What do you think?
Rate this book
Star Wars: The Black Fleet Crisis #2
Star Wars: Shield of Lies
As Leia must deal with a new threat to the fragile alliance that binds the New Republic, Lando becomes a prisoner aboard a runaway spacecraft of unknown origin. The ship is following an unstoppable path to its homeworld, destroyed by Imperial forces. Luke continues his quest to learn more about his mother among the Fallanassi, where his every belief about the use of the Force is about to be challenged. And while Leia ponders a diplomatic solution to the aggression of the fierce Yevetha race, Han pilots a spy ship into the heart of Yevethan space and finds himself a hostage on one of the vast fleet of warships under the command of a ruthless leader.
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!
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!
338 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1996
102 people are currently reading
2109 people want to read
About the author
Michael P. Kube-McDowell
52 books58 followersMichael Paul Kube-McDowell's earliest science fiction stories began appearing in magazines such as Amazing, Asimov's, and Analog in 1979. His 1985 debut novel Emprise, the first volume of the Trigon Disunity future history, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. The Quiet Pools, published as a Bantam hardcover in 1990, was a Hugo Award nominee.
In addition to his solo novels, Kube-McDowell has collaborated with Sir Arthur C. Clarke (The Trigger) and Isaac Asimov (for the YA series Robot City. He also wrote the popular Black Fleet Crisis trilogy for the Star Wars Expanded Universe; all three volumes were New York Times bestsellers.
A former middle school science teacher, Kube-McDowell has written about science and technology for a variety of periodicals, on topics ranging from gnotobiology to ultralights to spaceflight. He covered the launch of STS-4 for The South Bend Tribune.
Kube-McDowell has attended more than 80 SF fan conventions, and met his wife Gwen (then an artist) in a con huckster room. They both were later members of the Pegasus Award-winning electric filk ensemble The Black Book Band, which performed at cons in the Midwest in the 1990s and released the live album First Contact (Dodeka Records).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
June 13, 2014
I wish it had been all a dream too, Luke...
The second book in the Black Fleet Crisis series opens with Lando, Lobot, C-3PO, and R2-D2 as they are stuck inside the Vagabond investigating. Luke is off with Akanah as she continues to search for her people, the Fallanassi, and Leia's tenure as president is on rocky ground as the conflict with the Yevetha increases.
I Liked:
Lando's story, while extraneous, was mildly interesting. Furthermore, it was cool to see Lobot.
The real highlight here is Leia's story. I wasn't so fond of it in Before the Storm, but here, it is much, much better. I really found myself liking it at the odd part where Leia is signing a bunch of planets into the New Republic. Yeah, I know, weird, but somehow, this was interesting to me. I think MKM has done a fairly good job building this plot thread and giving it decent treatment.
The characters aren't even too bad, namely Leia and Lando. Leia finally sees what an idiot she was and really has to make up for being so oblivious. And Lando, while nothing to write home to, was certainly not painful to read.
I Didn't Like:
Let me first pause and say, "Where did Han and Chewie go?" Why are we focusing on Lando and his Story That Goes Nowhere and totally neglect Chewie, who has taken the Falcon back to his homeworld? Why not also focus on Chewie? Or what about Han? Surprisingly, he becomes a plot point, very rare for a male, only existing to tie up the loose ends (who is taking care of the kids? Who does Leia trust enough to do her military work?). And perhaps this is the fault of the abridged audiobook, but I still have no clue how he got captured.
By far the worst character remains Luke. While he does attempt to pull his head out of his rear, he continues to let himself get whipped around by moody Akanah. Instead of growing a pair and making her tell him the truth, he lets himself be bullied, pushed around, and shut up as if he has no voice. And how is this guy the head of a new Jedi Order???
But that is far from all. Akanah is even more intolerable here. She demands trust and the truth from Luke but never once gives it. Like the saying goes, in order to earn respect/trust, you need to give it. Plus, every other scene, she is bawling, crying, whining, getting angry, and huffing about something. I wanted to slap her around or throw her out of the ship!
And again, why, when Leia and the rest of the galaxy are going through a crisis, is Luke conveniently absent? This doesn't jive at all with his earlier incarnations! And you can't use the excuse he doesn't know, because halfway through his section, he finds out!
Speaking of which...MKM decided in this book that the stories weren't disconnected enough and split them into three separate sections. On one hand, it makes skipping Luke's section a lot easier. On the other, that means you get stuck reading about any one character and no idea what is happening in another character's time line. Also, it just makes it glaringly obvious that the sections have nothing to do with each other.
Again, Lando's story seems disconnected and leaves me wondering why we spend so long in the beginning learning about this weird ship. Why is it so important?
As for Leia's story, much better, but still, if she hadn't been a dip-head last book, perhaps this book would have turned out differently.
Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
Perhaps a spattering of d*** and h***.
Luke and Akanah travel the galaxy together. Akanah has a father who apparently isn't married to her mother (or isn't anymore?). It's not obvious.
The Yevetha take over planets and commit genocide.
Overall:
Oddly enough, this book is better than the last. However, considering how bad the last one is, that isn't saying much. And still, there are enough "Huh?" moments that continue to befuddle me. Why doesn't Luke try to help Leia? Why does Luke believe his mother is a Fallanassi? Why does Akanah need Luke so badly (seems she is doing an okay job investigating herself)? Why does Luke trust Akanah? What is this White Current and is it related to the Force or not? Where is Chewie? Why hasn't he returned to help Leia? Why didn't Leia just listen to her advisers and avoid this whole mess? What about Han? How the heck did he get captured so easily? Why is Lando's mission even in here, other than to give him something to do?
So, the sagging middle book retains its one star rating, and I wonder how MKM will wrap this trilogy up.
The second book in the Black Fleet Crisis series opens with Lando, Lobot, C-3PO, and R2-D2 as they are stuck inside the Vagabond investigating. Luke is off with Akanah as she continues to search for her people, the Fallanassi, and Leia's tenure as president is on rocky ground as the conflict with the Yevetha increases.
I Liked:
Lando's story, while extraneous, was mildly interesting. Furthermore, it was cool to see Lobot.
The real highlight here is Leia's story. I wasn't so fond of it in Before the Storm, but here, it is much, much better. I really found myself liking it at the odd part where Leia is signing a bunch of planets into the New Republic. Yeah, I know, weird, but somehow, this was interesting to me. I think MKM has done a fairly good job building this plot thread and giving it decent treatment.
The characters aren't even too bad, namely Leia and Lando. Leia finally sees what an idiot she was and really has to make up for being so oblivious. And Lando, while nothing to write home to, was certainly not painful to read.
I Didn't Like:
Let me first pause and say, "Where did Han and Chewie go?" Why are we focusing on Lando and his Story That Goes Nowhere and totally neglect Chewie, who has taken the Falcon back to his homeworld? Why not also focus on Chewie? Or what about Han? Surprisingly, he becomes a plot point, very rare for a male, only existing to tie up the loose ends (who is taking care of the kids? Who does Leia trust enough to do her military work?). And perhaps this is the fault of the abridged audiobook, but I still have no clue how he got captured.
By far the worst character remains Luke. While he does attempt to pull his head out of his rear, he continues to let himself get whipped around by moody Akanah. Instead of growing a pair and making her tell him the truth, he lets himself be bullied, pushed around, and shut up as if he has no voice. And how is this guy the head of a new Jedi Order???
But that is far from all. Akanah is even more intolerable here. She demands trust and the truth from Luke but never once gives it. Like the saying goes, in order to earn respect/trust, you need to give it. Plus, every other scene, she is bawling, crying, whining, getting angry, and huffing about something. I wanted to slap her around or throw her out of the ship!
And again, why, when Leia and the rest of the galaxy are going through a crisis, is Luke conveniently absent? This doesn't jive at all with his earlier incarnations! And you can't use the excuse he doesn't know, because halfway through his section, he finds out!
Speaking of which...MKM decided in this book that the stories weren't disconnected enough and split them into three separate sections. On one hand, it makes skipping Luke's section a lot easier. On the other, that means you get stuck reading about any one character and no idea what is happening in another character's time line. Also, it just makes it glaringly obvious that the sections have nothing to do with each other.
Again, Lando's story seems disconnected and leaves me wondering why we spend so long in the beginning learning about this weird ship. Why is it so important?
As for Leia's story, much better, but still, if she hadn't been a dip-head last book, perhaps this book would have turned out differently.
Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
Perhaps a spattering of d*** and h***.
Luke and Akanah travel the galaxy together. Akanah has a father who apparently isn't married to her mother (or isn't anymore?). It's not obvious.
The Yevetha take over planets and commit genocide.
Overall:
Oddly enough, this book is better than the last. However, considering how bad the last one is, that isn't saying much. And still, there are enough "Huh?" moments that continue to befuddle me. Why doesn't Luke try to help Leia? Why does Luke believe his mother is a Fallanassi? Why does Akanah need Luke so badly (seems she is doing an okay job investigating herself)? Why does Luke trust Akanah? What is this White Current and is it related to the Force or not? Where is Chewie? Why hasn't he returned to help Leia? Why didn't Leia just listen to her advisers and avoid this whole mess? What about Han? How the heck did he get captured so easily? Why is Lando's mission even in here, other than to give him something to do?
So, the sagging middle book retains its one star rating, and I wonder how MKM will wrap this trilogy up.
May 15, 2024
3.5
Trochę lepiej niż poprzednia, szczególnie końcówka. Ale Threepieo i Artoo nie zachowywali się jak oni. Lando też nie. I jeszcze parę osób.
I kultura Yevethów jest jakaś taka odrzucająca
Trochę lepiej niż poprzednia, szczególnie końcówka. Ale Threepieo i Artoo nie zachowywali się jak oni. Lando też nie. I jeszcze parę osób.
I kultura Yevethów jest jakaś taka odrzucająca
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 24, 2017
I don't know what the other reviewers are thinking, this is one of the best trilogies in the entire series. A major complaint seems to be that these books are "all talk and no action," well my little friends, I am sorry that your limited intellect cannot stand plot development and intricate story lines. Unlike a LOT of sci-fi books out there, the Star Wars books actually try to have a story, and a MEANINGFUL, LASTING story at that. Not just blazing light saber/death star/dog fight battles. If you don't have the intellectual capacity to enjoy a good story with good plot lines, that is well written and that explores more than just shooting at people, then I recommend something along the lines of "Pokémon" that would seem to fit with your age group. CHEERS!
