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Star Wars Legends: Novels
Crosscurrent
An ancient Sith ship hurtles into the future carrying a lethal cargo that could forever destroy Luke Skywalker's hopes for peace.
The Civil War is almost over when Jedi Knight Jaden Korr experiences a Force vision so intense he must act. Enlisting two salvage jocks and their ship, Jaden sets out into space. Someone--or something--appears to be in distress.
But what Jaden and his crew find confounds them. A five-thousand-year-old dreadnaught--bringing with it a full force of Sith and one lone Jedi--has inadvertently catapulted eons from the past into the present. The ship's weapons may not be cutting-edge, but its cargo, a special ore that makes those who use the dark side nearly invincible, is unsurpassed. The ancient Jedi on board is determined to destroy the Sith. But for Jaden, even more is at stake: for his vision has led him to uncover a potentially indestructible threat to everything the Jedi Order stands for.
Features a bonus section following the novel that includes a primer on the "Star Wars" expanded universe, and over half a dozen excerpts from some of the most popular "Star Wars" books of the last thirty years!
The Civil War is almost over when Jedi Knight Jaden Korr experiences a Force vision so intense he must act. Enlisting two salvage jocks and their ship, Jaden sets out into space. Someone--or something--appears to be in distress.
But what Jaden and his crew find confounds them. A five-thousand-year-old dreadnaught--bringing with it a full force of Sith and one lone Jedi--has inadvertently catapulted eons from the past into the present. The ship's weapons may not be cutting-edge, but its cargo, a special ore that makes those who use the dark side nearly invincible, is unsurpassed. The ancient Jedi on board is determined to destroy the Sith. But for Jaden, even more is at stake: for his vision has led him to uncover a potentially indestructible threat to everything the Jedi Order stands for.
Features a bonus section following the novel that includes a primer on the "Star Wars" expanded universe, and over half a dozen excerpts from some of the most popular "Star Wars" books of the last thirty years!
354 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 26, 2010
About the author
Paul S. Kemp
63 books951 followersBestselling speculative fiction author, creator of Egil and Nix, Erevis Cale, drinker of scotch, smoker of cigars, amiable dude. :-)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews
April 20, 2010
I have read enough Star Wars books to know that when it comes to my favorite fake galaxy, things are far from egalitarian along gender lines. More often than not, women are shifted to the sidelines and the stories revolve around the doings of men. You know, the usual sexism that's prevalent in all forms of media: Men are important, women are tokens/sexual objects. This book though, this book decided to take it to a new level.
There are quite literally, NO women of note in the entire novel. None. That is not an exaggeration. There are some bar maids, a few references to Mara Jade and the corpse of a woman who is seen in a very brief recording. That's it. Why? Why no women in this book, I'd like to know. Things like this don't happen by accident, they happen by design. So why did the author feel that every single one of his characters had to be male (most of them appear to be bearded human men, like himself, as well. Hmmm)? It is profoundly disturbing to me that the author could live in a world that is comprised of 51% women and girls and yet be unable to imagine a role for even one in his book. (Not to mention the author's apparent disgust for fat people, which was fairly off-putting)
And that doesn't even address the poor characterization, the crappy writing and the uninspired plot(s). What does a time traveling space ship with a cargo hold filled with Macguffin have to do with insane Force clones? The two had nothing to do with one another and the "Sith ship from the past!" hook went absolutely no where and was utterly pointless. Wookipedia tells me that Crosscurrent "ties into the Lost Tribe of the Sith" series, and that there will be a sequel to Crosscurrent (gods, WHY). Maybe one of those books/novellas will explain the point of the useless Relin/Saes/sloppily-explained-time-jumping-ship, but (what is presented as) a self-contained book should not be relying on follow up stories to justify itself.
This book is just atrocious on so many levels.
There are quite literally, NO women of note in the entire novel. None. That is not an exaggeration. There are some bar maids, a few references to Mara Jade and the corpse of a woman who is seen in a very brief recording. That's it. Why? Why no women in this book, I'd like to know. Things like this don't happen by accident, they happen by design. So why did the author feel that every single one of his characters had to be male (most of them appear to be bearded human men, like himself, as well. Hmmm)? It is profoundly disturbing to me that the author could live in a world that is comprised of 51% women and girls and yet be unable to imagine a role for even one in his book. (Not to mention the author's apparent disgust for fat people, which was fairly off-putting)
And that doesn't even address the poor characterization, the crappy writing and the uninspired plot(s). What does a time traveling space ship with a cargo hold filled with Macguffin have to do with insane Force clones? The two had nothing to do with one another and the "Sith ship from the past!" hook went absolutely no where and was utterly pointless. Wookipedia tells me that Crosscurrent "ties into the Lost Tribe of the Sith" series, and that there will be a sequel to Crosscurrent (gods, WHY). Maybe one of those books/novellas will explain the point of the useless Relin/Saes/sloppily-explained-time-jumping-ship, but (what is presented as) a self-contained book should not be relying on follow up stories to justify itself.
This book is just atrocious on so many levels.
July 26, 2012
Crosscurrent felt like a two-hour television series pilot to me; characters I've never seen before on a somewhat-large-scale adventure that leaves room for a sequel. There is a follow-up Star Wars book by Paul S. Kemp, but, for me, a duology isn't enough; such a start should lead to multiple adventures. Will the sequel be worth it? I don't know. Crosscurrent isn't bad; just don't expect too much.
October 5, 2025
This is a book that is not often talked about among Star Wars fans, yet it is a delightful read nonetheless. I'd read Paul Kemp's "Lords of the Sith" for the Canon and really liked it (although to confess I also read "Deceived" and I just don't remember anything about it).
This has two main storylines it follows. 5000 years BBY it follows Jedi Knight Relin Druur as he tries to stop the Harbinger and Sith lord Captain Saes Rrogon. This storyline I absolutely loved, and was on the edge of my seat for.
There is also a storyline set in the present with Jaden Korr, a Jedi Knight during/after the events of the Legacy of the Force series, and he is coping with some of the events of the last Galactic Civil War. He is called to search out something, and enlists the help of the crew of the Junker. This felt like a very standard storyline, which I enjoyed, but didn't love.
There is a connection between these two storylines (which the book blurb spoils but I won't) that I absolutely loved. It was so cool seeing how they converged and I was delighted reading it. It made for quite a fun twist and wrinkle in the Star Wars universe.
There is one character present who I really didn't understand his inclusion in the story, other than to fill a few pages. The character of Kell Douro felt largely unecessary and while I liked his first scene on Korriban, the rest of his scenes felt largely like they deviated from the main story.
There are some connections to the Lost Tribe of the Sith short stories (and the FOTJ, which happens after this book), some connections to Outbound Flight (which actually makes Survivors Quest work even better), and also some connections to the Old Republic game/storyline. Paul Kemp made all of these feel like seamless connections and references and never felt like he was doing "member-berries" or anything like that. Kemp really proves he knows and is a fan of the Expanded Universe storyline.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Its not a favorite, but I had a good time with it. 8 out of 10!
This has two main storylines it follows. 5000 years BBY it follows Jedi Knight Relin Druur as he tries to stop the Harbinger and Sith lord Captain Saes Rrogon. This storyline I absolutely loved, and was on the edge of my seat for.
There is also a storyline set in the present with Jaden Korr, a Jedi Knight during/after the events of the Legacy of the Force series, and he is coping with some of the events of the last Galactic Civil War. He is called to search out something, and enlists the help of the crew of the Junker. This felt like a very standard storyline, which I enjoyed, but didn't love.
There is a connection between these two storylines (which the book blurb spoils but I won't) that I absolutely loved. It was so cool seeing how they converged and I was delighted reading it. It made for quite a fun twist and wrinkle in the Star Wars universe.
There is one character present who I really didn't understand his inclusion in the story, other than to fill a few pages. The character of Kell Douro felt largely unecessary and while I liked his first scene on Korriban, the rest of his scenes felt largely like they deviated from the main story.
There are some connections to the Lost Tribe of the Sith short stories (and the FOTJ, which happens after this book), some connections to Outbound Flight (which actually makes Survivors Quest work even better), and also some connections to the Old Republic game/storyline. Paul Kemp made all of these feel like seamless connections and references and never felt like he was doing "member-berries" or anything like that. Kemp really proves he knows and is a fan of the Expanded Universe storyline.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Its not a favorite, but I had a good time with it. 8 out of 10!
February 4, 2010
Star Wars: Crosscurrent, by Paul S. Kemp
Let me start by saying that I am a fan of Paul S. Kemp - I love his Forgotten Realms Erevis Cale series, and couldn't have been happier when I heard he was going to write a Star Wars Extended Universe book. I ran out to pick up "Crosscurrent" the day it was released and devoured it in the same day.
"Crosscurrent" takes place near the end of the EU Legacy of the Force series and features Jaden Korr, a relatively obscure Jedi Knight. Jaden is suffering from uncertainty, questioning his life as a Jedi, and the role of the Jedi in the universe. When he's sent a Force vision, Jaden feels he must journey to the place in his dream, where he's sure he will find the answer to his uncertainty.
Also starring in "Crosscurrent" is Relin Druur, a Jedi Master fighting in the Great Hyperspace War against the Sith...a war that took place 5,000 years ago. Relin and his Padawan are shadowing a Sith ship, looking for intelligence that will tip the next battle. Kemp entwines the stories of Jaden and Relin skillfully, creating characters that you care about instantly.
One thing I really like about this book is it doesn't have any big-names in the EU - there's no Luke, Leia, or Han. I had no clue who was going to live or die, and I loved it. Kemp's Jedi aren't goody two shoes who know everything, but instead are real people, questioning their place and purpose, balancing on the fine line between light and dark. They are supported by a grimy cast of characters: two junk scavengers and an Anzat villain. I liked Khedryn and Marr, the scavengers, just as much as the major characters of the novel, and hope to see more of them in the future. For me, I often enjoy the minor, normal people of the Star Wars EU, and Kemp gives a great picture of some mostly normal guys trying to make a mostly legal living who are drawn into a dangerous situation by Jedi.
If you've been disillusioned by recent Star Wars EU novels, I encourage you to try "Crosscurrent." Kemp brought back some of the magic that has been missing for me in recent SW novels, and I know that "Crosscurrent" will be a book I reread with enjoyment. I cannot wait for his next EU book!
5/5.
