would ANYONE think it was ridiculous for Jacen to have killed Mara? He's running around doing shit like that every day! Why is everyone gaslighting Ben?? "Oh, Ben, you IDIOT, you POOR SAP, how can you believe that?" Man, I don't know, why wouldn't he have done that? If I were Ben I'd be like, "Well, he tortured me, so..."
-Relatedly, why is Jacen killing Mara the straw that breaks the camel's back? Does killing Jacen become a defensible stance once you find out he killed Mara but not after he burned Kashyyyk? Or killed a prisoner? Or tortured his teenage cousin? Is killing Mara really worse than those things?
-Next point: IT'S NOT WORSE. Jacen's defense, that Mara came for him trying to kill him in cold blood, is ACCURATE! She did an insane thing and her DID kill her in self-defense! The lip service of people being like, "Oh, well, she was wrong too, I guess, but not really" did not adequately address this. Killing Mara is the least terrible thing he did. ETA: Oh, he also tried, several books ago, to kill his parents!
-All of this to say, the Mando Jedi berating Jaina/the Jedi for wanting to turn Jacen rather than kill him is not related to anything that actually takes place. They have tried nothing else! They tried killing him and...killing him! And, okay, I guess violently arresting him (and I guess berating him?), but nobody has tried talking to him the way Luke did with Vader.
-On an unrelated topic, all of the Shevu and Ben pro-cop stuff continues to be intolerable. I also get the sense that these authors deeply did not want Ben to be fourteen, because they're not writing him like he is.
-The Mando stuff. UGH. LOOK. I am so open to the idea of a book about Mandalorians. I would read it, even if Boba Fett was exactly the same self-pitying Mary Sue he is here. It would be melodramatic and extra and good enough. But the Mando stuff just isn't integrated well into this series. It's acutely present in Karen Traviss's books and nowhere else. It also doesn't make sense for Jaina to get training from them. It's so flimsy.
-THEY DID JAINA SO DIRTY. She's not some spoiled princess who can't fight! She has no agency or ability to make her own decisions here. Also, why is she over here HEAD EMPTY about Jacen? She spends 99% of this book thinking about Mandos and the other 1% thinking about Jag. What does she think about what's happening to Jacen? Is it shocking? Confusing? We'll never know, because we'd rather hear what she thinks of goddamn Sintas.
-Tahiri. Whoaaaaaaaaaaa this was bad. She bears no resemblance to herself. The numbers of characters who were like, "Maybe she's just a total idiot, but maybe not. Maybe she's a moron. Maybe she's really stupid? But maybe not!" was just rough. Why does nobody (JAINA!!) care about Tahiri or think about her or engage with her? This is Jaina's brother's BEST FRIEND. She's Jaina's friend! Also, two characters interpedently call her a villip and at one point VONG BAIT. It's truly disgusting.
-JACEN bears no resemblance to himself, but that's not new.
-It is bonkers that the Mandos didn't kill Jacen when they got the chance.
-Things I liked:
1. Jacen questioning his sanity/other people questioning his sanity
2. Jacen bringing down the shields at Fondor with a twisted reflection of the empathy he used to have for living things and the battle meld ability from NJO
3. Niathal! She's believable as a person, which I can't say for most of these characters.
4.. Jag, totally out of left field and out of character, being like, "WOW, BEN, YOU'RE OLDER THAN ME, YOU'RE MIDDLE-AGED." I was screaming. It's like crackfic from 2004.
-The entire premise of this book is unhinged. Why would ANYONE think it was ridiculous for Jacen to have killed Mara? He's running around doing shit like that every day! Why is everyone gaslighting Ben?? "Oh, Ben, you IDIOT, you POOR SAP, how can you believe that?" Man, I don't know, why wouldn't he have done that? If I were Ben I'd be like, "Well, he tortured me, so..."