July 8, 2025
"Shield of Lies", Book 2 in Michael P. Kube-McDowell's Black Fleet Crisis series is just as exciting and pulpily fun as one would hope to get from a Star Wars novel.
In this one, President of the New Republic, Leia Organa Solo, is being faced with impeachment. On top of that, her husband, Han, who led a failed mission to confront the Yevethans, has been taken as a prisoner of war. The isolationist Senate does not want the New Republican naval fleet to engage itself in another intergalactic war. After all, it has only been 12 years since the Rebel Alliance defeated the Empire at the Battle of Endor. (Refer to "Return of the Jedi".)
Meanwhile, Luke is being led around the universe by a mysterious woman named Akanah, who claims to know where Luke's real mother is hiding, assuming she is alive. Luke is beginning to suspect that not everything is quite kosher with this woman.
Also meanwhile, Lando, Threepio, and Artoo are still stuck on the vagabond ship with no way of contacting anyone. The ship, which is an organic "living" ship, seems to have taken a liking to its new inhabitants and is ultra-protective. On to book three!
In this one, President of the New Republic, Leia Organa Solo, is being faced with impeachment. On top of that, her husband, Han, who led a failed mission to confront the Yevethans, has been taken as a prisoner of war. The isolationist Senate does not want the New Republican naval fleet to engage itself in another intergalactic war. After all, it has only been 12 years since the Rebel Alliance defeated the Empire at the Battle of Endor. (Refer to "Return of the Jedi".)
Meanwhile, Luke is being led around the universe by a mysterious woman named Akanah, who claims to know where Luke's real mother is hiding, assuming she is alive. Luke is beginning to suspect that not everything is quite kosher with this woman.
Also meanwhile, Lando, Threepio, and Artoo are still stuck on the vagabond ship with no way of contacting anyone. The ship, which is an organic "living" ship, seems to have taken a liking to its new inhabitants and is ultra-protective. On to book three!
January 8, 2025
This was definitely an improvement over its predecessor, but also still very weird.
The biggest weird thing about this book is that it is essentially three novellas by different POV characters bound into one cover. This is a different take for a Star Wars novel (and not one the same author takes in the first or third book in this series). While on the one hand, it is nice to not have to flip back and forth between narratives and get a semi conclusive ending on a storyline all at once, it felt out of place for the overall universe.
The Lando starting novella was quite a slog to get through and I was frustrated to get no follow up on Chewy/the Falcon in this who’s book.
The characters read a little more true-to-character in this book than the previous which made relating to them a little easier. I also feel as though there was greater description provided to enjoy the whole narrative.
This series aims to be one of the least actiony series in the overall legends canon but one that is still rife with political intrigue to keep you awake. This book gives me hope that the third won’t be a complete dud and keep this series ranked higher than the Callista Trilogy.
The biggest weird thing about this book is that it is essentially three novellas by different POV characters bound into one cover. This is a different take for a Star Wars novel (and not one the same author takes in the first or third book in this series). While on the one hand, it is nice to not have to flip back and forth between narratives and get a semi conclusive ending on a storyline all at once, it felt out of place for the overall universe.
The Lando starting novella was quite a slog to get through and I was frustrated to get no follow up on Chewy/the Falcon in this who’s book.
The characters read a little more true-to-character in this book than the previous which made relating to them a little easier. I also feel as though there was greater description provided to enjoy the whole narrative.
This series aims to be one of the least actiony series in the overall legends canon but one that is still rife with political intrigue to keep you awake. This book gives me hope that the third won’t be a complete dud and keep this series ranked higher than the Callista Trilogy.
May 29, 2021
A game of thirds...which I liked, as it concentrated the 3 plots strands into stand alone sections that didn't require any back and forth. That said, the opening third featuring Lando & the droids was the least interesting part of the story...it rather bored me. However, the middle third involving Luke's continued search for his mother was by far the most interesting and compelling section. The final third, involving Leia and Han, occasionally dragged with the bureaucratic arguments, but was redeemed by the excellent character work...especially with the awesome Admiral Ackbar. A mixed bag, but still much to enjoy.
Want to read
September 28, 2018Leia is extremely weak and irritating in this series. While I'm enjoying the overall story, I'd appreciate it more if Kube-McDowell knew how to write women well.
September 5, 2020
Another DNF for me at 35%. It's just not interesting to me at all. To compensate, I'm bumping up my reading goal by one.
August 6, 2019
Didnt care too much for the part with Luke involving his mother. All of that is completely irrelevant since the prequels are out. Plus it wasn't written very well. His mother before the prequels came out was Narisha. Just didnt care for that part. The rest of the novel was good.
July 26, 2020
For 2020, I decided to reread (in publication order) all the Bantam-era Star Wars books that were released between 1991 and 1999; that shakes out to 38 adult novels and 5 anthologies of short stories & novellas.
This week’s focus: the second book in the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, Shield of Lies by Michael P. Kube-McDowell.
SOME HISTORY:
In his Black Fleet Crisis FAQs, McDowell says that when writing the trilogy, he thought of his audience as “readers who were 18 or so when the Star Wars films first came out, and who're now the age that the main characters are in the Black Fleet trilogy -- that is, readers in their 30s and 40s.” Bantam released all the adult Star Wars books, but McDowell’s books stand alone among the 90s era material, in that they are aimed at a more mature audience. (And I’m not just talking about the probable prostitutes at the Jabba’s Palace-themed nightclub!) Shield of Lies made it to number ten on the New York Times paperback bestseller list for the week of September 1, 1996, and was on the NYT list for three weeks.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I didn’t remember any of this. I know that I read the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy before, but none of this felt familiar.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
As Leia deals with a new threat to the fragile alliance that binds the New Republic, Lando becomes trapped aboard the Qella spaceship, and Luke continues his quest to learn more about his mother among the Fallanassi.
Since the narrative is so disconnected in this one (Lando gets four chapters, Luke gets five, and Leia gets six), I thought I’d take things section by section.
LANDO:
I’m enjoying Lando’s adventure, but it continues to feel superfluous to the main plotline. It also felt drawn out—did we really need four chapters to cover what happened? Lando and co. moved from the airlock into a passageway; realize that they’re in the weapon’s superconduit network; they move into a more habitable part of the ship that seems like a museum; they’re attacked by an Imperial patrol frigate in the Deep Core; the Teljkon Vagabond destroys the Imperial ship. While the Black Fleet Crisis events affect the NR Intelligence ships assigned to the expedition (they’re recalled to the Koornacht Cluster, except for Colonel Pakkpekatt), Lando and Lobot remain outside of the loop on current events.
I like both the rapport and the conflict between Lando’s team, though. Lando’s rather outnumbered here: Artoo and Threepio are governed entirely by logic, and even Lobot skews more more to the mechanical logic side thanks to his cybernetic implants. Lando’s also the leader, which means he’s partially to blame when things go wrong. But they still work well together, and these have been rare books in that Lando’s intuition and intelligence are really allowed to shine. Lobot, too, is developing into an interesting character. I think this would have made a great standalone adventure story, in the vein of the The Adventures of Lando Calrissian or the newer Star Wars: Lando comic, especially since this is so divorced from the main plot.
LUKE:
Some progress on the Luke front: at least he looked into Akanah’s background! But similarly to Lando’s subplot, there’s not a lot of progress here. Luke and Akanah head to Teyr and Atzerri, only for Akanah to finally reveal that they're bound for J’t’p’tan. (Which is suspiciously close to the Koornacht Cluster, so presumably Luke will become involved in that plotline in book 3.)
What frustrates me, though, is how much is left unexplained to the reader. Akanah is very reluctant to tell Luke where they’re going, says she’ll teach him about the White Current but then constantly puts him off, and outright lies about the purpose behind their trip to Atzerri. Luke doesn’t really push back against this. The Fallanassi are intriguing to me, but we get so little insight into their history and practices that I’m starting to lose interest.
Luke’s voice sounds off in these chapters. There’s not one particular thing I can pinpoint that McDowell misses, just that his attitude and snappy comebacks felt closer to Han than to the Luke we know and love. There was also a strange interlude on Atzerri where Luke passed the time by buying “secret Jedi texts” from a trader, and then hung out in a club that recreates Jabba’s Palace.
We also see a return to Luke’s Force illusion skill. There are some rules this time: he can only do it while he’s conscious, so he can’t sleep and sustain it. I guess I’m not sure why an illusion is worth all the effort, when he can’t change his voice as well. Wouldn’t that be a giveaway? (Plus, the Legends material have other Force abilities that I like better, like Force stealth or Force cloak.
Things I did like: Akanah questioned why Luke decided that the men on Lucazec were Imperials, when it’s far more likely that they were NR Intelligence (thank you!!). Luke knows exactly how many people died on the first Death Star, feels responsible for their deaths, but also feels that it was still necessary. You need both clearance to lift to orbit and to pass through Coruscant’s planetary shield--further reinforcing why parts of Shadows of the Empire confused me.
LEIA:
I found Leia vastly improved from book 1. Her crisis of conscience is over, and she’s no longer letting people walk all over her. I particularly enjoyed the scene where she sat down with a witness and approved all the worlds from the Farlax Sector that had petitioned for NR membership. And when the young man from Polneye is rejected from the New Republic Navy because his planet isn’t affiliated with them, Leia turns around and approves his petition as well.
McDowell also has some really fascinating worldbuilding about the NR bureaucracy, which doesn’t get utilized much by later writers. We have a Speaker, rather like the US Speaker of the House; we have different Councils and Committees and Cabinets; we even have senators questioning the legitimacy of Leia’s appointment because the Alderaanian remnant is only 60,000 people without a planet. We also see how slooow the New Republic has become. At the start of Leia’s section, it’s been 16 days since the Yevethan Purge, but the NR still isn’t any closer to deciding how they’ll proceed. In moving from the Provisional Council to the New Republic Senate, powers and duties have been shifted around so that they can’t respond instantaneously like they could in the days of the Rebellion. With legitimacy comes checks and balances.