Let me start by saying that I am a fan of Paul S. Kemp - I love his Forgotten Realms Erevis Cale series, and couldn't have been happier when I heard he was going to write a Star Wars Extended Universe book. I ran out to pick up "Crosscurrent" the day it was released and devoured it in the same day.
"Crosscurrent" takes place near the end of the EU Legacy of the Force series and features Jaden Korr, a relatively obscure Jedi Knight. Jaden is suffering from uncertainty, questioning his life as a Jedi, and the role of the Jedi in the universe. When he's sent a Force vision, Jaden feels he must journey to the place in his dream, where he's sure he will find the answer to his uncertainty.
Also starring in "Crosscurrent" is Relin Druur, a Jedi Master fighting in the Great Hyperspace War against the Sith...a war that took place 5,000 years ago. Relin and his Padawan are shadowing a Sith ship, looking for intelligence that will tip the next battle. Kemp entwines the stories of Jaden and Relin skillfully, creating characters that you care about instantly.
One thing I really like about this book is it doesn't have any big-names in the EU - there's no Luke, Leia, or Han. I had no clue who was going to live or die, and I loved it. Kemp's Jedi aren't goody two shoes who know everything, but instead are real people, questioning their place and purpose, balancing on the fine line between light and dark. They are supported by a grimy cast of characters: two junk scavengers and an Anzat villain. I liked Khedryn and Marr, the scavengers, just as much as the major characters of the novel, and hope to see more of them in the future. For me, I often enjoy the minor, normal people of the Star Wars EU, and Kemp gives a great picture of some mostly normal guys trying to make a mostly legal living who are drawn into a dangerous situation by Jedi.
If you've been disillusioned by recent Star Wars EU novels, I encourage you to try "Crosscurrent." Kemp brought back some of the magic that has been missing for me in recent SW novels, and I know that "Crosscurrent" will be a book I reread with enjoyment. I cannot wait for his next EU book!
5/5.
December 9, 2022
I wasn't very impressed with this one. So a Sith Dreadnought is sabotaged by a Jedi and sent 5,000 years into the future with ore that increases a dark siders connection with the force. Sounds cool, right? Not really. They don't leave the system the entire book, and it ends with the Jedi turning to the dark side, killing his former apprentice who is a Sith, and blows up said Dreadnought. It doesn't affect the greater galaxy whatsoever, and it was a complete letdown.
Also, Jaden Korr, the protagonist of the Jedi Academy game was there and did his own thing. Fought a clone of Kam Solusar, that's about it.
Very strange novel, and I didn't enjoy it. Also, light side Jedi being able to use casual Sith Force Lightning is garbage and breaks the lore. And no, it wasn't Electric Judgement. Ugh.
Also, Jaden Korr, the protagonist of the Jedi Academy game was there and did his own thing. Fought a clone of Kam Solusar, that's about it.
Very strange novel, and I didn't enjoy it. Also, light side Jedi being able to use casual Sith Force Lightning is garbage and breaks the lore. And no, it wasn't Electric Judgement. Ugh.
Read
March 14, 2023DNF. I’m 123 pages in and it’s not a bad book but I do not care about any of these people.
September 26, 2020
I see a lot of talk about there being no women in this book and women being marginalized in Star Wars. I could tell you a lot about great female characters in Star Wars(before the Disney era, their female characters are shit), but when I noticed there were no women in this book I kind of thought "Cool, guys night." It was good to see some guys becoming friends and helping each other without the motivation of a princess to save.
I thought the story had a lot of unique ideas and connected several points of the Star Wars timeline well. It sees unfinished because the book Riptide is a direct sequel to it. Kind of annoying that they don't give you any hint of that.
I thought the story had a lot of unique ideas and connected several points of the Star Wars timeline well. It sees unfinished because the book Riptide is a direct sequel to it. Kind of annoying that they don't give you any hint of that.
January 1, 2022
This duology is perfect pulpy Star Wars storytelling. Ancient space stations, lost races, clones, time travel, this story has everything. The tone is fairly dark and edgy for Star Wars, and there are a couple sections that border on cosmic horror, reminiscent of films like Alien or Event Horizon. The story is high stakes and there are no movie characters, so the tension is high. This is also a must read for fans of Dark Horse’s excellent Legacy comic series, as it sets up story elements for that later era.
May 10, 2012
At this point I'm pretty much Sithed out. Coming from someone who has the code of the Sith tattooed on him, that should say something. For years the word Sith gave me goosebumps. I loved the Sith because the were mysterious and we knew so little about them but it seems like they've gone to the Sith well one too many times. You've got Banes rule of two Sith, Krayts One Sith order, Jacen Solo and his brief Sith order, the lost tribe of the Sith and now time traveling Sith?!?! C'mon now.
April 30, 2019
I'd give it three stars but there are literally no named, living female characters in this book and I just can't.
November 23, 2020
An OK Sw book. It was disappointing not to contain the main characters in the series, but at the same time I guess it's a good break from them. It took me quite a while to get into the story with all the early back-and-forth from 5000 years earlier to the current period of time. However, once the connection between the two timelines came out, the story picked up a bunch, though ultimately it still ended as an average SW novel.
January 4, 2024
JADEN KORR DUOLOGY #1: CROSSCURRENT
First of all, this is one of those confusing books as far as a publication goes, specifically from a marketing point of view.
This novel takes place in the Legacy Era (mostly). Set after the Legacy of the Force book series events, and follows the character of Jaden Korr, one we first met in the video game Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, where we can take on the role of players and the adventure. And now, this novel, Crosscurrent, finally establishes a definitive history for Jaden Korr, even 20 years after the events in the Jedi Academy video game. The surprising thing comes when we start thinking about who would buy a novel about a character we met once and who was never spoken of again. It is true that we have novels like the Dark Forces Trilogy, Revan, and the entire line of The Old Republic novel publications, but who in 2010 even remembered Jaden Korr? Then the book appears and it is directly connected to the video game, apart from that, it has the same main character and in general, it is something fascinating. I mean, I think it's a wonderful thing that books like these exist. The closest thing I could make a comparison to describe Crosscurrent would be Jeff Grubb's Scourge, a novel that follows as the main character a random Jedi we've never heard of before, and it's incredible. After all, we're supposed to be in the Legacy Era, and that's what Legacy is about, passing the torch to a new generation of heroes, enough of Han, Luke, or Leia, we needed more stories focused on these new protagonists.
It is a good novel, I recommend it. I think Paul S. Kemp is a great author, but I wouldn't want to see him writing in the "main story". More than anything, because his violent, gory, and Edgy style fits better in standalone stories that don't affect the universe. Also, it reminds me of a certain important author (named Tory Denning) in the Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi series. I don't think they're both bad authors, but I just don't want to see their writing style in the main story.
The plot of this first novel is filled with a lot of action. After Emo Edgelord Darth Caedus' Second Galactic Civil War, Jedi knight Jaden Korr finds himself dealing with a lot of doubt after he kills a group of people at Centerpoint Station. Jaden has a vision where he sees several peculiar characters, such as Mara Jade, Lumiya, or Kam Solousar. These visions take him to travel to a moon in the unknown regions. There he meets two scrap metal collectors, Khedryn and Faal and Marr Idi-Shael.
Jaden befriends these scrap metal collectors and obtains the coordinates that lead him to this frozen moon. And, this is where things start to get weird. Throughout the book, the story is divided into two plots that take place in the past and the present. The past plot includes a Sith Ship from 5000 years before the Battle of Yavin, more specifically, from Naga Sadow's Great Hyperspace War. And yes, we have time travel, which is explained to us in the first 100 pages, and a little Lore about the origin of the Lost Tribe of the Sith. As I said, the book is divided into two main plots that are divided into two stories that intertwine at one point with the time travel thing, and it's wonderful. On the one side, Jaden Korr and his new allies, and on the other, the Sith ship that travels through time to the present. Now, Jaden's mission will not only be to find answers to his visions on the frozen moon but also to try to stop the Sith ship together with a Jedi from the past who seeks revenge against his former traitor Padawan who joined the Sith.
To achieve both, they are divided into two groups: Jaden and Khedryn will travel to the frozen moon, while the Jedi of the past, Relin Druu, and the Cerean Marr will board the Sith ship to stop the former Kaleesh apprentice, Saes Rrogon, captain of the Sith ship Harbinger. Marr and Relin achieve their objective and the Sith ship is destroyed, but with the sacrifice of Relin, who in his last moments understands that all his actions and motivations were influenced by the dark side.
Meanwhile, Jaden and Khedryn travel to the frozen moon and find an abandoned Imperial facility and it's basically in there that they discover hybrid clones of Jedi and Sith made during the time of Thrawn. The experiment failed and the clones killed everyone in the facility by dismembering them and putting them in a Spaarti cloning cylinder they call the "mother". Jaden encounters a clone of Kam Solusar, which he defeats, only to be attacked by an Anzat agent of the Order of the One Sith. This Sith Order has a minor involvement in the story, but it consists of Darth Krayt having visions just like Jaden and that is why he sent one of his agents to investigate. The Anzat is defeated and killed by a shot from Khedryn. However, they fail to prevent a ship full of crazy clones from escaping from the moon. And that would be it, it leaves the space open for a sequel that was given and it is the second novel of this fantastic duology.
First of all, this is one of those confusing books as far as a publication goes, specifically from a marketing point of view.
This novel takes place in the Legacy Era (mostly). Set after the Legacy of the Force book series events, and follows the character of Jaden Korr, one we first met in the video game Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, where we can take on the role of players and the adventure. And now, this novel, Crosscurrent, finally establishes a definitive history for Jaden Korr, even 20 years after the events in the Jedi Academy video game. The surprising thing comes when we start thinking about who would buy a novel about a character we met once and who was never spoken of again. It is true that we have novels like the Dark Forces Trilogy, Revan, and the entire line of The Old Republic novel publications, but who in 2010 even remembered Jaden Korr? Then the book appears and it is directly connected to the video game, apart from that, it has the same main character and in general, it is something fascinating. I mean, I think it's a wonderful thing that books like these exist. The closest thing I could make a comparison to describe Crosscurrent would be Jeff Grubb's Scourge, a novel that follows as the main character a random Jedi we've never heard of before, and it's incredible. After all, we're supposed to be in the Legacy Era, and that's what Legacy is about, passing the torch to a new generation of heroes, enough of Han, Luke, or Leia, we needed more stories focused on these new protagonists.