-Relatedly, why is Jacen killing Mara the straw that breaks the camel's back? Does killing Jacen become a defensible stance once you find out he killed Mara but not after he burned Kashyyyk? Or killed a prisoner? Or tortured his teenage cousin? Is killing Mara really worse than those things?
-Next point: IT'S NOT WORSE. Jacen's defense, that Mara came for him trying to kill him in cold blood, is ACCURATE! She did an insane thing and her DID kill her in self-defense! The lip service of people being like, "Oh, well, she was wrong too, I guess, but not really" did not adequately address this. Killing Mara is the least terrible thing he did. ETA: Oh, he also tried, several books ago, to kill his parents!
-All of this to say, the Mando Jedi berating Jaina/the Jedi for wanting to turn Jacen rather than kill him is not related to anything that actually takes place. They have tried nothing else! They tried killing him and...killing him! And, okay, I guess violently arresting him (and I guess berating him?), but nobody has tried talking to him the way Luke did with Vader.
-On an unrelated topic, all of the Shevu and Ben pro-cop stuff continues to be intolerable. I also get the sense that these authors deeply did not want Ben to be fourteen, because they're not writing him like he is.
-The Mando stuff. UGH. LOOK. I am so open to the idea of a book about Mandalorians. I would read it, even if Boba Fett was exactly the same self-pitying Mary Sue he is here. It would be melodramatic and extra and good enough. But the Mando stuff just isn't integrated well into this series. It's acutely present in Karen Traviss's books and nowhere else. It also doesn't make sense for Jaina to get training from them. It's so flimsy.
-THEY DID JAINA SO DIRTY. She's not some spoiled princess who can't fight! She has no agency or ability to make her own decisions here. Also, why is she over here HEAD EMPTY about Jacen? She spends 99% of this book thinking about Mandos and the other 1% thinking about Jag. What does she think about what's happening to Jacen? Is it shocking? Confusing? We'll never know, because we'd rather hear what she thinks of goddamn Sintas.
-Tahiri. Whoaaaaaaaaaaa this was bad. She bears no resemblance to herself. The numbers of characters who were like, "Maybe she's just a total idiot, but maybe not. Maybe she's a moron. Maybe she's really stupid? But maybe not!" was just rough. Why does nobody (JAINA!!) care about Tahiri or think about her or engage with her? This is Jaina's brother's BEST FRIEND. She's Jaina's friend! Also, two characters interpedently call her a villip and at one point VONG BAIT. It's truly disgusting.
-JACEN bears no resemblance to himself, but that's not new.
-It is bonkers that the Mandos didn't kill Jacen when they got the chance.
-Things I liked:
1. Jacen questioning his sanity/other people questioning his sanity
2. Jacen bringing down the shields at Fondor with a twisted reflection of the empathy he used to have for living things and the battle meld ability from NJO
3. Niathal! She's believable as a person, which I can't say for most of these characters.
4.. Jag, totally out of left field and out of character, being like, "WOW, BEN, YOU'RE OLDER THAN ME, YOU'RE MIDDLE-AGED." I was screaming. It's like crackfic from 2004.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 30, 2023
Revelation is the penultimate installment of the Legacy of the Force series and, as such, its purpose is to set up the finale. On top of that, it is Traviss’ opportunity to wrap up any loose strands relating to the Boba Fett/Mandalorian storyline because it is highly unlikely that any of that stuff will come up in in the final novel. In around 400 pages, Traviss does a decent job at achieving these two aims. Regardless, Revelation has its lengthy passages making it a weaker contribution than Sacrifice. Thus, my rating is probably closer to 3.5 than 4 stars.
Where Fury felt more introspective, focusing more on the characters than the war, a large portion of Revelation is dedicated to the overarching conflict. There are many discussions about political and military strategy, negotiations with potential allies (i.e. the Imperial remnant), and a major space battle surrounding a new location, Fondor. Also contrasting its predecessor, Revelation is not as balanced with respect to how it utilizes the main cast. Its two focal points are Jacen and Jaina, the former slipping further down his Sith path, the latter preparing to confront her out-of-control brother. Meanwhile, everyone else is sidelined a bit. The only exception here perhaps is Ben, who gets his own little subplot of trying to find evidence to prove Jacen is responsible for Mara’s death.