If Leia is (figuratively) kicking butt and taking names, Han is remarkably inactive here. He’s almost fulfilling the girlfriend role here: babysitting, talking Leia into a vacation weekend, and finally ordered by Leia to take command (again) of the Fifth Fleet. Except he never makes it there, but is instead captured by the Duskhan League. Going into book 3, Han seems remarkably like a damsel in distress.
OVERALL ISSUES:
I really wish that McDowell had chosen to structure the novel differently. With Lando, Luke, and Leia’s plotlines separated into their own distinct section, it’s difficult to see how everything relates and how the timeline functions. Lando hasn’t been on the Vagabond very long, and is facing the threat of his supplies (air, water) running out. Meanwhile, it takes Luke and Akanah days to clear each planet’s Flight Control Zone, so their journey seems considerably more leisurely. And the conflict with the Duskhan League doesn’t start to really ramp up until weeks after the Yevethan Purge, which happened in the last third of Before the Storm. I would love it if there was a timeline that showed who was where and when. (Does this exist? Maybe I should google this.)
I’m having some trouble understanding the Yevetha here. It mostly comes down to their biology and culture, I guess? I feel like the Imperial officer that Leia questioned: “blood, loads of blood, and they just murder everyone.” I think part of this is due to secrecy surrounding their species in book 1; Nil Spaar doesn’t want the New Republic to learn anything about them. But they’re...reptiles, maybe? Higher status males are constantly killing lesser males? They have breeding females?? Blood fertilizes their eggs??? (So confused.)
Perhaps because I’ve been recently reading nonfiction about World War II, but the Yevetha struck me as being similar to the American perspective of the Japanese during that time: xenophobic, racist, hugely violent, undertaking a huge colonial expansion, and very technologically adept. They seem irredeemably evil. Usually, Star Wars has some bad guys that are understandable, or have been forced into siding with someone they otherwise wouldn’t, but the Yevetha almost remind me of terrorists from a Tom Clancy novel. You can’t reason with them, and they’re so incredibly violent and closed-minded that complete annihilation seems the only option here. I never want to root for that.
IN CONCLUSION:
I would say that Shield of Lies was an improvement over the first book, were it not for the fractured, disconnected structure. Why didn’t McDowell structure things like Before the Storm, where the three plotlines were interwoven with each other? As it stands, we have Luke’s pointless mother quest bookended by an interesting but superfluous bit with Lando, and then a fascinating Leia section that honestly needed to be longer. Hopefully book three will be a worthwhile payoff.
Next up: the third X-Wing book, The Krytos Trap by Michael A. Stackpole.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/Epm8eTShioU
Black Fleet Crisis FAQs by McDowell: https://web.archive.org/web/200709271...
This week’s focus: the second book in the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, Shield of Lies by Michael P. Kube-McDowell.
SOME HISTORY:
In his Black Fleet Crisis FAQs, McDowell says that when writing the trilogy, he thought of his audience as “readers who were 18 or so when the Star Wars films first came out, and who're now the age that the main characters are in the Black Fleet trilogy -- that is, readers in their 30s and 40s.” Bantam released all the adult Star Wars books, but McDowell’s books stand alone among the 90s era material, in that they are aimed at a more mature audience. (And I’m not just talking about the probable prostitutes at the Jabba’s Palace-themed nightclub!) Shield of Lies made it to number ten on the New York Times paperback bestseller list for the week of September 1, 1996, and was on the NYT list for three weeks.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I didn’t remember any of this. I know that I read the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy before, but none of this felt familiar.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
As Leia deals with a new threat to the fragile alliance that binds the New Republic, Lando becomes trapped aboard the Qella spaceship, and Luke continues his quest to learn more about his mother among the Fallanassi.
Since the narrative is so disconnected in this one (Lando gets four chapters, Luke gets five, and Leia gets six), I thought I’d take things section by section.
LANDO:
I’m enjoying Lando’s adventure, but it continues to feel superfluous to the main plotline. It also felt drawn out—did we really need four chapters to cover what happened? Lando and co. moved from the airlock into a passageway; realize that they’re in the weapon’s superconduit network; they move into a more habitable part of the ship that seems like a museum; they’re attacked by an Imperial patrol frigate in the Deep Core; the Teljkon Vagabond destroys the Imperial ship. While the Black Fleet Crisis events affect the NR Intelligence ships assigned to the expedition (they’re recalled to the Koornacht Cluster, except for Colonel Pakkpekatt), Lando and Lobot remain outside of the loop on current events.
I like both the rapport and the conflict between Lando’s team, though. Lando’s rather outnumbered here: Artoo and Threepio are governed entirely by logic, and even Lobot skews more more to the mechanical logic side thanks to his cybernetic implants. Lando’s also the leader, which means he’s partially to blame when things go wrong. But they still work well together, and these have been rare books in that Lando’s intuition and intelligence are really allowed to shine. Lobot, too, is developing into an interesting character. I think this would have made a great standalone adventure story, in the vein of the The Adventures of Lando Calrissian or the newer Star Wars: Lando comic, especially since this is so divorced from the main plot.
LUKE:
Some progress on the Luke front: at least he looked into Akanah’s background! But similarly to Lando’s subplot, there’s not a lot of progress here. Luke and Akanah head to Teyr and Atzerri, only for Akanah to finally reveal that they're bound for J’t’p’tan. (Which is suspiciously close to the Koornacht Cluster, so presumably Luke will become involved in that plotline in book 3.)
What frustrates me, though, is how much is left unexplained to the reader. Akanah is very reluctant to tell Luke where they’re going, says she’ll teach him about the White Current but then constantly puts him off, and outright lies about the purpose behind their trip to Atzerri. Luke doesn’t really push back against this. The Fallanassi are intriguing to me, but we get so little insight into their history and practices that I’m starting to lose interest.
Luke’s voice sounds off in these chapters. There’s not one particular thing I can pinpoint that McDowell misses, just that his attitude and snappy comebacks felt closer to Han than to the Luke we know and love. There was also a strange interlude on Atzerri where Luke passed the time by buying “secret Jedi texts” from a trader, and then hung out in a club that recreates Jabba’s Palace.
We also see a return to Luke’s Force illusion skill. There are some rules this time: he can only do it while he’s conscious, so he can’t sleep and sustain it. I guess I’m not sure why an illusion is worth all the effort, when he can’t change his voice as well. Wouldn’t that be a giveaway? (Plus, the Legends material have other Force abilities that I like better, like Force stealth or Force cloak.
Things I did like: Akanah questioned why Luke decided that the men on Lucazec were Imperials, when it’s far more likely that they were NR Intelligence (thank you!!). Luke knows exactly how many people died on the first Death Star, feels responsible for their deaths, but also feels that it was still necessary. You need both clearance to lift to orbit and to pass through Coruscant’s planetary shield--further reinforcing why parts of Shadows of the Empire confused me.
LEIA:
I found Leia vastly improved from book 1. Her crisis of conscience is over, and she’s no longer letting people walk all over her. I particularly enjoyed the scene where she sat down with a witness and approved all the worlds from the Farlax Sector that had petitioned for NR membership. And when the young man from Polneye is rejected from the New Republic Navy because his planet isn’t affiliated with them, Leia turns around and approves his petition as well.
McDowell also has some really fascinating worldbuilding about the NR bureaucracy, which doesn’t get utilized much by later writers. We have a Speaker, rather like the US Speaker of the House; we have different Councils and Committees and Cabinets; we even have senators questioning the legitimacy of Leia’s appointment because the Alderaanian remnant is only 60,000 people without a planet. We also see how slooow the New Republic has become. At the start of Leia’s section, it’s been 16 days since the Yevethan Purge, but the NR still isn’t any closer to deciding how they’ll proceed. In moving from the Provisional Council to the New Republic Senate, powers and duties have been shifted around so that they can’t respond instantaneously like they could in the days of the Rebellion. With legitimacy comes checks and balances.
If Leia is (figuratively) kicking butt and taking names, Han is remarkably inactive here. He’s almost fulfilling the girlfriend role here: babysitting, talking Leia into a vacation weekend, and finally ordered by Leia to take command (again) of the Fifth Fleet. Except he never makes it there, but is instead captured by the Duskhan League. Going into book 3, Han seems remarkably like a damsel in distress.
OVERALL ISSUES:
I really wish that McDowell had chosen to structure the novel differently. With Lando, Luke, and Leia’s plotlines separated into their own distinct section, it’s difficult to see how everything relates and how the timeline functions. Lando hasn’t been on the Vagabond very long, and is facing the threat of his supplies (air, water) running out. Meanwhile, it takes Luke and Akanah days to clear each planet’s Flight Control Zone, so their journey seems considerably more leisurely. And the conflict with the Duskhan League doesn’t start to really ramp up until weeks after the Yevethan Purge, which happened in the last third of Before the Storm. I would love it if there was a timeline that showed who was where and when. (Does this exist? Maybe I should google this.)
I’m having some trouble understanding the Yevetha here. It mostly comes down to their biology and culture, I guess? I feel like the Imperial officer that Leia questioned: “blood, loads of blood, and they just murder everyone.” I think part of this is due to secrecy surrounding their species in book 1; Nil Spaar doesn’t want the New Republic to learn anything about them. But they’re...reptiles, maybe? Higher status males are constantly killing lesser males? They have breeding females?? Blood fertilizes their eggs??? (So confused.)
Perhaps because I’ve been recently reading nonfiction about World War II, but the Yevetha struck me as being similar to the American perspective of the Japanese during that time: xenophobic, racist, hugely violent, undertaking a huge colonial expansion, and very technologically adept. They seem irredeemably evil. Usually, Star Wars has some bad guys that are understandable, or have been forced into siding with someone they otherwise wouldn’t, but the Yevetha almost remind me of terrorists from a Tom Clancy novel. You can’t reason with them, and they’re so incredibly violent and closed-minded that complete annihilation seems the only option here. I never want to root for that.
IN CONCLUSION:
I would say that Shield of Lies was an improvement over the first book, were it not for the fractured, disconnected structure. Why didn’t McDowell structure things like Before the Storm, where the three plotlines were interwoven with each other? As it stands, we have Luke’s pointless mother quest bookended by an interesting but superfluous bit with Lando, and then a fascinating Leia section that honestly needed to be longer. Hopefully book three will be a worthwhile payoff.