It is a good novel, I recommend it. I think Paul S. Kemp is a great author, but I wouldn't want to see him writing in the "main story". More than anything, because his violent, gory, and Edgy style fits better in standalone stories that don't affect the universe. Also, it reminds me of a certain important author (named Tory Denning) in the Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi series. I don't think they're both bad authors, but I just don't want to see their writing style in the main story.
The plot of this first novel is filled with a lot of action. After Emo Edgelord Darth Caedus' Second Galactic Civil War, Jedi knight Jaden Korr finds himself dealing with a lot of doubt after he kills a group of people at Centerpoint Station. Jaden has a vision where he sees several peculiar characters, such as Mara Jade, Lumiya, or Kam Solousar. These visions take him to travel to a moon in the unknown regions. There he meets two scrap metal collectors, Khedryn and Faal and Marr Idi-Shael.
Jaden befriends these scrap metal collectors and obtains the coordinates that lead him to this frozen moon. And, this is where things start to get weird. Throughout the book, the story is divided into two plots that take place in the past and the present. The past plot includes a Sith Ship from 5000 years before the Battle of Yavin, more specifically, from Naga Sadow's Great Hyperspace War. And yes, we have time travel, which is explained to us in the first 100 pages, and a little Lore about the origin of the Lost Tribe of the Sith. As I said, the book is divided into two main plots that are divided into two stories that intertwine at one point with the time travel thing, and it's wonderful. On the one side, Jaden Korr and his new allies, and on the other, the Sith ship that travels through time to the present. Now, Jaden's mission will not only be to find answers to his visions on the frozen moon but also to try to stop the Sith ship together with a Jedi from the past who seeks revenge against his former traitor Padawan who joined the Sith.
To achieve both, they are divided into two groups: Jaden and Khedryn will travel to the frozen moon, while the Jedi of the past, Relin Druu, and the Cerean Marr will board the Sith ship to stop the former Kaleesh apprentice, Saes Rrogon, captain of the Sith ship Harbinger. Marr and Relin achieve their objective and the Sith ship is destroyed, but with the sacrifice of Relin, who in his last moments understands that all his actions and motivations were influenced by the dark side.
Meanwhile, Jaden and Khedryn travel to the frozen moon and find an abandoned Imperial facility and it's basically in there that they discover hybrid clones of Jedi and Sith made during the time of Thrawn. The experiment failed and the clones killed everyone in the facility by dismembering them and putting them in a Spaarti cloning cylinder they call the "mother". Jaden encounters a clone of Kam Solusar, which he defeats, only to be attacked by an Anzat agent of the Order of the One Sith. This Sith Order has a minor involvement in the story, but it consists of Darth Krayt having visions just like Jaden and that is why he sent one of his agents to investigate. The Anzat is defeated and killed by a shot from Khedryn. However, they fail to prevent a ship full of crazy clones from escaping from the moon. And that would be it, it leaves the space open for a sequel that was given and it is the second novel of this fantastic duology.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 10, 2016
From time to time, I say that I “didn’t know what to expect” when I picked up a particular book. Never has that been so true as in the case of Crosscurrent: all I knew was that it was Star Wars and it took place during the Old Republic. I had no prior reviews, no specific recommendations, not even a back-cover blurb. I knew a little bit about both Old and New Republic eras from Wookieepedia and TV Tropes, but for the most part, I was going in blind.
Given that, it’s hardly surprising that I was confused for the first few chapters. The time jumped back and forth between past and present, names of people and species and places and events were thrown about as if I ought to know who and what they were, and several names I did recognize (Kyle Katarn, for example, and Jaden) seemed to not line up with what I knew about them.
Once I got my bearings, however (a process aided by the memory of a few bits of trivia I’d picked up somewhere, that certain names and characters had been repurposed from the early Star Wars EU books into something new), I enjoyed the book quite a bit. I didn’t connect much to Relin, true, or even to Jaden until a fair way through the book, but I liked Khedryn and Marr a lot, and a certain pivotal plot twist was, quite frankly, awesome. I rather want to see if I can pull off something similar in a roleplay, if I get the chance. Kell was a fairly creepy villain, in a disgusting sort of way- though Saes was a better one. The action was well-done, whether in ship-to-ship or hand-to-hand combat, as was the element of suspense and mystery about Jaden’s destination. The themes of this book were also interesting- some I agreed with; some I’m less certain about.
I was slightly disappointed to not have more in the Old Republic, but probably wouldn’t have been bothered by that if I’d actually had a description before starting the book. There were also some scenes of carnage later in the book that tended towards the gory. It didn’t bother me, but that’s mostly because I didn’t allow myself to pause long enough to really think about it. I might’ve liked a touch more resolution to the ending, but on the whole it was fine.
Overall, Crosscurrent is an exciting and enoyable read for fans of Star Wars and sci-fi.
Given that, it’s hardly surprising that I was confused for the first few chapters. The time jumped back and forth between past and present, names of people and species and places and events were thrown about as if I ought to know who and what they were, and several names I did recognize (Kyle Katarn, for example, and Jaden) seemed to not line up with what I knew about them.
Once I got my bearings, however (a process aided by the memory of a few bits of trivia I’d picked up somewhere, that certain names and characters had been repurposed from the early Star Wars EU books into something new), I enjoyed the book quite a bit. I didn’t connect much to Relin, true, or even to Jaden until a fair way through the book, but I liked Khedryn and Marr a lot, and a certain pivotal plot twist was, quite frankly, awesome. I rather want to see if I can pull off something similar in a roleplay, if I get the chance. Kell was a fairly creepy villain, in a disgusting sort of way- though Saes was a better one. The action was well-done, whether in ship-to-ship or hand-to-hand combat, as was the element of suspense and mystery about Jaden’s destination. The themes of this book were also interesting- some I agreed with; some I’m less certain about.
I was slightly disappointed to not have more in the Old Republic, but probably wouldn’t have been bothered by that if I’d actually had a description before starting the book. There were also some scenes of carnage later in the book that tended towards the gory. It didn’t bother me, but that’s mostly because I didn’t allow myself to pause long enough to really think about it. I might’ve liked a touch more resolution to the ending, but on the whole it was fine.
Overall, Crosscurrent is an exciting and enoyable read for fans of Star Wars and sci-fi.
November 8, 2021
I was pleasantly surprised with this book. I am new to the Legends series as I have only read the Cannon book novelizations of the movies and a few one offs that take place before the movie timelines. This was my first foray into the post movies and Non Disney timeline.
I was a little lost at first, learning Luke has a wife who died and the author naming a few Jedi knights of the new order but after the first 30 or 40 pages it settled into a nice entertaining and very imaginative sci fi action story.
It dove into some jedi and sith past and lore but the bulk of the story is a time traveling ship with force powerful cargo that can't get into the hands of the sith. On top of that, there is a moon not far from the ship that draws the attention of our jedi hero , through a force vision. This moon has dark secrets that could make matters extremely difficult for the new Jedi order and their mission for peace.
It was very quick and entertaining and it was surprisingly graphic and gory. Body parts and blood galore, very different from the Disney cannon novels.
4 stars
I was a little lost at first, learning Luke has a wife who died and the author naming a few Jedi knights of the new order but after the first 30 or 40 pages it settled into a nice entertaining and very imaginative sci fi action story.
It dove into some jedi and sith past and lore but the bulk of the story is a time traveling ship with force powerful cargo that can't get into the hands of the sith. On top of that, there is a moon not far from the ship that draws the attention of our jedi hero , through a force vision. This moon has dark secrets that could make matters extremely difficult for the new Jedi order and their mission for peace.
It was very quick and entertaining and it was surprisingly graphic and gory. Body parts and blood galore, very different from the Disney cannon novels.
4 stars
Read
July 19, 2020Preface: I'm in the midst of trying to read my way through the entire timeline of Star Wars Legends books as seen here: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Time... (except I'm not interested in the game books). (Irrelevant detail, but I started partway through the timeline, so I'm a bit further away from finishing than you might think.) So anyway, my twofold point is, 1) I'm a bit of a completionist, and 2) that I read the Legacy of the Force series previous to reading this one, and it and a couple characters from that get a mention here. Spoilers are marked. Also... I don't typically leave reviews, but this one got me, because it bugged me. Without further ado...
Me, after finishing the LotF series: I don't like what they made some of these beloved characters do. Some of the choices they had them make. Some of the things that happened to them. Give me SW books with fresh, new characters I don't have emotional ties to, so they can just be and do whatever.
Me, after finishing Crosscurrent: ... I should have been more specific.
So let me try again: Give me SW books with fresh, new characters I don't have ties to, and for love of the Force, make at least one of them be a woman who actually speaks and has agency. Even George Lucas did this all the way back in '77 with Leia in A New Hope. Also a prominent droid character would be good, too, please. This bar is so low.
I suppose I should have picked up on the lack of women (and droids) when I read the list of dramatis personae (included below in spoiler tags, just in case), but wow, once I finished the book, did it hit home how that list really didn't leave any women or droid characters out for any reason. I guess at least the humans/non-humans were balanced?
Here's the dramatis personae:
Seriously, the entirety of women and droids that were even remotely memorable is... not good. I actually went back and skimmed through to help me remember, and here's what I found existing between these pages:
The need to include women seems obvious to me. I also included the droids in my consideration because I feel like they're as much an important part of Star Wars as other, diverse characters and elements of the universe. In fairness, it wasn't all bad. Certain characters or certain concepts were interesting enough, that I wouldn't mind reading more of them, and the style of writing had some good moments, too, I thought. It was just hard to enjoy those in the midst of the rest (including the somewhat pervasive, gruesome aspects, which I decided not to elaborate on here, but definitely those are... not my taste). All told, this book just... didn't feel very Star Wars-y to me. It was hard for me to get through. Of all the books I've read on my completionist journey of Star Wars Legends books, this was... no mind trick... not the book I was looking for. And it made me question reading the next book, which apparently is connected. (I'm planning to do it. My urge and desire to complete is strong. But I can't say I'm eager to get into that one, thanks to this.)
Me, after finishing the LotF series: I don't like what they made some of these beloved characters do. Some of the choices they had them make. Some of the things that happened to them. Give me SW books with fresh, new characters I don't have emotional ties to, so they can just be and do whatever.
Me, after finishing Crosscurrent: ... I should have been more specific.