I think it is an interesting choice to have Jaina turn to Boba Fett for help. Again, I am not particularly interested in Mandalorian culture and customs etc., but seeing these things through Jaina’s eyes and discovering more and more little similarities between the Jedi and the Mandalorians (also between them and Jaina in particular) make this subplot a surprisingly interesting element of the novel. However, it was a bit too much Mandalorian lore for my taste and I think cutting this portion of the novel a little would have been beneficial.
Thankfully, Traviss’ writing style is quite pleasant, such that it is not too difficult to soldier through lengthier parts. While I like her style in general, I think she really excels at conveying gut-wrenching stuff. As in Sacrifice she gets the occasional opportunity to display this ability,
On the whole, Revelation is a solid contribution to the Legacy of the Force series. It does overdo it a little with Mandalorian lore and would probably benefit from being shortened a few pages. Still, it is an enjoyable, mostly fast-paced read that prepares everything for the final confrontation between the Solo twins that I have been anticipating all along.
Where Fury felt more introspective, focusing more on the characters than the war, a large portion of Revelation is dedicated to the overarching conflict. There are many discussions about political and military strategy, negotiations with potential allies (i.e. the Imperial remnant), and a major space battle surrounding a new location, Fondor. Also contrasting its predecessor, Revelation is not as balanced with respect to how it utilizes the main cast. Its two focal points are Jacen and Jaina, the former slipping further down his Sith path, the latter preparing to confront her out-of-control brother. Meanwhile, everyone else is sidelined a bit. The only exception here perhaps is Ben, who gets his own little subplot of trying to find evidence to prove Jacen is responsible for Mara’s death.
I think it is an interesting choice to have Jaina turn to Boba Fett for help. Again, I am not particularly interested in Mandalorian culture and customs etc., but seeing these things through Jaina’s eyes and discovering more and more little similarities between the Jedi and the Mandalorians (also between them and Jaina in particular) make this subplot a surprisingly interesting element of the novel. However, it was a bit too much Mandalorian lore for my taste and I think cutting this portion of the novel a little would have been beneficial.
Thankfully, Traviss’ writing style is quite pleasant, such that it is not too difficult to soldier through lengthier parts. While I like her style in general, I think she really excels at conveying gut-wrenching stuff. As in Sacrifice she gets the occasional opportunity to display this ability,
On the whole, Revelation is a solid contribution to the Legacy of the Force series. It does overdo it a little with Mandalorian lore and would probably benefit from being shortened a few pages. Still, it is an enjoyable, mostly fast-paced read that prepares everything for the final confrontation between the Solo twins that I have been anticipating all along.
April 8, 2025
Darth Caedus: I'm the most powerful Sith lord of all time. I'm also smarter than everyone else in the galaxy, and I'm the only one who unite the galaxy.
Also Caedus: Gets humiliated and embarrassed by Luke and outsmarted by Ben and Jaina. Also gets his ass kicked at Fondor.
Man, I'm glad this is the last book written by Karen "The Mando fetishist" Traviss (chronologically, I know she wrote a couple after this for Republic Commando and TCW). Once again, she shoves the mandalorians into the story for no reason. This time, she fabricates a plot to justify the Mandos appearing: By having Jaina seek out Boba to train her to take down Caedus. For...reasons. Yeah, Jaina doesn't go to Luke, the most powerful jedi and the guy who's already defeated Caedus before, nor Kyp and Corran, who are both masters and have both had experience with the dark side and with fighting Caedus before, no. She goes to ask a 70+ year old Mandalorian bounty hunter. She also discovers a former jedi named Gotab, aka Bardan Jusik from the Republic Commando novels, aka the idiot jedi who left the order to vacation as a mando, along with Venku, Darman and Etain's child. And hypocrite that he is, he bitches about the jedi not doing anything to really help people while hiding out in Apalachia and...not doing anything to help people. It's yet another moment for Traviss to spew her stupid spiel about "jedi are as bad as the sith, Mando is the way to go". And she also uses the book to bitch about why the other writers have basically ignored all aspects of the Mandalorians in their books.