Next up: the third X-Wing book, The Krytos Trap by Michael A. Stackpole.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/Epm8eTShioU
Black Fleet Crisis FAQs by McDowell: https://web.archive.org/web/200709271...
March 26, 2025
I'm a fan of what McDowell did with this book/series. He took the characters we enjoy and puts them in uncomfortable, unpredictable situations. While we all know are we aren't going to see the death of any major characters, putting the characters in high stakes situations that could alter the outcome of the New Republic or the people is a great way to make the story have weight.
The book has multiple storylines happening between Leia, Luke, and Lando. The author did a fine job being heavily descriptive. I believe he gave a good voice to each character and provided great dialogue that wasn't dull. I'm happy to report that Luke Skywalker doesn't come across as super annoying like he has in previous books, though there are some things he's still working out with himself.
The book gets political, which I find far more entertaining than blasters and explosions. The political chess pieces being strategically placed on the board before chaos consumes the New Republic is more entertaining to me, than an author attempting to make it seem as though a main character is a bout to be killed off.
This book has a lot of entertaining moments sprinkled throughout. While there are many times the story drags, I'd say the exciting moments made this story worth the read.
RATING
I give Star Wars: Before the Storm, a B (plus).
The book has multiple storylines happening between Leia, Luke, and Lando. The author did a fine job being heavily descriptive. I believe he gave a good voice to each character and provided great dialogue that wasn't dull. I'm happy to report that Luke Skywalker doesn't come across as super annoying like he has in previous books, though there are some things he's still working out with himself.
The book gets political, which I find far more entertaining than blasters and explosions. The political chess pieces being strategically placed on the board before chaos consumes the New Republic is more entertaining to me, than an author attempting to make it seem as though a main character is a bout to be killed off.
This book has a lot of entertaining moments sprinkled throughout. While there are many times the story drags, I'd say the exciting moments made this story worth the read.
RATING
I give Star Wars: Before the Storm, a B (plus).
March 20, 2017
"Книгите са храна за душата...но не забравяйте, че и пуканките се водят храна" - Стефан Червенков
След този мега-ултра нарцистичен авто-цитат, нека споделя че втората част от неканоничната Star Wars трилогия за "Черната Флота" е точно това - пуканки. Добре осолени и "изпукани" почти без брак, но все пак - с никаква хранителна стойност. Което обяснява защо изгълтах 400-те страници за една нощ, както и защо звездичките са само три. Иначе книгата е забавна, лека за четене, и припомня едни далечни моменти в които Харисън Форд наистина имаше дяволита усмивка, а Кери Фишър беше що-годе секси в бански костюм ( и жива, при това). И да, в този развой на историята Кайло Рен никога не се е раждал. Какво по-яко?
След този мега-ултра нарцистичен авто-цитат, нека споделя че втората част от неканоничната Star Wars трилогия за "Черната Флота" е точно това - пуканки. Добре осолени и "изпукани" почти без брак, но все пак - с никаква хранителна стойност. Което обяснява защо изгълтах 400-те страници за една нощ, както и защо звездичките са само три. Иначе книгата е забавна, лека за четене, и припомня едни далечни моменти в които Харисън Форд наистина имаше дяволита усмивка, а Кери Фишър беше що-годе секси в бански костюм ( и жива, при това). И да, в този развой на историята Кайло Рен никога не се е раждал. Какво по-яко?
September 5, 2023
The trilogy continues in this second instalment. The basic plot revolves around the New Republic and the challenges of keeping the peace in the galaxy. The book was divided into three parts and I thought it flowed better that way. The only gripe I have about this series so far is that Han's Wookiee copilot Chewbacca is hardly in it. Other than that it was a great book.
June 17, 2024
Really not liking the characters in this trilogy.
August 1, 2024
Book 2 in the trilogy is a vast improvement over the first--characterization is more in line with the way they have been written traditionally
August 5, 2024
The Lando and Luke parts were decent, but I found the Leia part to be quite boring sadly.
December 14, 2010
I am not sure what to give this book. I will go with 4 for now, only again because they aren't as bad as some of the other books that got higher ratings. But I might have to knock it down to 3 if the 3rd book sucks...
The thing about this 2nd book was the format. There were 3 major sections of it, which was a mistake. The story of Lando, which was 93 pages and about 73 pages too long. Holy crap was it boring... Then it was Luke's turn, which was over 100 pages and it was also boring and his "friend" that is leading him to his mom (maybe) was annoying and I wish she died... I hated her. The only good thing was Leia's section that last the rest of 130+ pages. Again the section idea was bad, because I almost forgot what was happening from the 1st book. I hated her character in the 1st book, but the author must have realized that he was destroying her character after all the other books were positive about her and the movies. She seemed more in control and strong as it went on. This section also had the most action.
The series will really depend on the last book to see if they still get the 4 stars and if I would recommend it.
UPDATE: AFTER READING THE 3RD BOOK I AM DOWNGRADING THIS TO 2 STARS.
The thing about this 2nd book was the format. There were 3 major sections of it, which was a mistake. The story of Lando, which was 93 pages and about 73 pages too long. Holy crap was it boring... Then it was Luke's turn, which was over 100 pages and it was also boring and his "friend" that is leading him to his mom (maybe) was annoying and I wish she died... I hated her. The only good thing was Leia's section that last the rest of 130+ pages. Again the section idea was bad, because I almost forgot what was happening from the 1st book. I hated her character in the 1st book, but the author must have realized that he was destroying her character after all the other books were positive about her and the movies. She seemed more in control and strong as it went on. This section also had the most action.
The series will really depend on the last book to see if they still get the 4 stars and if I would recommend it.
UPDATE: AFTER READING THE 3RD BOOK I AM DOWNGRADING THIS TO 2 STARS.
January 27, 2021
After book 1's appalling start to the trilogy, I wasn't going into this one with any great optimism. The first hurdles was that for some reason the three storylines that were intermingled in the first book have been segregated into three separate stories in this one.
So part one in the continuation of Lando's adventures with the mysterious craft, this was really bogged down with a whole lot of not a lot of anything much happening and ends with no real development. The mystery was vaguely interesting, but just dragged.
Part two was Luke's quest to find his mum, and was by far the worst section of the book. I recommend skipping this bit entirely which is easy to do given the layout of this book. The character of Luke is unrecognisable and the woman he's travelling with is the worst in every possible way. Dreadful stuff.
The final third focused on Leia and the actual Black Fleet crisis and was the better part of the book. In book one, Leia was terribly written, but here she's much more like her usual self. The story does get bogged down again with the minutiae of politics and military manoeuvring, but I found this section far more compelling than anything book 1 and the rest of this book had to offer.
This book really was an effort to get through, only one more to go...
So part one in the continuation of Lando's adventures with the mysterious craft, this was really bogged down with a whole lot of not a lot of anything much happening and ends with no real development. The mystery was vaguely interesting, but just dragged.
Part two was Luke's quest to find his mum, and was by far the worst section of the book. I recommend skipping this bit entirely which is easy to do given the layout of this book. The character of Luke is unrecognisable and the woman he's travelling with is the worst in every possible way. Dreadful stuff.
The final third focused on Leia and the actual Black Fleet crisis and was the better part of the book. In book one, Leia was terribly written, but here she's much more like her usual self. The story does get bogged down again with the minutiae of politics and military manoeuvring, but I found this section far more compelling than anything book 1 and the rest of this book had to offer.
This book really was an effort to get through, only one more to go...
June 21, 2016
While the book is well written and mostly entertaining, I still got the feeling that it was being stretched out to complete a novel. One hundred pages to start, focusing on the Lando situation - a situation that could have easily been summed up in 30 pages. Then one hundred pages dedicated to the Luke Skywalker plotline and again 30 pages would have sufficed. And then we had about 120 pages on the Leia and Han Solo story. And that was one that could have used another 10 or 20. In-depth descriptions on how Luke killed time (taking a shower, organizing/repairing the ship) that stretched on for a few pages...but the ambush and subsequent capture of Han Solo was summed up in two sentences. It's as though the novel was started with the idea that much would need to be stretched out in order to justify a trilogy...but then at around page 300 the author realized that he was running out of space and had to cram a lot into a dozen pages. Still enjoyable and worth the read, but structured wrong. It would have been so easy to make this trilogy a five-star by turning it into two 400-page novels.
August 27, 2023
Like its predecessor, this novel has three parallel plot lines. However, it is structured a little differently: instead of hopping from one plot line to the next across chapters, Shield of Lies is split into thirds, each focusing on one character. Realizing this when I first opened the book was a bit of a shock and I guess this particular structure is a bit off-putting and might cause readers not to finish. That is because to finally get to the main plot line, i.e., the one focusing on Leia and the Yevethan crisis (the one this series is named after) one must first get through roughly 100 pages dealing with Lando and the droids, and then another 100-ish pages centering on Luke and his search for the Fallanassi. I didn’t mind the Lando plot line so much in Before the Storm as it is so different from the usual Star Wars plots and his interactions with his “team” are fun. Still, the outlook of 100 consecutive pages of it was rough. That is even more true for the Luke plot line, which I did not particularly like in the first book. Regardless, I soldiered through and in the end didn’t find this novel half bad. Despite its disadvantageous structure Shield of Lies is a decent and relatively fast read.
As mentioned above, the first section of this book deals with Lando, who got himself stranded aboard a mysterious vagabond ship alongside Lobot and the galaxy’s two most famous droids, R2D2 and C2PO, in the end of Before the Storm. This adds a lot of urgency to their quest of unearthing the nature and purpose of the ship as now their survival depends on it. During their quest to find some means of communication or come up with a rescue plan, more and more details about the peculiar vessel are revealed. Despite the fact that I was not very enthusiastic about this story line going in, it turned out more interesting than I thought it would, the interactions between the members of this unlikely team remain diverting (at time bordering on being goofy), and I got through this section a lot quicker than I thought I would.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the second section, i.e., the one focusing on Luke and Akanah, which I found slightly more interesting than in Before the Storm but still was a bit of a chore to get through. Luke and Akanah are still following the path of the Fallanassi hoping to find Akanah’s family and uncover some information about Luke’s mother.