So let me try again: Give me SW books with fresh, new characters I don't have ties to, and for love of the Force, make at least one of them be a woman who actually speaks and has agency. Even George Lucas did this all the way back in '77 with Leia in A New Hope. Also a prominent droid character would be good, too, please. This bar is so low.
I suppose I should have picked up on the lack of women (and droids) when I read the list of dramatis personae (included below in spoiler tags, just in case), but wow, once I finished the book, did it hit home how that list really didn't leave any women or droid characters out for any reason. I guess at least the humans/non-humans were balanced?
Here's the dramatis personae:
Seriously, the entirety of women and droids that were even remotely memorable is... not good. I actually went back and skimmed through to help me remember, and here's what I found existing between these pages:
The need to include women seems obvious to me. I also included the droids in my consideration because I feel like they're as much an important part of Star Wars as other, diverse characters and elements of the universe. In fairness, it wasn't all bad. Certain characters or certain concepts were interesting enough, that I wouldn't mind reading more of them, and the style of writing had some good moments, too, I thought. It was just hard to enjoy those in the midst of the rest (including the somewhat pervasive, gruesome aspects, which I decided not to elaborate on here, but definitely those are... not my taste). All told, this book just... didn't feel very Star Wars-y to me. It was hard for me to get through. Of all the books I've read on my completionist journey of Star Wars Legends books, this was... no mind trick... not the book I was looking for. And it made me question reading the next book, which apparently is connected. (I'm planning to do it. My urge and desire to complete is strong. But I can't say I'm eager to get into that one, thanks to this.)
April 25, 2014
Crosscurrent is just so many bad premises rolled into one book, and executed with such an astonishing lack of skill, that it really makes me wonder about the people responsible for editing these books. I understand that most of the responsibility for a book should be laid at the foot of the author, but I would like to think that an editor's job, more than anything else, is to be a gatekeeper and exclude dreck like this.
So first of all, these books (Crosscurrent and Riptide are a duology, though for some reason that's not how they were marketed) are a vehicle for Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy PC Jaden Korr. Korr is among the weakest videogame protags in ages, and certainly the weakest character in the Dark Forces series. He has no back story, no traits to speak of, no friends, no quirks. All that could be a good thing in that it gives an author a clean slate to develop a character while taking advantage of cross medium marketing appeal. Unfortunately, Kemp seems to be something of a creative blank slate himself, so this is the image he gives Korr. Literally. Jaden is a white male human with a goatee. He IS Paul S. Kemp. It's hard to imagine what possible reason Kemp could have used to justify this choice, since before his books, Korr's species and gender were ambiguous – JA allows players to choose between human, Kel Dor, Rodian, Twi'lek, and Zabrak models.
Kemp's portrayal of Jaden has some potential in the abstract, but again, he doesn't really have the skill to pull it off. Apparently he was responsible for murdering some people in the Legacy series, a situation that was morally and politically compromising and caused him to question, in theory, the relationship between the Jedi and the Galactic Alliance, as well as the moral compass capacities of his intuitive sense of the dark and light sides of the Force.
If that weren't bad enough, we have not one but two totally bizarre and dumb sci-fi concepts included for no good reason and no good effect. The main hook references Thrawn's dabbling in cloning techniques in order to establish the most mundane and pointless diabolical lab-creations gone wrong trope. The best reason I can come up with to justify this decision is that Kemp wanted an opportunity to write about a bunch of gore and bodily fluids and gross stuff. There are at least five discrete vomiting events in the book, as well as two “exploded” noses, a shattered set of wrist bones, a room carpeted with scalp and hair, and a lot of blood. The closest thing Crosscurrent has to a female character is a personified cloning cylinder full of gore and severed body parts. Kemp has apparently married a woman, so theoretically he should know they exist. But if Mother is his idea of a female character, perhaps his author bio is concealing a darker truth?
Presumably because Kemp couldn't come up with a better way to make the story interesting for 300 pages, he threw in an extra elaborate sci-fi device: time travel. Crosscurrent picks up the other side of the space battle that launched John Jackson Miller's Lost Tribe of the Sith series. While the Sith crew of the Omen traveled from the time of Naga Sadow past the Legacy era just by hanging out and colonizing the planet, their counterparts on the Harbinger employed some quirk of hyperspace and relativity known only to purveyors of cheap plot devices. The whole point of hyperspace is to negate the effects of relativity and allow galaxy spanning stories take place in one coherent time frame. The alternative doesn't really make much sense – traveling at near light speed in real space, as the Harbinger does here, should employ far more energy than the ship contains. But of course none of that really matters – Star Wars has never been hard sci-fi, and I'm willing to suspend disbelief on plenty of things if they are more or less consistent, and even if they're not as long as there's a decent narrative reason for it. At this point in the review, you should no longer be surprised to learn that that is not the case in Crosscurrent. It's a gimmick and nothing more.
The Force is perhaps the quintessential cheap plot device, a flexible in universe mechanism to explain plot armor, sudden character development, and literally any plot movement necessary. As long as Jedi are involved, invoking the will of the Force is sufficient to explain anything the author wants to happen. Some authors try to regulate this with a clumsy attempts to systematize how the Force works – Michael Reaves is the worst offender in the Coruscant Nights series. Good authors use it like good magic: mystical flavor for the universe that causes as many problems for the protagonists as it solves.
Kemp, however, is either extremely bold, or, more likely, simply naïve enough not to see any problems with using it to achieve everything in the book from start to finish. It is written in such a transparent way that he must not have had any problem with it, either way. Jaden begins the book with a Force vision calling him to the place where the end of the book will happen. At several points throughout, he articulates to himself and his allies the ambiguous doubt that Kemp has provided as his only personality trait. Rather than discussing and developing this issue, Jaden chooses to simply reassure himself and others that, once he reaches his destination, the Plot will resolve his issue. And it does, though I'm really not sure how. Which is the problem, of course. If Jaden can't tell us what the issue is during the set-up, how can we expect the resolution to make any sense?
Even with all these gimmicks going on, Kemp couldn't find enough material to fill the story. He seems incapable of writing psychologically complex characters or interactions between them, and since all of his plot challenges are solved by the hand wave application of the Force, there is no way for him to maintain interest there either. We get a lot of action scenes, but none of them have any tension or flavor or interest. They are resolved by clumsy devices that telegraph their purpose from miles away. Anyway, the thing I was going to quibble about in this paragraph was Kell Douro, the Anzat who is basically a living seeker missile for Jaden. For some reason, I used to find some romance in the Anzati, but after reading this embarrassing portrayal, it's hard for me to remember how they could ever not suck. Apparently even Kemp couldn't bring himself to make Kell such an empty husk, so in order to justify his existence little bit more, he decided to bring in a further gimmick reference by making him an agent of the Legacy comics One Sith, who won't reveal themselves to the galaxy for like another century.
So first of all, these books (Crosscurrent and Riptide are a duology, though for some reason that's not how they were marketed) are a vehicle for Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy PC Jaden Korr. Korr is among the weakest videogame protags in ages, and certainly the weakest character in the Dark Forces series. He has no back story, no traits to speak of, no friends, no quirks. All that could be a good thing in that it gives an author a clean slate to develop a character while taking advantage of cross medium marketing appeal. Unfortunately, Kemp seems to be something of a creative blank slate himself, so this is the image he gives Korr. Literally. Jaden is a white male human with a goatee. He IS Paul S. Kemp. It's hard to imagine what possible reason Kemp could have used to justify this choice, since before his books, Korr's species and gender were ambiguous – JA allows players to choose between human, Kel Dor, Rodian, Twi'lek, and Zabrak models.
Kemp's portrayal of Jaden has some potential in the abstract, but again, he doesn't really have the skill to pull it off. Apparently he was responsible for murdering some people in the Legacy series, a situation that was morally and politically compromising and caused him to question, in theory, the relationship between the Jedi and the Galactic Alliance, as well as the moral compass capacities of his intuitive sense of the dark and light sides of the Force.
If that weren't bad enough, we have not one but two totally bizarre and dumb sci-fi concepts included for no good reason and no good effect. The main hook references Thrawn's dabbling in cloning techniques in order to establish the most mundane and pointless diabolical lab-creations gone wrong trope. The best reason I can come up with to justify this decision is that Kemp wanted an opportunity to write about a bunch of gore and bodily fluids and gross stuff. There are at least five discrete vomiting events in the book, as well as two “exploded” noses, a shattered set of wrist bones, a room carpeted with scalp and hair, and a lot of blood. The closest thing Crosscurrent has to a female character is a personified cloning cylinder full of gore and severed body parts. Kemp has apparently married a woman, so theoretically he should know they exist. But if Mother is his idea of a female character, perhaps his author bio is concealing a darker truth?
Presumably because Kemp couldn't come up with a better way to make the story interesting for 300 pages, he threw in an extra elaborate sci-fi device: time travel. Crosscurrent picks up the other side of the space battle that launched John Jackson Miller's Lost Tribe of the Sith series. While the Sith crew of the Omen traveled from the time of Naga Sadow past the Legacy era just by hanging out and colonizing the planet, their counterparts on the Harbinger employed some quirk of hyperspace and relativity known only to purveyors of cheap plot devices. The whole point of hyperspace is to negate the effects of relativity and allow galaxy spanning stories take place in one coherent time frame. The alternative doesn't really make much sense – traveling at near light speed in real space, as the Harbinger does here, should employ far more energy than the ship contains. But of course none of that really matters – Star Wars has never been hard sci-fi, and I'm willing to suspend disbelief on plenty of things if they are more or less consistent, and even if they're not as long as there's a decent narrative reason for it. At this point in the review, you should no longer be surprised to learn that that is not the case in Crosscurrent. It's a gimmick and nothing more.
The Force is perhaps the quintessential cheap plot device, a flexible in universe mechanism to explain plot armor, sudden character development, and literally any plot movement necessary. As long as Jedi are involved, invoking the will of the Force is sufficient to explain anything the author wants to happen. Some authors try to regulate this with a clumsy attempts to systematize how the Force works – Michael Reaves is the worst offender in the Coruscant Nights series. Good authors use it like good magic: mystical flavor for the universe that causes as many problems for the protagonists as it solves.