Anyway, Ben spends the book investigating and gathering evidence to confirm that Caedus killed Mara Jade, Caedus seduces Tahiri to become his apprentice by using the ability to force walk in time to see Anakin against her, has her assassinate Palleon to get the imperials to help him, removes Admiral Nathiel from command after she tries to stop him from bombing Fondor, and pisses off an awful lot of people. Han and Leia barely even show up in the book due to them looking for a new jedi base, Luke barely does anything beside embarass Caedus, and Jaina's "training" basically involves some basic hand-to-hand combat lessons and enduring constant bitching about how "terrible" the jedi are from the Mandos. Also, Bobba resolves his family issues.
OH. And Admiral Dalla is back now too. Because fuck it, let's just keep bringing back shitty-ass characters from the old EU that should've died out already for the sake of plot, because it's cool! One of the worst Admirals from the Empire, who lost basically every engagement she was part of post-ROTJ and was only ever relevant because she was Tarkin's booty call (and is brain damaged: Thanks, Death Star) is now a major figure in the Imperial Remnant and looks to take over after Palleon's assassination! Yay! This is the type of dreek that people think is better than the ST??
I'm just glad this monstrosity is almost over.
Also Caedus: Gets humiliated and embarrassed by Luke and outsmarted by Ben and Jaina. Also gets his ass kicked at Fondor.
Man, I'm glad this is the last book written by Karen "The Mando fetishist" Traviss (chronologically, I know she wrote a couple after this for Republic Commando and TCW). Once again, she shoves the mandalorians into the story for no reason. This time, she fabricates a plot to justify the Mandos appearing: By having Jaina seek out Boba to train her to take down Caedus. For...reasons. Yeah, Jaina doesn't go to Luke, the most powerful jedi and the guy who's already defeated Caedus before, nor Kyp and Corran, who are both masters and have both had experience with the dark side and with fighting Caedus before, no. She goes to ask a 70+ year old Mandalorian bounty hunter. She also discovers a former jedi named Gotab, aka Bardan Jusik from the Republic Commando novels, aka the idiot jedi who left the order to vacation as a mando, along with Venku, Darman and Etain's child. And hypocrite that he is, he bitches about the jedi not doing anything to really help people while hiding out in Apalachia and...not doing anything to help people. It's yet another moment for Traviss to spew her stupid spiel about "jedi are as bad as the sith, Mando is the way to go". And she also uses the book to bitch about why the other writers have basically ignored all aspects of the Mandalorians in their books.
Anyway, Ben spends the book investigating and gathering evidence to confirm that Caedus killed Mara Jade, Caedus seduces Tahiri to become his apprentice by using the ability to force walk in time to see Anakin against her, has her assassinate Palleon to get the imperials to help him, removes Admiral Nathiel from command after she tries to stop him from bombing Fondor, and pisses off an awful lot of people. Han and Leia barely even show up in the book due to them looking for a new jedi base, Luke barely does anything beside embarass Caedus, and Jaina's "training" basically involves some basic hand-to-hand combat lessons and enduring constant bitching about how "terrible" the jedi are from the Mandos. Also, Bobba resolves his family issues.
OH. And Admiral Dalla is back now too. Because fuck it, let's just keep bringing back shitty-ass characters from the old EU that should've died out already for the sake of plot, because it's cool! One of the worst Admirals from the Empire, who lost basically every engagement she was part of post-ROTJ and was only ever relevant because she was Tarkin's booty call (and is brain damaged: Thanks, Death Star) is now a major figure in the Imperial Remnant and looks to take over after Palleon's assassination! Yay! This is the type of dreek that people think is better than the ST??