While their journey brings them to a bunch of interesting places across the galaxy (e.g., a tourist trap and a free trader world) I found it really hard to get invested in their story and felt that it dragged. The fact that Akanah, whom I did not mind so much in the previous novel, comes across as incredibly annoying did not help of course. Compared to her Luke comes across as downright reasonable but maybe a bit of a pushover: he follows Akanah’s every whim however idiotic it might be and does everything in his power to make the journey easy for her. Naturally, this does not change anything about his being a jerk with respect to his role in the overarching conflict. Even after learning that there is a major crisis going on, he does not waste a single thought on ending/pausing his entirely self-serving and somewhat pointless mission to return home and try to help. It is amazing how he can accept every privilege granted to him by the New Republic (e.g., a military grade ship or access to classified information that does not even concern him) but does nothing to repay them. This level of entitlement is befuddling and clashes strongly with the way Luke has previously been characterized.
Finally, in the third section of this novel, the focus shifts towards the core conflict, i.e., the Yevethan crisis. Leia is in a really tough spot as she not only has to deal with this external conflict, but also with infighting among the New Republic’s top politicians, some of whom constantly question her authority. However, based on the shortsightedness and naivety she exhibited in Before the Storm it is hardly surprising that her colleagues are wary of her. Leia herself is aware of her own misjudgment and is ready to repent. In a way she seems much more like herself than she did in the previous installment as she stands up for what she believes in but is also ready to face the consequences of her actions. Still, even if the internal struggle is somewhat warranted, it really is no help in solving the conflict.
Throughout the novel more and more information about the Yevetha is revealed and it becomes quite clear that they pose a serious threat. Eventually the situation escalates into a first armed conflict, which causes the New Republic to suffer a bitter loss and therefore further harms Leia’s political standing. As if that weren’t bad enough, Han, who is supposed to take over command of the combined force facing the Yevetha, is taken hostage. Naturally, this threatens Leia’s position even more, as it causes others to doubt her objectivity (it is understandable – there is a reason surgeons cannot operate on their next of kin). Whether Leia will be able to retain her footing is an interesting question which makes me look forward to the last installment.
In my opinion, this last section is without a doubt the best part of the novel and the decisive reason for my three-star rating. Personally, I love a good political conflict in Star Wars and there is a lot of politicking going on here. On top of that, Leia seems to be acting like herself again, which is a relief given how strangely she behaved in Before the Storm.
Looking at Shield of Lies as a whole and comparing its onset with its conclusion, not a whole lot happens during these 300-something pages: In the end Lando and his gang are still stuck aboard the vagabond, Luke’s quest for the Fallanassi so far has not been fruitful, and while the Yevethan conflict has escalated somewhat it is nowhere near any conclusion. Shield of Lies is a textbook filler novel, which is hardly surprising for a second installment in a three-book series, and which is fine because it mostly is a decent read regardless. Structurally this book could be improved upon by keeping up a similar back-and-forth kind of structure as in its predecessor (and successor for that matter), this way the two side-plots would not appear to be taking up quite so much space. As far as Star Wars novels go, Shield of Lies is absolutely mediocre, but quite readable.
As mentioned above, the first section of this book deals with Lando, who got himself stranded aboard a mysterious vagabond ship alongside Lobot and the galaxy’s two most famous droids, R2D2 and C2PO, in the end of Before the Storm. This adds a lot of urgency to their quest of unearthing the nature and purpose of the ship as now their survival depends on it. During their quest to find some means of communication or come up with a rescue plan, more and more details about the peculiar vessel are revealed. Despite the fact that I was not very enthusiastic about this story line going in, it turned out more interesting than I thought it would, the interactions between the members of this unlikely team remain diverting (at time bordering on being goofy), and I got through this section a lot quicker than I thought I would.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the second section, i.e., the one focusing on Luke and Akanah, which I found slightly more interesting than in Before the Storm but still was a bit of a chore to get through. Luke and Akanah are still following the path of the Fallanassi hoping to find Akanah’s family and uncover some information about Luke’s mother.
While their journey brings them to a bunch of interesting places across the galaxy (e.g., a tourist trap and a free trader world) I found it really hard to get invested in their story and felt that it dragged. The fact that Akanah, whom I did not mind so much in the previous novel, comes across as incredibly annoying did not help of course. Compared to her Luke comes across as downright reasonable but maybe a bit of a pushover: he follows Akanah’s every whim however idiotic it might be and does everything in his power to make the journey easy for her. Naturally, this does not change anything about his being a jerk with respect to his role in the overarching conflict. Even after learning that there is a major crisis going on, he does not waste a single thought on ending/pausing his entirely self-serving and somewhat pointless mission to return home and try to help. It is amazing how he can accept every privilege granted to him by the New Republic (e.g., a military grade ship or access to classified information that does not even concern him) but does nothing to repay them. This level of entitlement is befuddling and clashes strongly with the way Luke has previously been characterized.
Finally, in the third section of this novel, the focus shifts towards the core conflict, i.e., the Yevethan crisis. Leia is in a really tough spot as she not only has to deal with this external conflict, but also with infighting among the New Republic’s top politicians, some of whom constantly question her authority. However, based on the shortsightedness and naivety she exhibited in Before the Storm it is hardly surprising that her colleagues are wary of her. Leia herself is aware of her own misjudgment and is ready to repent. In a way she seems much more like herself than she did in the previous installment as she stands up for what she believes in but is also ready to face the consequences of her actions. Still, even if the internal struggle is somewhat warranted, it really is no help in solving the conflict.
Throughout the novel more and more information about the Yevetha is revealed and it becomes quite clear that they pose a serious threat. Eventually the situation escalates into a first armed conflict, which causes the New Republic to suffer a bitter loss and therefore further harms Leia’s political standing. As if that weren’t bad enough, Han, who is supposed to take over command of the combined force facing the Yevetha, is taken hostage. Naturally, this threatens Leia’s position even more, as it causes others to doubt her objectivity (it is understandable – there is a reason surgeons cannot operate on their next of kin). Whether Leia will be able to retain her footing is an interesting question which makes me look forward to the last installment.
In my opinion, this last section is without a doubt the best part of the novel and the decisive reason for my three-star rating. Personally, I love a good political conflict in Star Wars and there is a lot of politicking going on here. On top of that, Leia seems to be acting like herself again, which is a relief given how strangely she behaved in Before the Storm.
Looking at Shield of Lies as a whole and comparing its onset with its conclusion, not a whole lot happens during these 300-something pages: In the end Lando and his gang are still stuck aboard the vagabond, Luke’s quest for the Fallanassi so far has not been fruitful, and while the Yevethan conflict has escalated somewhat it is nowhere near any conclusion. Shield of Lies is a textbook filler novel, which is hardly surprising for a second installment in a three-book series, and which is fine because it mostly is a decent read regardless. Structurally this book could be improved upon by keeping up a similar back-and-forth kind of structure as in its predecessor (and successor for that matter), this way the two side-plots would not appear to be taking up quite so much space. As far as Star Wars novels go, Shield of Lies is absolutely mediocre, but quite readable.
April 7, 2025
It was good, but slow. The pacing is very weird in this one.
June 2, 2025
This is book 41 on my read-through of the Star Wars Legends books.
This is the book that finally broke me.
In retrospect, the frenzied pace at which I was churning through Star Wars books couldn't have lasted forever, especially as I delved the less-beloved depths of the 90s Star Wars publishing boom. It was inevitable that I would burn out eventually. What I didn't expect is that my Star Wars burnout would come not from an offensively bad book like "Tales of Jabba's Palace" or a frustrating book like "Before the Storm", but from "Shield of Lies", a book so profoundly meh that it barely even stirs any feelings in me, positive or negative. But maybe that's why I had such a hard time convincing myself to pick it up and read it. Finally, I bit the bullet and plowed through the last two-thirds of this book in one sitting today.
There aren't any two ways about it: literally nothing happens in this book until the last 40 pages. And even then, the only event in the last 40 pages that actually changes the status quo in a meaningful way occurs off-screen three pages from the end. I just...don't understand what happened here.
Before the Storm had a similar issue, but you FELT like things were happening because the characters were always scurrying from place to place, and the viewpoint was constantly shifting around, and minor characters would pop into the story to make small contributions. And, more importantly, the book felt like it was building to something and putting all the pieces in place. And now this second book in the trilogy STILL feels like it's building to something that hasn't arrived yet.
This book opts to break up its three main viewpoints -- Lando, Luke, and Leia -- into three distinct sections. If the story had intercut between them instead, it would have gone a long way to covering up the lack of meaningful development (a strategy often employed by filler books in long fantasy series), but the fact that we are stuck with each character for 80+ pages calls stark relief to the issue.
Strictly speaking, this book is not unreadable. The prose is decent and there's nothing outright terrible or annoying (except perhaps Akanah who is a relentlessly boring character). In fact, the lack of meaningful progress means that the book occasionally succeeds in feeling like a hang. There were parts of Luke's section of the book in particular that were so low-stakes that I actually started to vibe with it, as if I were reading the sci-fi version of one of those "lit-fic" books where the main character just sort of meanders around aimlessly.
The author also still excels at filling out the universe with little details. In Luke's section, there is a genuinely obsessive level of attention put into things like landing procedures, clearance levels, and how pilots shower at the spaceport once they land. There is an extended section of the book which is basically narratively pointless, but it fleshes out, in pain-staking detail, how tourism functions on a particular planet. Every time the book introduced a new element, I kept thinking "ooh, I can see how this might become relevant to the plot", but then it never was. It was all just world-building detail. Lando's section also had a similarly obsessive level of detail and care given to the inner workings of an alien craft. And when the book finally gets around to being military sci-fi in its last 40 pages, the detail paid to military procedures and tactics really gave the book a grounded edge that most other Star Wars don't even bother striving for.
But, to take a step back: I don't understand why this series isn't just 100% military sci-fi. That is clearly what the author excels at. Every time this series allows itself to be about the military or about the day-to-day workers inside the government, the story takes off. I don't understand why any time is spent on any other storylines. This series could have been something amazing if it had leaned fully into being military sci-fi (with the original trilogy characters popping in from time to time to give orders and make decisions).