Kemp, however, is either extremely bold, or, more likely, simply naïve enough not to see any problems with using it to achieve everything in the book from start to finish. It is written in such a transparent way that he must not have had any problem with it, either way. Jaden begins the book with a Force vision calling him to the place where the end of the book will happen. At several points throughout, he articulates to himself and his allies the ambiguous doubt that Kemp has provided as his only personality trait. Rather than discussing and developing this issue, Jaden chooses to simply reassure himself and others that, once he reaches his destination, the Plot will resolve his issue. And it does, though I'm really not sure how. Which is the problem, of course. If Jaden can't tell us what the issue is during the set-up, how can we expect the resolution to make any sense?
Even with all these gimmicks going on, Kemp couldn't find enough material to fill the story. He seems incapable of writing psychologically complex characters or interactions between them, and since all of his plot challenges are solved by the hand wave application of the Force, there is no way for him to maintain interest there either. We get a lot of action scenes, but none of them have any tension or flavor or interest. They are resolved by clumsy devices that telegraph their purpose from miles away. Anyway, the thing I was going to quibble about in this paragraph was Kell Douro, the Anzat who is basically a living seeker missile for Jaden. For some reason, I used to find some romance in the Anzati, but after reading this embarrassing portrayal, it's hard for me to remember how they could ever not suck. Apparently even Kemp couldn't bring himself to make Kell such an empty husk, so in order to justify his existence little bit more, he decided to bring in a further gimmick reference by making him an agent of the Legacy comics One Sith, who won't reveal themselves to the galaxy for like another century.
October 21, 2022
I like Kemp's style (his Deceived is the only book in the Legends category I rated five stars), but the plot here didn't do much for me. I got confused about the two timelines in the beginning, and only made sense of them when it was obvious, and then I felt a little annoyed at the science here. It's not a bad book, but it's no Deceived.
July 26, 2025
I am a ghost.
Imagine handing this book to someone who's fully divorced from the expanded Star Wars universe. "Okay so there's this Ancient Sith Empire from 5000 years before the movies and a warship of theirs that's transporting Evil Force Crystals and a Jedi with a USB-powered lightsaber hyperspace-time-travel into the future and they meet a Jedi from Luke's new Jedi Order - he's from a video game - and he has trauma from what he did on this ancient space station built by a bunch of Bugs during this second galactic civil war which was initiated by Luke's evil nephew. Also there's a vampire guy with nostril tentacles running around." Beautiful.
Jokes aside, I did enjoy my time with Crosscurrent. It's not perfect, there are some technical and structural flaws, but it imbues the rather debilitated post-NJO setting with some very much appreciated life blood.
The story's core conceit is obviously completely insane. Time travel, video game power enhancement crystals, , Jaden Korr? You'd be excused for believing this to be an obscure piece of 80s or 90s psychedelia, but nope, 2010. This I like a lot. What other SW novels from this time period ever got weird like this? Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, sure, and more on that later. But Crosscurrent stands out compared to 90% of its peers. By and large, it's an atmospherically rich novel - quasi-horror, in its last third. It's probably a more rewarding horror read than Death Troopers, unless it's Halloween and you like zombies. Kemp manages a tense atmosphere whenever the story calls for it, but is also free to indulge in the grounded sphere of shady cantinas and games of chance. Consider also the characters: We have an Anzat assassin obsessed with Fate and Soup, clearly befitting the weird half. Khedryn and Marr, two salvagers for hire, are more standard SW fare. They're solid C-list characters, and help ground the story from becoming inaccessibly weird. Crosscurrent both knows its place and knows it's a unique one.
In other ways, the book is very much a product of its time. The past sections provides further context for the Lost Tribe of the Sith ebooks, themselves a tie-in to Fate of the Jedi; Jaden's present conflict, meanwhile, arises out of the aftermath of the Legacy of the Force series. This I find to be one of the better characteristics of the late-era EU: Finally, after the isolationist LOTF series, we have two different stories intersecting with FOTJ! A strong first showing for Kemp; he clearly knows to get more than just puddle-deep into the universe he's writing in. The intersections are quite logical. Jaden did appear in LOTF: Fury, made another cameo in FOTJ: Abyss (set after this story but released just before), and now he gets to helm his own story. Jaden Korr, huh. Who would have ever guessed the Create-Your-Own-Jedi protagonist from the JKA game would get his own book duology? Crosscurrent is such a conceptually great read. It actually gives credence to the idea that even the weakest of eras is ripe with storytelling potential. Maybe if more authors had followed Kemp's lead, had given more side characters (and plot developments) their place to shine, my overall view of the "Denningverse" would be more positive.
Does Crosscurrent reach its fullest potential? Not quite. The time travel conceit is the biggest example: It happens, it fits with the book's tone and the setting's more out there tales, and there are some interesting conversations and reflections coming out of it. But this idea alone could have dominated an entire book. It's simply something that happens as part of the narrative, nothing really grand. The author tries to make up for it by having the participants and spectators silently accept the ephemeral nature of it, but that's a bit too easy for me. It's like the book is self-conscious about its storytelling limits... a bad sign. Not to sound too much like a gluttonous fanboy, but why not use this happenstance to delve deeper into the time travel, form a discourse surrounding the Old Jedi and Old Republic and how they related to the Jedi and Galactic Alliance of the present? This subplot doesn't intersect particularly well with Jaden's, either. There's some back-and-forth, some thematic ideas and parallels are exchanged, but I am unsure the narrative is really cohesive. Jaden's struggle would have resolved itself without the time travellers, and vice versa. The novel could have been tightened up a bit: The Anzat assassin's scenes in particular are extremely repetitive, leading some to believe he should have been cut altogether. I do like his presence, including on a thematic level, but can't argue against the argument; his presence alongside the Old Sith is superfluous. Focus on one or the other.
On another note, and this doesn't really influence my opinion of the book, but there are bad contemporary SWEU influences in here too. According to Crosscurrent, red lightsabers - heck, lightsabers at all - were all the rage for Naga Sadow-age Sith. Uh-huh. Also Jaden gets mad at Khedryn for not referring to Luke as "Grand Master Luke", which is all kinds of problematic. Neither of these are originally Kemp's doing, and I guess you have to respect him for sticking with what he has to work with - even if that something is not good.
I initially planned to write a bigger paragraph about Jaden Korr's depiction, but upon reflection this here book does do a good job with him. His unique characteristics - his childhood lightsabers, and the Force Power video game mechanics - are reciprocated well enough. I suppose I would have liked more explicit callbacks to the video game's events, especially since the frozen moon begs for a Hoth reference. Conversely, the Luke-centric stories sometimes go overboard with referencing a very shallow pool of events in their protagonists' lives, so I understand why Kemp might have wanted to avoid having the events of Jaden's one other major appearance dominate his life.
I want to share thoughts on Paul Kemp's writing, as well. Based on this outing, I think him a solid author. He knows what he's doing, and his construction of scenes stands above most of his SW peers. Things don't just happen, they're deliberately paced with a clear, intentional beginning seen through to the end. I have to hand this to him: There are few SW books that stood out to me in this specific, positive way. His "atmosphere game" is on point, as well. He makes creating memorable setpieces seem easy. There's a generic ice moon, yes, but it also orbits an imposingly described blue gas giant with a ring system that itself doubles as a setpiece. We need more authors with an interest in celestial bodies, or even just elaborate visual descriptions. My problem lies with certain aspects of the prose, which tends to default to verbose noun phrases where a simple pronoun could have sufficed. The text takes on this Kevin J. Anderson-esque tie-in quality as a result, which is a shame because this is clearly an overall competent author at work. Though maybe that's just my preferences disagreeing with his.
In any case, what stood out to me at the end was how "Stoverian" (relating to or characteristic of [Matthew] Stover) a lot of it felt. There's the weird/grounded pulp feeling I alluded to, yes. It is found in the characters as well, who sometimes swear and often come across or cause an above-average amount of gore, blood, and vomit to be spilled. They all have a personal struggle to contend with, finding salvation in self-fulfillment and being true to one's self. Finally, the eponymous crosscurrent relates to the concept of fate and gives the book some more character. In short, put Caine and certain parts of Shatterpoint and Mindor into a blender, top it off with a more conventional Science Fiction/Fantasy veneer, and you get Paul S. Kemp's Crosscurrent. Is this a must-read, then? Eeeeehhhhhhh? But would I still recommend it for that observation alone? Sure.
Imagine handing this book to someone who's fully divorced from the expanded Star Wars universe. "Okay so there's this Ancient Sith Empire from 5000 years before the movies and a warship of theirs that's transporting Evil Force Crystals and a Jedi with a USB-powered lightsaber hyperspace-time-travel into the future and they meet a Jedi from Luke's new Jedi Order - he's from a video game - and he has trauma from what he did on this ancient space station built by a bunch of Bugs during this second galactic civil war which was initiated by Luke's evil nephew. Also there's a vampire guy with nostril tentacles running around." Beautiful.
Jokes aside, I did enjoy my time with Crosscurrent. It's not perfect, there are some technical and structural flaws, but it imbues the rather debilitated post-NJO setting with some very much appreciated life blood.
The story's core conceit is obviously completely insane. Time travel, video game power enhancement crystals, , Jaden Korr? You'd be excused for believing this to be an obscure piece of 80s or 90s psychedelia, but nope, 2010. This I like a lot. What other SW novels from this time period ever got weird like this? Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, sure, and more on that later. But Crosscurrent stands out compared to 90% of its peers. By and large, it's an atmospherically rich novel - quasi-horror, in its last third. It's probably a more rewarding horror read than Death Troopers, unless it's Halloween and you like zombies. Kemp manages a tense atmosphere whenever the story calls for it, but is also free to indulge in the grounded sphere of shady cantinas and games of chance. Consider also the characters: We have an Anzat assassin obsessed with Fate and Soup, clearly befitting the weird half. Khedryn and Marr, two salvagers for hire, are more standard SW fare. They're solid C-list characters, and help ground the story from becoming inaccessibly weird. Crosscurrent both knows its place and knows it's a unique one.