I'm just glad this monstrosity is almost over.
February 10, 2019
This one was really good, everything is leading up to an epic conclusion.
Jaina really takes the center stage here, training with the Mandalorians to fight Jacen/Darth Caedus (its so weird to call him that). Her character really shines here, as she learns a lot about a different culture that she had always had assumptions about. Her interactions with Beviin and Mirta Gev are great, and I really felt like she was good friends with them by the end of the book. It's all very melancholy though, since she is there specifically because she will have to kill her brother.
Caedus himself is in full crazy mode now, determined to conquer the galaxy and crush all who oppose him. What he does at Fondor is some of the most villainous stuff in Star Wars. He is far gone from the Jacen who saved the galaxy form the Yuuzhan Vong, but his path to this point is nonetheless easy too see. Curiously, Niathal has a large role in this novel, and I found her POV chapter good, because she now realizes what a terrible mistake it was to support Jacen, but is not quite sure what to do about it.
Ben also gets a lot fo good scenes here, although his role is downplayed a bit in this book. He finally discovers evidence that Caedus killed Mara, at great risk to himself and his friend Lon Shevu. The scene where he reveals the evidence to his family members is heartbreaking.
Boba Fett's story was interesting, as he finds his old wife again and has to deal with his crummy past, or at least more than usual. I've never really cared about Fett that much before, but I now find him a much more interesting character after his arc in these books. He's more sympathetic, but still an unsavory character in my view. He actually shows something close to affection for his family in this book, and it all developed in a natural way.
The only downside to this book is the Mandalorians, because while I did find the plot with them engaging, it was sometimes irritating how awesome they're portrayed in comparison to the Jedi. They constantly seem to be shown as down-to-earth regular folk who have a much better perspective and more realistic views not he world than their wide-eyed rivals. Their awesomeness is kind of offset by the fact that they, y'know, kill people for money and don't care about anyone but their own people.
Other than that though, this was a great book, and I am very eager to read the next one.
Jaina really takes the center stage here, training with the Mandalorians to fight Jacen/Darth Caedus (its so weird to call him that). Her character really shines here, as she learns a lot about a different culture that she had always had assumptions about. Her interactions with Beviin and Mirta Gev are great, and I really felt like she was good friends with them by the end of the book. It's all very melancholy though, since she is there specifically because she will have to kill her brother.
Caedus himself is in full crazy mode now, determined to conquer the galaxy and crush all who oppose him. What he does at Fondor is some of the most villainous stuff in Star Wars. He is far gone from the Jacen who saved the galaxy form the Yuuzhan Vong, but his path to this point is nonetheless easy too see. Curiously, Niathal has a large role in this novel, and I found her POV chapter good, because she now realizes what a terrible mistake it was to support Jacen, but is not quite sure what to do about it.
Ben also gets a lot fo good scenes here, although his role is downplayed a bit in this book. He finally discovers evidence that Caedus killed Mara, at great risk to himself and his friend Lon Shevu. The scene where he reveals the evidence to his family members is heartbreaking.
Boba Fett's story was interesting, as he finds his old wife again and has to deal with his crummy past, or at least more than usual. I've never really cared about Fett that much before, but I now find him a much more interesting character after his arc in these books. He's more sympathetic, but still an unsavory character in my view. He actually shows something close to affection for his family in this book, and it all developed in a natural way.
The only downside to this book is the Mandalorians, because while I did find the plot with them engaging, it was sometimes irritating how awesome they're portrayed in comparison to the Jedi. They constantly seem to be shown as down-to-earth regular folk who have a much better perspective and more realistic views not he world than their wide-eyed rivals. Their awesomeness is kind of offset by the fact that they, y'know, kill people for money and don't care about anyone but their own people.
Other than that though, this was a great book, and I am very eager to read the next one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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