But instead 90% of our time is spent elsewhere, and all of these sections -- Lando exploring the ship, Luke searching for the Fallanassi, and Leia maneuvering politics -- just feel so repetitive and half-hearted and boring. And no amount of interesting sci-fi worldbuilding can make up for that.
4.5/10.
This is the book that finally broke me.
In retrospect, the frenzied pace at which I was churning through Star Wars books couldn't have lasted forever, especially as I delved the less-beloved depths of the 90s Star Wars publishing boom. It was inevitable that I would burn out eventually. What I didn't expect is that my Star Wars burnout would come not from an offensively bad book like "Tales of Jabba's Palace" or a frustrating book like "Before the Storm", but from "Shield of Lies", a book so profoundly meh that it barely even stirs any feelings in me, positive or negative. But maybe that's why I had such a hard time convincing myself to pick it up and read it. Finally, I bit the bullet and plowed through the last two-thirds of this book in one sitting today.
There aren't any two ways about it: literally nothing happens in this book until the last 40 pages. And even then, the only event in the last 40 pages that actually changes the status quo in a meaningful way occurs off-screen three pages from the end. I just...don't understand what happened here.
Before the Storm had a similar issue, but you FELT like things were happening because the characters were always scurrying from place to place, and the viewpoint was constantly shifting around, and minor characters would pop into the story to make small contributions. And, more importantly, the book felt like it was building to something and putting all the pieces in place. And now this second book in the trilogy STILL feels like it's building to something that hasn't arrived yet.
This book opts to break up its three main viewpoints -- Lando, Luke, and Leia -- into three distinct sections. If the story had intercut between them instead, it would have gone a long way to covering up the lack of meaningful development (a strategy often employed by filler books in long fantasy series), but the fact that we are stuck with each character for 80+ pages calls stark relief to the issue.
Strictly speaking, this book is not unreadable. The prose is decent and there's nothing outright terrible or annoying (except perhaps Akanah who is a relentlessly boring character). In fact, the lack of meaningful progress means that the book occasionally succeeds in feeling like a hang. There were parts of Luke's section of the book in particular that were so low-stakes that I actually started to vibe with it, as if I were reading the sci-fi version of one of those "lit-fic" books where the main character just sort of meanders around aimlessly.
The author also still excels at filling out the universe with little details. In Luke's section, there is a genuinely obsessive level of attention put into things like landing procedures, clearance levels, and how pilots shower at the spaceport once they land. There is an extended section of the book which is basically narratively pointless, but it fleshes out, in pain-staking detail, how tourism functions on a particular planet. Every time the book introduced a new element, I kept thinking "ooh, I can see how this might become relevant to the plot", but then it never was. It was all just world-building detail. Lando's section also had a similarly obsessive level of detail and care given to the inner workings of an alien craft. And when the book finally gets around to being military sci-fi in its last 40 pages, the detail paid to military procedures and tactics really gave the book a grounded edge that most other Star Wars don't even bother striving for.
But, to take a step back: I don't understand why this series isn't just 100% military sci-fi. That is clearly what the author excels at. Every time this series allows itself to be about the military or about the day-to-day workers inside the government, the story takes off. I don't understand why any time is spent on any other storylines. This series could have been something amazing if it had leaned fully into being military sci-fi (with the original trilogy characters popping in from time to time to give orders and make decisions).
But instead 90% of our time is spent elsewhere, and all of these sections -- Lando exploring the ship, Luke searching for the Fallanassi, and Leia maneuvering politics -- just feel so repetitive and half-hearted and boring. And no amount of interesting sci-fi worldbuilding can make up for that.
4.5/10.
October 11, 2023
All 3 of these stars go solely to the Leia chapters—let me explain.
This trilogy is my first Star Wars paperback read in a few years, and I liked the conflict that was set up in Book 1. It’s my first time reading about the New Republic, and I’ve been enjoying seeing how the world changed in Legends after Episode VI.
Book 1 had a slow start imo, but by the end I was into the plot and excited for Book 2.
But for whatever reason, they decided to change the chapter format for Book 2–herein lies my major concerns.
In this trilogy, you have 3 major plot lines (ranked from my most to least favorite):
1. Leia working on the Yevethan crisis
2. Lando exploring a mystery ship
3. Luke helping some rando find her people and find his mom
In Book 1, each chapter bounces between the different plot lines. Something happens with Leia, you get a cliffhanger and then you go Luke’s chapter until you get a cliffhanger etc. etc. It keeps you reading and helps break up some of the weaker plots. I liked this.
For whatever god-forsaken reason, the book editor thought it’d be a great idea to change the chapter format for Book 2 mid-way thru the trilogy. I wouldn’t normally complain about this and can see why this may have been done to help with plot timeframes, but with how weak the Lando and Luke plots are imo this makes nearly 2/3 of the book an unreadable slog.
You start with 100 pages of Lando and gang exploring the mystery ship. This WAS my favorite plot line and Lando IS one of my favorite characters in Book 1, but the Lando chapters in this were rough. I feel like I know less about this mystery ship than I did at the beginning of the book. It’s literally 100 pages of them going “oh this is weird about this ship” and then entering another room and being like “hey this is weird too” and it happens for the first 100 pages of the book. There’s so much technical ship jargon, I felt myself glazing over. And the worst part is that you gotta get thru ALL of it to get to the rest of the book. Aside from Lando and Lobot playing parents with C3PO and R2D2, the only other saving grace is that you get it done first. I can only imagine how many folks stopped reading this book during the Lando chapters. Lando and the mystery ship deserve better than this, and it wouldn’t have been so bad if the dang plot was broken up among a few chapters.
Ok next let’s go on to the Luke chapters. At this point, it was a relief to be done with Lando but I was like ‘oh man, now I gotta get thru Luke too.’ I’m as invested in the Luke plot in Book 2 as I was in Book 1. I feel like we still don’t know anything about the woman he is helping and like nothing has happened. They just keep jumping planets and reaching dead ends. And there’s a random Jabba’s palace themed bar with a Bib Fortuna impersonator? Totally did not need that.
We finally get to the Leia chapters in the final 1/3 of the book. These are the good ones. They start slow, but as I suspected by the end I was hooked. I am loving the plot and the general mess that is the Yevethan crisis. The battle scenes were epic, the political maneuvering was fun and there is plenty of Admiral Ackbar which is great. Big fan of Plat Mallar and Admiral Etahn, I’m rooting for them. My only critique and I felt this in the last book, is I’m not a big fan of what I’ll call ‘dad Han.’ He is so boring and doesn’t play much of a role. I felt like his ending was a bit rushed but am here for Book 3.
This was a solid 2 star until I got to the Leia chapters which bumped it up to 3. Honestly if I could rate the Leia plot separately, I’d give it a 4. My main beef with this book is the chapter formatting with the weak Lando/Luke plots. If all plots were equally good, tgis would be a different story. I am looking forward to how things will tie together and turn out, but pray Book 3 doesn’t follow the same format.
Hopefully Lando’s mystery ship is actually a time machine and he can go back in time to 1997 to stop the editors from changing the chapter format.
This trilogy is my first Star Wars paperback read in a few years, and I liked the conflict that was set up in Book 1. It’s my first time reading about the New Republic, and I’ve been enjoying seeing how the world changed in Legends after Episode VI.
Book 1 had a slow start imo, but by the end I was into the plot and excited for Book 2.
But for whatever reason, they decided to change the chapter format for Book 2–herein lies my major concerns.
In this trilogy, you have 3 major plot lines (ranked from my most to least favorite):
1. Leia working on the Yevethan crisis
2. Lando exploring a mystery ship
3. Luke helping some rando find her people and find his mom
In Book 1, each chapter bounces between the different plot lines. Something happens with Leia, you get a cliffhanger and then you go Luke’s chapter until you get a cliffhanger etc. etc. It keeps you reading and helps break up some of the weaker plots. I liked this.
For whatever god-forsaken reason, the book editor thought it’d be a great idea to change the chapter format for Book 2 mid-way thru the trilogy. I wouldn’t normally complain about this and can see why this may have been done to help with plot timeframes, but with how weak the Lando and Luke plots are imo this makes nearly 2/3 of the book an unreadable slog.
You start with 100 pages of Lando and gang exploring the mystery ship. This WAS my favorite plot line and Lando IS one of my favorite characters in Book 1, but the Lando chapters in this were rough. I feel like I know less about this mystery ship than I did at the beginning of the book. It’s literally 100 pages of them going “oh this is weird about this ship” and then entering another room and being like “hey this is weird too” and it happens for the first 100 pages of the book. There’s so much technical ship jargon, I felt myself glazing over. And the worst part is that you gotta get thru ALL of it to get to the rest of the book. Aside from Lando and Lobot playing parents with C3PO and R2D2, the only other saving grace is that you get it done first. I can only imagine how many folks stopped reading this book during the Lando chapters. Lando and the mystery ship deserve better than this, and it wouldn’t have been so bad if the dang plot was broken up among a few chapters.
Ok next let’s go on to the Luke chapters. At this point, it was a relief to be done with Lando but I was like ‘oh man, now I gotta get thru Luke too.’ I’m as invested in the Luke plot in Book 2 as I was in Book 1. I feel like we still don’t know anything about the woman he is helping and like nothing has happened. They just keep jumping planets and reaching dead ends. And there’s a random Jabba’s palace themed bar with a Bib Fortuna impersonator? Totally did not need that.
We finally get to the Leia chapters in the final 1/3 of the book. These are the good ones. They start slow, but as I suspected by the end I was hooked. I am loving the plot and the general mess that is the Yevethan crisis. The battle scenes were epic, the political maneuvering was fun and there is plenty of Admiral Ackbar which is great. Big fan of Plat Mallar and Admiral Etahn, I’m rooting for them. My only critique and I felt this in the last book, is I’m not a big fan of what I’ll call ‘dad Han.’ He is so boring and doesn’t play much of a role. I felt like his ending was a bit rushed but am here for Book 3.
This was a solid 2 star until I got to the Leia chapters which bumped it up to 3. Honestly if I could rate the Leia plot separately, I’d give it a 4. My main beef with this book is the chapter formatting with the weak Lando/Luke plots. If all plots were equally good, tgis would be a different story. I am looking forward to how things will tie together and turn out, but pray Book 3 doesn’t follow the same format.