In other ways, the book is very much a product of its time. The past sections provides further context for the Lost Tribe of the Sith ebooks, themselves a tie-in to Fate of the Jedi; Jaden's present conflict, meanwhile, arises out of the aftermath of the Legacy of the Force series. This I find to be one of the better characteristics of the late-era EU: Finally, after the isolationist LOTF series, we have two different stories intersecting with FOTJ! A strong first showing for Kemp; he clearly knows to get more than just puddle-deep into the universe he's writing in. The intersections are quite logical. Jaden did appear in LOTF: Fury, made another cameo in FOTJ: Abyss (set after this story but released just before), and now he gets to helm his own story. Jaden Korr, huh. Who would have ever guessed the Create-Your-Own-Jedi protagonist from the JKA game would get his own book duology? Crosscurrent is such a conceptually great read. It actually gives credence to the idea that even the weakest of eras is ripe with storytelling potential. Maybe if more authors had followed Kemp's lead, had given more side characters (and plot developments) their place to shine, my overall view of the "Denningverse" would be more positive.
Does Crosscurrent reach its fullest potential? Not quite. The time travel conceit is the biggest example: It happens, it fits with the book's tone and the setting's more out there tales, and there are some interesting conversations and reflections coming out of it. But this idea alone could have dominated an entire book. It's simply something that happens as part of the narrative, nothing really grand. The author tries to make up for it by having the participants and spectators silently accept the ephemeral nature of it, but that's a bit too easy for me. It's like the book is self-conscious about its storytelling limits... a bad sign. Not to sound too much like a gluttonous fanboy, but why not use this happenstance to delve deeper into the time travel, form a discourse surrounding the Old Jedi and Old Republic and how they related to the Jedi and Galactic Alliance of the present? This subplot doesn't intersect particularly well with Jaden's, either. There's some back-and-forth, some thematic ideas and parallels are exchanged, but I am unsure the narrative is really cohesive. Jaden's struggle would have resolved itself without the time travellers, and vice versa. The novel could have been tightened up a bit: The Anzat assassin's scenes in particular are extremely repetitive, leading some to believe he should have been cut altogether. I do like his presence, including on a thematic level, but can't argue against the argument; his presence alongside the Old Sith is superfluous. Focus on one or the other.
On another note, and this doesn't really influence my opinion of the book, but there are bad contemporary SWEU influences in here too. According to Crosscurrent, red lightsabers - heck, lightsabers at all - were all the rage for Naga Sadow-age Sith. Uh-huh. Also Jaden gets mad at Khedryn for not referring to Luke as "Grand Master Luke", which is all kinds of problematic. Neither of these are originally Kemp's doing, and I guess you have to respect him for sticking with what he has to work with - even if that something is not good.
I initially planned to write a bigger paragraph about Jaden Korr's depiction, but upon reflection this here book does do a good job with him. His unique characteristics - his childhood lightsabers, and the Force Power video game mechanics - are reciprocated well enough. I suppose I would have liked more explicit callbacks to the video game's events, especially since the frozen moon begs for a Hoth reference. Conversely, the Luke-centric stories sometimes go overboard with referencing a very shallow pool of events in their protagonists' lives, so I understand why Kemp might have wanted to avoid having the events of Jaden's one other major appearance dominate his life.
I want to share thoughts on Paul Kemp's writing, as well. Based on this outing, I think him a solid author. He knows what he's doing, and his construction of scenes stands above most of his SW peers. Things don't just happen, they're deliberately paced with a clear, intentional beginning seen through to the end. I have to hand this to him: There are few SW books that stood out to me in this specific, positive way. His "atmosphere game" is on point, as well. He makes creating memorable setpieces seem easy. There's a generic ice moon, yes, but it also orbits an imposingly described blue gas giant with a ring system that itself doubles as a setpiece. We need more authors with an interest in celestial bodies, or even just elaborate visual descriptions. My problem lies with certain aspects of the prose, which tends to default to verbose noun phrases where a simple pronoun could have sufficed. The text takes on this Kevin J. Anderson-esque tie-in quality as a result, which is a shame because this is clearly an overall competent author at work. Though maybe that's just my preferences disagreeing with his.
In any case, what stood out to me at the end was how "Stoverian" (relating to or characteristic of [Matthew] Stover) a lot of it felt. There's the weird/grounded pulp feeling I alluded to, yes. It is found in the characters as well, who sometimes swear and often come across or cause an above-average amount of gore, blood, and vomit to be spilled. They all have a personal struggle to contend with, finding salvation in self-fulfillment and being true to one's self. Finally, the eponymous crosscurrent relates to the concept of fate and gives the book some more character. In short, put Caine and certain parts of Shatterpoint and Mindor into a blender, top it off with a more conventional Science Fiction/Fantasy veneer, and you get Paul S. Kemp's Crosscurrent. Is this a must-read, then? Eeeeehhhhhhh? But would I still recommend it for that observation alone? Sure.
October 17, 2011
This was a great SW novel. Mr. Kemp has made a huge first impression on me in writing this novel. Not only is the story interesting and highly engaging (I couldn't put down the book within the last 100 pages), but he did it without using a single character from any of the movies and you end up genuinely caring for everyone of these new characters by the end of the novel. Thus far, only Karen Traviss had dared to do something like that. I hope this will create a new wave of stories that are bound only by George Lucas's universe and not his characters as well. Don't get me wrong, I love those characters, but they have been overused a little too much. I do have one criticism of this novel though: the whole premise of this story is that Jedi of the Old Republic and Luke Skywalker's new order meet. While Mr. Kemp gives an excellent and reasonable explanation for how this could happen, the two characters' story lines never really affect each other. He could have written two separate novels and nothing would have been different. I wish that those two characters' fates had been more intertwined. All in all, a fine addition to the SW novel library.
March 14, 2016
I mostly liked this book apart from the description of Kell Douro's feeding habits being a little too graphic at times. The time-travel aspect is not that far-fetched when you think about the nature of hyperspace; "hyperspace corridors" are effectively wormholes - and any Farscape fan will be able to tell you that wormholes take you not just through space, but time as well. In this case, a damaged Sith ship can't jump properly so end up 5,000 years into the future, 41 years after the Battle of Yavin and just before the events of the Fate of the Jedi series. Throw in 2 Jedi, of vastly different eras, but both doubting their path and it adds up to an interesting exploration of what it means to be a Jedi. The ending also throws up interesting prospects for future adventures (or at least ones I haven't read yet).
June 27, 2017
Two Eras Meet as Two Jedi Face Destiny
Crosscurrent is an interesting tales of two eras colliding. A young Jedi Knight receives a Force vision so strong, he must follow it to soothe his doubtful mind. In another timeline, a Jedi Master attempts to stop a former padawan turned Sith Lord who has valuable cargo for the Sith war. Timelines cross and both Jedi must face more than they bargained for. In their respective quests, Dark Side temptation looms. Black and white become shades of gray, with unexpected allies and foes along the way. The action moves swiftly in this book and there is quite a bit of unpleasantness as well. The villain Kell is quite disgusting. This book doesn't offer easy answers and this story continues in the next book of Riptide. A darker side of the Star Wars universe and I enjoyed it.
Crosscurrent is an interesting tales of two eras colliding. A young Jedi Knight receives a Force vision so strong, he must follow it to soothe his doubtful mind. In another timeline, a Jedi Master attempts to stop a former padawan turned Sith Lord who has valuable cargo for the Sith war. Timelines cross and both Jedi must face more than they bargained for. In their respective quests, Dark Side temptation looms. Black and white become shades of gray, with unexpected allies and foes along the way. The action moves swiftly in this book and there is quite a bit of unpleasantness as well. The villain Kell is quite disgusting. This book doesn't offer easy answers and this story continues in the next book of Riptide. A darker side of the Star Wars universe and I enjoyed it.
February 5, 2015
To be incredibly honest I felt like an idiot when I first read this. This was my first Star Wars book, and for any of you out there who feel they can jump from a movie to a book...it might be harder than you think. Crosscurrent is a time travelling Jedi adventure which simultaneously extends a series of short stories called "The Lost Tribe of the Sith." While the short story series and Crosscurrent take place thousands (if not more) years apart, they do show that while technology has improved, the way people and, in this case, Jedi and Sith, act is not all too different.
Once I started to get the hang of some of the lingo, I really got into the book. I mean seriously, we're talking Jedi, Sith, Time travel, and the core of lightsaber technology....Hhyyellow!
Once I started to get the hang of some of the lingo, I really got into the book. I mean seriously, we're talking Jedi, Sith, Time travel, and the core of lightsaber technology....Hhyyellow!
June 1, 2016
Well, this might not be the best book ever but I really enjoyed it. Yes, it is a huge sausage-fest - but then I just pick up on or infer my own gay subtext. I'm an English literature graduate; I'm used to books all about men.
In all honesty, while I initially picked up the book because of the time-travelling Sith ship (one of my friends teases me that I have a 'Dark Side problem'), I ended up more interested in Jaden's dual force abilities and his pilgrimage to one of Fnost's moons. Especially what he found there - I could happily read an entire novel about the history of it leading up to the event, and all the way to Jaden's discovery. Yes I'm being deliberately vague, I don't want to ruin it for anyone.
In all honesty, while I initially picked up the book because of the time-travelling Sith ship (one of my friends teases me that I have a 'Dark Side problem'), I ended up more interested in Jaden's dual force abilities and his pilgrimage to one of Fnost's moons. Especially what he found there - I could happily read an entire novel about the history of it leading up to the event, and all the way to Jaden's discovery. Yes I'm being deliberately vague, I don't want to ruin it for anyone.
November 19, 2015
Not bad, an interesting way to introduce time travel to Star Wars, and to include stories from both the distant past and the present of Star Wars continuity. The characters were all a little angsty, but their motivations were mostly clear. Kemp did a good job of occasionally mentioning old Star Wars characters and features to keep the reader grounded in a familiar setting, but does not lean on nostalgia to sell his story. This is not your typical Luke and Leia epic, these are characters and conflicts from a different side of the galaxy that we don't always get to explore. For that reason it was a nice change of pace.
May 30, 2018
Really visceral & intense action scenes in this one and I particularly liked the horror elements, including a lengthy section near the end of the book in which the main character explores a long abandoned research station in an icy wasteland and a really terrifying vampire-esque villain. Surprisingly intense and surprisingly good.
July 9, 2020
I like Paul Kemp's SW books. This was another good one. It was a little confusing at the start with the dual timelines and similar characters in each however once it got going it was a good, entertaining story.
June 20, 2020
Damanjeet Singh
A great suspenseful story with a good payoff. I recommend this for a mature audience who can handle gore and violence.
A great suspenseful story with a good payoff. I recommend this for a mature audience who can handle gore and violence.
April 25, 2022
Really fun nasty gross horror elements in this book, loved it!
January 25, 2023
Really enjoyed the adventure. No spoilers but this felt like a deep space sci-fi adventure with dark twist and turns.
June 19, 2015
"Crosscurrent" by Paul S. Kemp is one of those books that puts me in a bit of a predicament: on the one hand, there were so many things in this novel that, as an avid reader of "Star Wars," I've been waiting to see ... however, on the other hand, some of the ideas presented here were simply too ridiculous to believe. Spoilers follow.
The novel takes place just before the end of the Civil War. Conflicted Jedi Knight Jaden Korr receives a vision from the Force that he feels he must follow. Without telling the Order, Jaden sets out to the planet in his dreams, not knowing what awaits him on the distant frozen moon. He recruits the help of junkers Khedryn and Marr, who are reluctant to help but, as any good scoundrel in the SW universe, are willing to do so for a price.
At the same time, a battle is being fought five thousand years in the past. Jedi Master Relin is on a mission to confront his fallen Padawan, Saes. Saes is commanding a ship with a very precious cargo: Lignan - an ore that enhances the power of the Sith. Relin's mission is to stop his former apprentice from delivering this crucial material to the Sith, and hopefully gain some closure to where he went wrong with Saes. The Jedi Master manages to get onboard the ship and damage the hyperdrive chamber, but not in time to prevent the vessel from entering hyperspace. As a result, the ship and its occupants find themselves flung several thousands of years into the future.
Relin escapes the Sith ship and finds himself rescued by Jaden and his companions. After hearing his explanation, the trio agrees that the ship and its cargo must be destroyed. Marr assists Relin in bringing down the ancient vessel, while Khedryn and Jaden continue to the planet of Jaden's vision.
The third story line, much smaller than the first two, is that of Kell, an Anzat sent by the One Sith to discover the secrets of the frozen moon. On the way, he discovers Jaden and follows him, deciding that feasting upon the Jedi's "soup" for enlightenment is perhaps more important than his assigned task.
With Marr's help, Relin destroys the Sith ship, but loses himself in the process. His desire to gain revenge for Saes' turning to the Dark Side forces him away from the path of a Jedi; embracing what he has become, he uses to Lignan to give augment his power enough to kill Saes and bring down the ship. Marr barely manages to flee, wounded, but with new knowledge of his recently discovered Force sensitivity.
On the frozen moon, Jaden and Khedryn discover an abandoned Imperial-era research centre, where scientists created experimental clones by combining Sith and Jedi DNA. The place isn't as empty as it would seem, however, as the pair quickly realizes that the clones, mentally unstable and insanely powerful, escaped imprisonment and slaughtered the researchers, trashing the facility and effectively cutting themselves off from the galaxy. Jaden finds himself facing one of the clones, a battle he nearly loses, and then Kell. After defeating their enemies, Khedryn and Jaden prepare to head back to their ship, only to be faced with a new problem: the remaining clones have taken the anzat's ship and left the moon, posing a great threat to the rest of the galaxy.
The novel closes with Jaden offering to take Marr as his apprentice and the trio enjoying a moment of celebration before their starting the inevitable task of tracking down the clones.
Overall, the story is very exciting with few slow moments; there is almost always something important going on, and I have to give Kemp some credit for not including a lot of fluff to simply pad out the length of the book. The first few chapters of the novel switch from the present to the past before the Sith ship is brought to the present day; this is an effective way of building suspense and, at least in my opinion, wasn't confusing to follow at all. The story flies by pretty quickly and smoothly.
My major complaint with the plot itself, however, is that it isn't really completed in this book. One of the major goals of the characters is to uncover whatever secrets Fhost holds, and they do...but then the book simply ends. Finding the clones is a pretty big discovery, but then they get away and it becomes apparent that the clones are more of a setup for a sequel. The readers don't even see much of the clones aside from the one Jaden fights. I don't have a problem with some things being unresolved for coverage in a future book, but this was a bit of a letdown. The other storylines tie up rather nicely, and I'd have liked to see just a little more closure on the clone issue, if only so it didn't seem like an obvious cliffhanger to entice readers to get the sequel.
Like I said earlier, this novel had a lot of things that I've wanted to see in a "Star Wars" book for quite a while. For starters, none of the "big" characters are really present here: Luke, Han, Leia, their offspring, or the others that tend to dominate other works are largely absent. It's very refreshing to read about some new characters, figures whose fates we don't know and who could be killed off at any point. It adds a level of suspense to the story that has been missing from others.
Second, there are some rather uncommon species featured in "Crosscurrent." Marr, for example, is a Cerean; Saes is Kaleesh; Drev, Relin's Padawan, is Askajian; and Kell, as mentioned before, is an Anzat. I honestly had no idea what some of these species even looked like, which in this case was a good thing! I feel that many "Star Wars" novels are saturated with humans; I mean, we're made to believe that the Galaxy Far Far Away is rather large, yet we always see main characters who are largely human. Alternatively, readers are often treated to the same tired group of aliens if the author decides to variate from using human characters; Twi'leks, Gamorreans, Bothans, Zabraks, Yuzhaan Vong, and Chiss (to name a few) represent most of the alien species protrayed in many books. As a fan that loves learning about the varied world of "Star Wars," I loved that Kemp decided to use some of the more unconventional species, giving the novel a unique flair and ample variety between characters.
Third, and this is largely personal and may turn some away from the book, there's no romance. While I'm certainly not adverse to a well-written romance and honestly love some of the EU's couples (Han and Leia have one of the best relationships I've read, in my opinion), it's sometimes nice to read a novel that doesn't feel the need to force a romance into the story just for the sake of it. The focus here is clearly on the characters, action, and story. Kemp knew where his writing strengths were and used them to craft the story he wanted, rather than forcing in unnecessary side plots because it's expected in such novels. It made the book stand out in a positive way!
However, while there were a lot of things that I liked about the novel, there were also quite a few elements that I thought were rather silly. For starters, the time travel aspect wasn't very believable. It honestly just doesn't seem like a concept that fits into the "Star Wars" lore at all, and it felt like the author struggled to force the circumstances that led to it...simply put, I didn't really buy it. There are also issues regarding time travel that weren't touched on at all. Wouldn't the galaxy's history be altered once the Sith ship jumped into hyperspace and into the future? Jaden and friends discuss with Relin how history played out after the Great Hyperspace War, but it seems like things would have changed after the time travelling event. Also, Relin is able to communicate with the people of the "modern" era with no language barriers; given how many years are between them, there likely should have been some differences in language. There are some rather humourous observations regarding how outdated Relin's lightsaber and other gear is, but that seems to be the extent of it. If time travel is going to be a part of the book, the ramifications of it should also be addressed.
The lignan ore being a substance that enhances the power of Dark Side users as well as giving those in the middle that slight push needed to fall to the Dark Side is very convenient for the plot. I'm personally not a fan of items that hold such great power and find them to be very unbelievable; if something like this existed in the quantities that are suggested in the book, the whole galaxy would have fallen to the Dark Side long ago. It plays its part in the story, and I hope it ends here.
Finally, the clones are the product of combining Jedi and Sith DNA. I haven't read much "Star Wars" in the past couple years, so it's possible that I'm not as sharp on how the Force works as I once was, but I was thoroughly confused by this concept. Unless Kemp was referring to the Sith species rather than the Force users, I don't see how this would be possible. A running theme of the "Star Wars" franchise is choosing one's own destiny, rather than one's fate being a product of their genetic origin. How would Jedi and Sith DNA really be that different? I wasn't really fond of the clones period, largely because the concept of their creation just didn't work for me.
That being said, however, the scenes depicting Jaden exploring the old facility are great. The imagery was delightfully chilling and I found myself glued to the pages, wanting to know just what had happened to cause so much carnage. Kemp really succeeded in creating a dark, creepy atmosphere to accompany the big revelation of the novel.
The characters presented here are pretty varied; both in their species, character and how well they are portrayed. Jaden Korr is interesting enough as the protagonist. As I mentioned earlier, he's a little-known character thus far, so his fate is always in question, which makes for a much more exciting reading experience. He finds himself doubting his beliefs about the Force when he receives his vision and remains focused on his mission. He has to reconcile what he discovers along the way and seems to have grown by the end of the story by agreeing to train Marr and realizing that his constant doubt is a part of him that he should embrace and understand.
Khedryn and Marr seem to be the typical scoundrel and sidekick characters on the surface, but there's more to them than meets the eye. Khedryn was born in the remains of the Outbound Flight Project and had been rescued by Luke and Mara at a young age. He doesn't like droids and has a unique perspective on the Jedi. Marr is extremely talented with math and calculations and makes a perfect first mate aboard "Junker." He discovers that his mathematical talents are a product of his Force sensitivity and endeavors to learn more about the Force, eventually asking Jaden to train him. Both are interesting characters that go beyond their seeming archetypal roles.
Relin demonstrates how a Jedi Master can quickly fall to the Dark Side. He's probably one of the best characters of the book. He lets his initial mission of disabling Saes' ship and preventing the lignan ore from being delivered quickly becomes a quest of revenge against his fallen former Padawan. He's never in denial about his own fall and seems to acknowledge it as necessary. While his use of the lignan ore to fuel his own use of the Dark Side is perhaps a little too convenient, it solidifies his fall and achieves his goal. Relin is a great character who gives us some interesting insight into how quickly a character can descend into darkness.
Saes is probably the weakest character of the lot. As a villain, he's completely unremarkable. He's quite cliché, focusing only on, well, being evil. Honestly, there isn't much to say about him as a character because we don't see too much of him, and when we do, he's largely forgettable.
Kell provides a unique perspective simply due to being an Anzat and seeing things little differently. Although I personally squirmed a bit every time he referred to brain matter as "soup," it was refreshing to get a slightly different view of events and the insight to a mind that functions differently from the other characters'.
Overall, I enjoyed "Crosscurrent" as something a little different. The story is fast paced and exciting with very little filler or unnecessary divergence. The author included several things that I've very much wanted to see in a "Star Wars" novel, and he did it well. A majority of the characters are also well-written and offered various insights and perspectives. While characters seem to fit whatever is expected from their role, most go above and beyond to create an interesting narrative. However, some of the story's key concepts are just too silly or out there to really believe. As a villain, Saes is predictable and frankly forgettable because of it. There's also an issue with the story not really being complete, but I suppose it was intended that way to make the second book seem more enticing. Despite the book's problems, I give it 3 and a half stars, rounded down to 3 because the good and bad aspects of the novel are pretty balanced, making for a slightly above average book.