Hopefully Lando’s mystery ship is actually a time machine and he can go back in time to 1997 to stop the editors from changing the chapter format.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2023
In Before the Storm, Michael P. Kube-McDowell set the scene for some big ideas. Centered largely on the question of power and justice--and whether violence could ever be just--the novel focused primarily on dealings of the New Republic and the trouble that comes with organized government and politicking. If Star Wars was an allegory for the Vietnam War and British-American imperialism, Kube-McDowell set out to continue exploring that allegory for the EU. And Before the Storm was a damn fine book, on par with Ambush at Corellia for the most interesting first novel in a new Star Wars trilogy.
There's no mistaking that Shield of Lies is thematically much better than the Corellian Trilogy's second novel; Kube-McDowell continues exploring the same set of ideas he introduced in the previous book. This novel is divided into thirds, with each portion exploring the adventures of Lando, Luke, and Leia separately as the New Republic deals with its new crisis. Each third focuses tightly on expanding the central conversation Kube-McDowell wants to have: Lando's trip through a vagrant starship reveals startling news of how war destroyed an entire advanced civilization; Luke's travels with his companion Akanah questions the utility of violence and the ethics of wielding power; and Leia's dealings with the Duskhan League and Nil Spaar center largely on how a government is meant to respond to foreign aggression.
In every thematic sense, Kube-McDowell has crafted one of the most philosophically compelling second novels in a Star Wars EU trilogy, and the complex ideas his novels grapple with are truly excellent. The book feels thematically unified, an extension of the first novel's serious questions about relationships of human governments and power, and an excellent contemplation of how easy power is to abuse when the wrong people assume its mantle.
But if Kube-McDowell forgot anything in this novel, it's to make it fun. Shield of Lies is so concerned with its philosophical questions that it absolutely forgets to be fun in even the slightest sense. The book is studiously boring, and Lando and Luke's portions of the book especially cry out as being insufferably dull. Leia's third of the book--the last portion--is genuinely good and compelling, but it also rushes through some major plot developments because it comes so late in the story. I know why each of these sections exists thematically, but they're just so gob-smackingly boring to read that I honestly am unsure if I wouldn't have just preferred another Corellian Trilogy fiasco.
Kube-McDowell has the most ambitious vision of any '90s-era Star Wars writer I have yet read, and it is a genuine credit to his imagination that he can have such a bold and complex conversation with a fantasy-action franchise like this one. Nevertheless, I do show up to this fantasy-action franchise for fantasy action, and for a book to have so little movement is just a huge bummer. Reading Star Wars shouldn't feel like a chore; this book did.
There's no mistaking that Shield of Lies is thematically much better than the Corellian Trilogy's second novel; Kube-McDowell continues exploring the same set of ideas he introduced in the previous book. This novel is divided into thirds, with each portion exploring the adventures of Lando, Luke, and Leia separately as the New Republic deals with its new crisis. Each third focuses tightly on expanding the central conversation Kube-McDowell wants to have: Lando's trip through a vagrant starship reveals startling news of how war destroyed an entire advanced civilization; Luke's travels with his companion Akanah questions the utility of violence and the ethics of wielding power; and Leia's dealings with the Duskhan League and Nil Spaar center largely on how a government is meant to respond to foreign aggression.
In every thematic sense, Kube-McDowell has crafted one of the most philosophically compelling second novels in a Star Wars EU trilogy, and the complex ideas his novels grapple with are truly excellent. The book feels thematically unified, an extension of the first novel's serious questions about relationships of human governments and power, and an excellent contemplation of how easy power is to abuse when the wrong people assume its mantle.
But if Kube-McDowell forgot anything in this novel, it's to make it fun. Shield of Lies is so concerned with its philosophical questions that it absolutely forgets to be fun in even the slightest sense. The book is studiously boring, and Lando and Luke's portions of the book especially cry out as being insufferably dull. Leia's third of the book--the last portion--is genuinely good and compelling, but it also rushes through some major plot developments because it comes so late in the story. I know why each of these sections exists thematically, but they're just so gob-smackingly boring to read that I honestly am unsure if I wouldn't have just preferred another Corellian Trilogy fiasco.
Kube-McDowell has the most ambitious vision of any '90s-era Star Wars writer I have yet read, and it is a genuine credit to his imagination that he can have such a bold and complex conversation with a fantasy-action franchise like this one. Nevertheless, I do show up to this fantasy-action franchise for fantasy action, and for a book to have so little movement is just a huge bummer. Reading Star Wars shouldn't feel like a chore; this book did.
June 6, 2024
Stars: 3
Re-read? Leaning yes
Recommend to: Primarily to people who have exhausted what are considered to be top-tier EU books and want to continue with ones decent to good.
A strange decision in this book was to separate the POV characters completely into three different sections, so you get about 100 pages each for Lando, then Luke, then Leia. The POVs alternated in book 1, and this returns in book 3. I think that the alternating POVs was a better choice because it keeps you from feeling bogged down if you don't like one of the POV arcs. It took me a bit to realize that we were going to completely focus on one character and then completely move on to the next, so for the first 30 or 40 pages I was thinking, "man, we're really spending a lot of time on Lando in this one."
The portion of the plot focusing on Lando continues to be the most interesting. I definitely feel like this trilogy would've been better as three individual books (unless the three arcs come together in the end somehow).
The characters are slightly better in this book. Leia isn't quite as much of a moron as she was in the first, but she still isn't great. She still hasn't to have basic and obvious diplomatic strategies explained to her like she is an idiot. She also doesn't have the decency to recognize and apologize for her stupidity and rudeness in the previous book, and she clearly thinks she was generally justified in how she acted. I think he did a good job with Lando, Han, and Luke.
The three story-arcs are generally good.
- One inconsequential thing that was ludicrous was
- I was more annoyed at
- I thought it was pretty entertaining that Luke goes into a tourist trap that's a recreation of Jabba's Palace and the events there in ROTJ. What an insane idea. It'd be like, "Honey, do you want to go to dinner and a show at that new place that recreates the last days of a cartel torture den?"
- I think this was still kind of the wild west in the EU and there wasn't a ton of thought put into how things worked. I scoffed at the concept that, in the New Republic, Leia as President has the sole authority to admit systems, worlds, and groups of people in. It's 100% up to her. This would be like if the President of the US had the sole authority to admit states into the union. So we could wake up one morning and find out that overnight, President Zelensky asked Biden if Ukraine could become a state, and Biden (one of his handlers, let's be real) said sure. Now Ukraine is sending over Senators and Congressmen and we are at war with Russia. It would be madness. To make matters worse, Kube-McDowell specifies that it isn't just systems and planets that join, but also groups of people. How would this even work? It's even strongly implied that it's feasible that a single survivor of a civilization could representation and become a senator in the New Republic. But how could a group, like species of alien, on a planet or system join the New Republic but not the rest of the species on the planet/system? How would their representation in government be handled? It's just something that I don't think was really thought out.
- Man that ending came out of nowhere.
Previous reads: 4 stars (2002/2006)
Re-read? Leaning yes
Recommend to: Primarily to people who have exhausted what are considered to be top-tier EU books and want to continue with ones decent to good.
A strange decision in this book was to separate the POV characters completely into three different sections, so you get about 100 pages each for Lando, then Luke, then Leia. The POVs alternated in book 1, and this returns in book 3. I think that the alternating POVs was a better choice because it keeps you from feeling bogged down if you don't like one of the POV arcs. It took me a bit to realize that we were going to completely focus on one character and then completely move on to the next, so for the first 30 or 40 pages I was thinking, "man, we're really spending a lot of time on Lando in this one."
The portion of the plot focusing on Lando continues to be the most interesting. I definitely feel like this trilogy would've been better as three individual books (unless the three arcs come together in the end somehow).
The characters are slightly better in this book. Leia isn't quite as much of a moron as she was in the first, but she still isn't great. She still hasn't to have basic and obvious diplomatic strategies explained to her like she is an idiot. She also doesn't have the decency to recognize and apologize for her stupidity and rudeness in the previous book, and she clearly thinks she was generally justified in how she acted. I think he did a good job with Lando, Han, and Luke.
The three story-arcs are generally good.
- One inconsequential thing that was ludicrous was
- I was more annoyed at
- I thought it was pretty entertaining that Luke goes into a tourist trap that's a recreation of Jabba's Palace and the events there in ROTJ. What an insane idea. It'd be like, "Honey, do you want to go to dinner and a show at that new place that recreates the last days of a cartel torture den?"
- I think this was still kind of the wild west in the EU and there wasn't a ton of thought put into how things worked. I scoffed at the concept that, in the New Republic, Leia as President has the sole authority to admit systems, worlds, and groups of people in. It's 100% up to her. This would be like if the President of the US had the sole authority to admit states into the union. So we could wake up one morning and find out that overnight, President Zelensky asked Biden if Ukraine could become a state, and Biden (one of his handlers, let's be real) said sure. Now Ukraine is sending over Senators and Congressmen and we are at war with Russia. It would be madness. To make matters worse, Kube-McDowell specifies that it isn't just systems and planets that join, but also groups of people. How would this even work? It's even strongly implied that it's feasible that a single survivor of a civilization could representation and become a senator in the New Republic. But how could a group, like species of alien, on a planet or system join the New Republic but not the rest of the species on the planet/system? How would their representation in government be handled? It's just something that I don't think was really thought out.
- Man that ending came out of nowhere.
Previous reads: 4 stars (2002/2006)
July 8, 2018
I wasn't very impressed with the first book "Before the Storm" due to the three plot threads making the main story feel watered down, and there was a lack of action throughout the book. I did wonder if the Lando and Luke storylines would tie into the main plot. Lando's story still seems irrelevant but Luke ends up heading to the Koornacht Cluster where the war is, so it ties in somewhat. Still, these stories seem shoved into the series to create enough content for a trilogy. Why not just have 3 separate books?
In the last book, you switched back and forth between the plots, but now you tackle them separately. Lando's story takes the first several chapters and is a bit dull, they wander around the spaceship without anything substantial happening. There's a bit of suspense because it seems they are running out of time before their life support fails them; but they seemed to survive way longer than you'd expect.