This review is also posted on Amazon.com.
The novel takes place just before the end of the Civil War. Conflicted Jedi Knight Jaden Korr receives a vision from the Force that he feels he must follow. Without telling the Order, Jaden sets out to the planet in his dreams, not knowing what awaits him on the distant frozen moon. He recruits the help of junkers Khedryn and Marr, who are reluctant to help but, as any good scoundrel in the SW universe, are willing to do so for a price.
At the same time, a battle is being fought five thousand years in the past. Jedi Master Relin is on a mission to confront his fallen Padawan, Saes. Saes is commanding a ship with a very precious cargo: Lignan - an ore that enhances the power of the Sith. Relin's mission is to stop his former apprentice from delivering this crucial material to the Sith, and hopefully gain some closure to where he went wrong with Saes. The Jedi Master manages to get onboard the ship and damage the hyperdrive chamber, but not in time to prevent the vessel from entering hyperspace. As a result, the ship and its occupants find themselves flung several thousands of years into the future.
Relin escapes the Sith ship and finds himself rescued by Jaden and his companions. After hearing his explanation, the trio agrees that the ship and its cargo must be destroyed. Marr assists Relin in bringing down the ancient vessel, while Khedryn and Jaden continue to the planet of Jaden's vision.
The third story line, much smaller than the first two, is that of Kell, an Anzat sent by the One Sith to discover the secrets of the frozen moon. On the way, he discovers Jaden and follows him, deciding that feasting upon the Jedi's "soup" for enlightenment is perhaps more important than his assigned task.
With Marr's help, Relin destroys the Sith ship, but loses himself in the process. His desire to gain revenge for Saes' turning to the Dark Side forces him away from the path of a Jedi; embracing what he has become, he uses to Lignan to give augment his power enough to kill Saes and bring down the ship. Marr barely manages to flee, wounded, but with new knowledge of his recently discovered Force sensitivity.
On the frozen moon, Jaden and Khedryn discover an abandoned Imperial-era research centre, where scientists created experimental clones by combining Sith and Jedi DNA. The place isn't as empty as it would seem, however, as the pair quickly realizes that the clones, mentally unstable and insanely powerful, escaped imprisonment and slaughtered the researchers, trashing the facility and effectively cutting themselves off from the galaxy. Jaden finds himself facing one of the clones, a battle he nearly loses, and then Kell. After defeating their enemies, Khedryn and Jaden prepare to head back to their ship, only to be faced with a new problem: the remaining clones have taken the anzat's ship and left the moon, posing a great threat to the rest of the galaxy.
The novel closes with Jaden offering to take Marr as his apprentice and the trio enjoying a moment of celebration before their starting the inevitable task of tracking down the clones.
Overall, the story is very exciting with few slow moments; there is almost always something important going on, and I have to give Kemp some credit for not including a lot of fluff to simply pad out the length of the book. The first few chapters of the novel switch from the present to the past before the Sith ship is brought to the present day; this is an effective way of building suspense and, at least in my opinion, wasn't confusing to follow at all. The story flies by pretty quickly and smoothly.
My major complaint with the plot itself, however, is that it isn't really completed in this book. One of the major goals of the characters is to uncover whatever secrets Fhost holds, and they do...but then the book simply ends. Finding the clones is a pretty big discovery, but then they get away and it becomes apparent that the clones are more of a setup for a sequel. The readers don't even see much of the clones aside from the one Jaden fights. I don't have a problem with some things being unresolved for coverage in a future book, but this was a bit of a letdown. The other storylines tie up rather nicely, and I'd have liked to see just a little more closure on the clone issue, if only so it didn't seem like an obvious cliffhanger to entice readers to get the sequel.
Like I said earlier, this novel had a lot of things that I've wanted to see in a "Star Wars" book for quite a while. For starters, none of the "big" characters are really present here: Luke, Han, Leia, their offspring, or the others that tend to dominate other works are largely absent. It's very refreshing to read about some new characters, figures whose fates we don't know and who could be killed off at any point. It adds a level of suspense to the story that has been missing from others.
Second, there are some rather uncommon species featured in "Crosscurrent." Marr, for example, is a Cerean; Saes is Kaleesh; Drev, Relin's Padawan, is Askajian; and Kell, as mentioned before, is an Anzat. I honestly had no idea what some of these species even looked like, which in this case was a good thing! I feel that many "Star Wars" novels are saturated with humans; I mean, we're made to believe that the Galaxy Far Far Away is rather large, yet we always see main characters who are largely human. Alternatively, readers are often treated to the same tired group of aliens if the author decides to variate from using human characters; Twi'leks, Gamorreans, Bothans, Zabraks, Yuzhaan Vong, and Chiss (to name a few) represent most of the alien species protrayed in many books. As a fan that loves learning about the varied world of "Star Wars," I loved that Kemp decided to use some of the more unconventional species, giving the novel a unique flair and ample variety between characters.
Third, and this is largely personal and may turn some away from the book, there's no romance. While I'm certainly not adverse to a well-written romance and honestly love some of the EU's couples (Han and Leia have one of the best relationships I've read, in my opinion), it's sometimes nice to read a novel that doesn't feel the need to force a romance into the story just for the sake of it. The focus here is clearly on the characters, action, and story. Kemp knew where his writing strengths were and used them to craft the story he wanted, rather than forcing in unnecessary side plots because it's expected in such novels. It made the book stand out in a positive way!
However, while there were a lot of things that I liked about the novel, there were also quite a few elements that I thought were rather silly. For starters, the time travel aspect wasn't very believable. It honestly just doesn't seem like a concept that fits into the "Star Wars" lore at all, and it felt like the author struggled to force the circumstances that led to it...simply put, I didn't really buy it. There are also issues regarding time travel that weren't touched on at all. Wouldn't the galaxy's history be altered once the Sith ship jumped into hyperspace and into the future? Jaden and friends discuss with Relin how history played out after the Great Hyperspace War, but it seems like things would have changed after the time travelling event. Also, Relin is able to communicate with the people of the "modern" era with no language barriers; given how many years are between them, there likely should have been some differences in language. There are some rather humourous observations regarding how outdated Relin's lightsaber and other gear is, but that seems to be the extent of it. If time travel is going to be a part of the book, the ramifications of it should also be addressed.
The lignan ore being a substance that enhances the power of Dark Side users as well as giving those in the middle that slight push needed to fall to the Dark Side is very convenient for the plot. I'm personally not a fan of items that hold such great power and find them to be very unbelievable; if something like this existed in the quantities that are suggested in the book, the whole galaxy would have fallen to the Dark Side long ago. It plays its part in the story, and I hope it ends here.
Finally, the clones are the product of combining Jedi and Sith DNA. I haven't read much "Star Wars" in the past couple years, so it's possible that I'm not as sharp on how the Force works as I once was, but I was thoroughly confused by this concept. Unless Kemp was referring to the Sith species rather than the Force users, I don't see how this would be possible. A running theme of the "Star Wars" franchise is choosing one's own destiny, rather than one's fate being a product of their genetic origin. How would Jedi and Sith DNA really be that different? I wasn't really fond of the clones period, largely because the concept of their creation just didn't work for me.
That being said, however, the scenes depicting Jaden exploring the old facility are great. The imagery was delightfully chilling and I found myself glued to the pages, wanting to know just what had happened to cause so much carnage. Kemp really succeeded in creating a dark, creepy atmosphere to accompany the big revelation of the novel.
The characters presented here are pretty varied; both in their species, character and how well they are portrayed. Jaden Korr is interesting enough as the protagonist. As I mentioned earlier, he's a little-known character thus far, so his fate is always in question, which makes for a much more exciting reading experience. He finds himself doubting his beliefs about the Force when he receives his vision and remains focused on his mission. He has to reconcile what he discovers along the way and seems to have grown by the end of the story by agreeing to train Marr and realizing that his constant doubt is a part of him that he should embrace and understand.
Khedryn and Marr seem to be the typical scoundrel and sidekick characters on the surface, but there's more to them than meets the eye. Khedryn was born in the remains of the Outbound Flight Project and had been rescued by Luke and Mara at a young age. He doesn't like droids and has a unique perspective on the Jedi. Marr is extremely talented with math and calculations and makes a perfect first mate aboard "Junker." He discovers that his mathematical talents are a product of his Force sensitivity and endeavors to learn more about the Force, eventually asking Jaden to train him. Both are interesting characters that go beyond their seeming archetypal roles.
Relin demonstrates how a Jedi Master can quickly fall to the Dark Side. He's probably one of the best characters of the book. He lets his initial mission of disabling Saes' ship and preventing the lignan ore from being delivered quickly becomes a quest of revenge against his fallen former Padawan. He's never in denial about his own fall and seems to acknowledge it as necessary. While his use of the lignan ore to fuel his own use of the Dark Side is perhaps a little too convenient, it solidifies his fall and achieves his goal. Relin is a great character who gives us some interesting insight into how quickly a character can descend into darkness.
Saes is probably the weakest character of the lot. As a villain, he's completely unremarkable. He's quite cliché, focusing only on, well, being evil. Honestly, there isn't much to say about him as a character because we don't see too much of him, and when we do, he's largely forgettable.
Kell provides a unique perspective simply due to being an Anzat and seeing things little differently. Although I personally squirmed a bit every time he referred to brain matter as "soup," it was refreshing to get a slightly different view of events and the insight to a mind that functions differently from the other characters'.
Overall, I enjoyed "Crosscurrent" as something a little different. The story is fast paced and exciting with very little filler or unnecessary divergence. The author included several things that I've very much wanted to see in a "Star Wars" novel, and he did it well. A majority of the characters are also well-written and offered various insights and perspectives. While characters seem to fit whatever is expected from their role, most go above and beyond to create an interesting narrative. However, some of the story's key concepts are just too silly or out there to really believe. As a villain, Saes is predictable and frankly forgettable because of it. There's also an issue with the story not really being complete, but I suppose it was intended that way to make the second book seem more enticing. Despite the book's problems, I give it 3 and a half stars, rounded down to 3 because the good and bad aspects of the novel are pretty balanced, making for a slightly above average book.
This review is also posted on Amazon.com.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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