Luke is with Akanah on a quest to find Luke's mother. It drags on for way too long, and you suspect like Luke that she is lying about something. There's a scene where Luke visits a pub which is styled on Jabba's Palace. Not just that, but specifically the time when Han was in Carbonite and the day Chewbacca turned up. This is just stupid. Why would someone that had been in the Palace on that day decide to build a pub on this particular planet and theme it on that particular event? Nothing happens at this place, it is just “fan service” (but do fans even like this part?).
The main war doesn't progress too much either; there's still a lot of talking with Leia and Akbar. There is a bit of action, and the Republic take a few casualties. I don't understand why Leia orders Han to join the battle and that decision doesn't end well. Even though that part of the story was one of the biggest event in the book, it barely covers any pages; it just seems shoved in there at the last minute to get you hyped for book three.
In the last book, you switched back and forth between the plots, but now you tackle them separately. Lando's story takes the first several chapters and is a bit dull, they wander around the spaceship without anything substantial happening. There's a bit of suspense because it seems they are running out of time before their life support fails them; but they seemed to survive way longer than you'd expect.
Luke is with Akanah on a quest to find Luke's mother. It drags on for way too long, and you suspect like Luke that she is lying about something. There's a scene where Luke visits a pub which is styled on Jabba's Palace. Not just that, but specifically the time when Han was in Carbonite and the day Chewbacca turned up. This is just stupid. Why would someone that had been in the Palace on that day decide to build a pub on this particular planet and theme it on that particular event? Nothing happens at this place, it is just “fan service” (but do fans even like this part?).
The main war doesn't progress too much either; there's still a lot of talking with Leia and Akbar. There is a bit of action, and the Republic take a few casualties. I don't understand why Leia orders Han to join the battle and that decision doesn't end well. Even though that part of the story was one of the biggest event in the book, it barely covers any pages; it just seems shoved in there at the last minute to get you hyped for book three.
July 6, 2020
The first thing I can say about this book is that it was definitely better than the first one.
The entire Lando storyline was confusing and quite boring. It didn't even come close to being wrapped up and seemed totally separate from the rest of the plotlines. I hope book 3 fixes that.
The Luke storyline was interesting, although Akanah is one of the most annoying characters/love interests I've ever read. I thought that her being to attracted to Luke but hating his ideology was just not believable and they have no chemistry.
The Leia plotline is by far my favorite in the series. All of the political machinations are great and interesting. I felt like I was watching a chess match, and never knew how both sides would respond. I do think the ending of the book was rushed a little, and maybe should have added at least 1 more chapter to make it feel in depth.
The biggest problem that this book has that several books have is that it separated the plotlines into sections. This kills the momentum and if you have a part that you don't like, you're stuck with it for 100 pages before switching to the next one. McDowell should have simply interwoven the plots like other authors do. It just felt a little lazy to me.
Overall, it was an ok book. I didn't love it bud didn't particularly hate it. I have elements that I enjoy and elements I don't enjoy. I am interested in how the final book will resolve things. 5.3 out of 10!
The entire Lando storyline was confusing and quite boring. It didn't even come close to being wrapped up and seemed totally separate from the rest of the plotlines. I hope book 3 fixes that.
The Luke storyline was interesting, although Akanah is one of the most annoying characters/love interests I've ever read. I thought that her being to attracted to Luke but hating his ideology was just not believable and they have no chemistry.
The Leia plotline is by far my favorite in the series. All of the political machinations are great and interesting. I felt like I was watching a chess match, and never knew how both sides would respond. I do think the ending of the book was rushed a little, and maybe should have added at least 1 more chapter to make it feel in depth.
The biggest problem that this book has that several books have is that it separated the plotlines into sections. This kills the momentum and if you have a part that you don't like, you're stuck with it for 100 pages before switching to the next one. McDowell should have simply interwoven the plots like other authors do. It just felt a little lazy to me.
Overall, it was an ok book. I didn't love it bud didn't particularly hate it. I have elements that I enjoy and elements I don't enjoy. I am interested in how the final book will resolve things. 5.3 out of 10!
July 9, 2021
I really waffled over my rating for this book, because while I found it took the intrigue and tension from the first book in the trilogy and raised it, it took over 2/3 of the book to get there to enjoy it. In the end, I decided that the continuation of the Yevethan drama was enough for me to round up what would be a 3.5-star rating.
Part of it was the way Kube-McDowell structured the novel. Like the first novel in the trilogy, there are three stories here, of Lando searching for a lost ship, Luke looking for information about his mother, and Leia negotiating the entry of a new world into the New Republic. In the first novel, though, the author weaves the subplots together in the narrative, and you get the feeling that these subplots will come together at some point. In this novel, though, he separates each story into its own section: Lando goes first; then Luke; then Leia. It's an odd choice, especially since there's an even stronger suggestion that the other two plots will play into the Yevethan one, and since Lando's story is the least interesting, it ran the risk of making me less interested in reading.
I have to give Kube-McDowell credit for creating some interesting antagonists in the Yevethans. You may find them despicable, and you may root for them to get defeated in the third book (I'm guessing), but you're certainly going to understand them. They feel well-rounded and realized.
Part of it was the way Kube-McDowell structured the novel. Like the first novel in the trilogy, there are three stories here, of Lando searching for a lost ship, Luke looking for information about his mother, and Leia negotiating the entry of a new world into the New Republic. In the first novel, though, the author weaves the subplots together in the narrative, and you get the feeling that these subplots will come together at some point. In this novel, though, he separates each story into its own section: Lando goes first; then Luke; then Leia. It's an odd choice, especially since there's an even stronger suggestion that the other two plots will play into the Yevethan one, and since Lando's story is the least interesting, it ran the risk of making me less interested in reading.
I have to give Kube-McDowell credit for creating some interesting antagonists in the Yevethans. You may find them despicable, and you may root for them to get defeated in the third book (I'm guessing), but you're certainly going to understand them. They feel well-rounded and realized.
August 10, 2018
En este libro las tres tramas no van intercaladas, sino que separadas: Lando primero, Luke segundo y Leia tercera. Dado que las tres tramas ocurren simultáneamente, eso significa que algunas cosas que pasan de trasfondo no las conocemos hasta que leemos otra de las tramas. No me parece que haya sido una buena idea, especialmente considerando que hay muy poco que conecte a las tres historias.
En el caso de Lando, la trama aún es entretenida con ese aire de exploración arqueológica, aunque alguien no muy inclinado a leer sobre ese tipo de cosas puede odiarla. Lamentablemente, su trama parece conectarse cada vez menos con la trama principal.
En el caso de Luke, él sigue por ahí usando sus poderes para cosas mundanas (en este caso, camuflarse a plena luz del día. ¿Acaso nunca ha oído hablar del maquillaje?). Toda su historia y el andar yendo de planeta en planeta siguiendo una pista tras otra me recordaron mucho a Fundación y Tierra, lo que no es una buena señal. Lo peor es que él podría estar en la trama de su hermana ahora que ésta le necesita, pero no, él anda por ahí cazando fantasmas.
Finalmente, la trama de Leia es donde está lo importante, ahora que los Yevetha se sacaron la máscara y han mostrado sus verdaderas intenciones (aunque aún no sé si se supone que emulan a los nazis o al Japón Imperial; yo creo que es a los últimos).
En el caso de Lando, la trama aún es entretenida con ese aire de exploración arqueológica, aunque alguien no muy inclinado a leer sobre ese tipo de cosas puede odiarla. Lamentablemente, su trama parece conectarse cada vez menos con la trama principal.
En el caso de Luke, él sigue por ahí usando sus poderes para cosas mundanas (en este caso, camuflarse a plena luz del día. ¿Acaso nunca ha oído hablar del maquillaje?). Toda su historia y el andar yendo de planeta en planeta siguiendo una pista tras otra me recordaron mucho a Fundación y Tierra, lo que no es una buena señal. Lo peor es que él podría estar en la trama de su hermana ahora que ésta le necesita, pero no, él anda por ahí cazando fantasmas.
Finalmente, la trama de Leia es donde está lo importante, ahora que los Yevetha se sacaron la máscara y han mostrado sus verdaderas intenciones (aunque aún no sé si se supone que emulan a los nazis o al Japón Imperial; yo creo que es a los últimos).
October 15, 2025
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the first. The book is divided into 3 parts from 3 main POVs: Lando, Luke and Leia. Lando’s section which I really liked in the first book was utterly boring in this one as the 1st 3rd of the book is his POV trying to get off of the ship they are stuck on. This took forever to get through.
Luke had an interesting but also a frustrating 2nd section. There is action and a goal involved. I found it frustrating though that a. He’s spending his time with a person that detests his actions even as justified as he is in them b. I don’t know why he insists on sticking with her and joining her group. He has a group they’re called the Jedi and he leads them. Why he wants to leave that for no real apparent reason other than he doesn’t want to solve everyone else’s issues I don’t really know.
Finally, Leia has the 3rd POV except there’s not really much Leia. It’s maybe more Ackbar and seemingly the main nemesis in this book. There is little bit of politics in play here but nothing of real interest and it could lead the Republic into another war.
All that being said the title of this trilogy is the Black Fleet Crisis and I feel like outside of the initial mystery Lando was investigating this seems to have been forgotten and all of these side journey’s are distracting from that potential promise and that to me is real frustrating.
Luke had an interesting but also a frustrating 2nd section. There is action and a goal involved. I found it frustrating though that a. He’s spending his time with a person that detests his actions even as justified as he is in them b. I don’t know why he insists on sticking with her and joining her group. He has a group they’re called the Jedi and he leads them. Why he wants to leave that for no real apparent reason other than he doesn’t want to solve everyone else’s issues I don’t really know.
Finally, Leia has the 3rd POV except there’s not really much Leia. It’s maybe more Ackbar and seemingly the main nemesis in this book. There is little bit of politics in play here but nothing of real interest and it could lead the Republic into another war.
All that being said the title of this trilogy is the Black Fleet Crisis and I feel like outside of the initial mystery Lando was investigating this seems to have been forgotten and all of these side journey’s are distracting from that potential promise and that to me is real frustrating.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews