Entscheidung bei Koornacht

Star Wars: The Black Fleet Crisis #3

by Michael P. Kube-McDowell, Heinz Nagel (Übersetzer)

Das kriegerische Volk der Yevethaner hat bereits die Bevölkerung von mehr als einem Dutzend friedlicher Welten ausgelöscht, und Han Solo, auf dem alle Hoffnungen der Neuen Republik ruhten, befindet sich in der Gewalt des brutalen yevethanischen Vizekönigs Nil Spaar. Leia muß trotzdem alles daran setzen, um den Senat dazu zu bewegen, endlich Gegenmaßnahmen zu ergreifen - selbst wenn dies Hans Tod bedeutet. Doch inzwischen befindet sich Chewbacca längst auf einer halsbrecherischen Rettungsaktion, um seinen Freund zu befreien - koste es, was es wolle...

Genres: Star Wars, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Space Opera, Science Fiction Fantasy, Adventure

415 pages, Taschenbuch

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Michael 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).

Reviews

[CS · Rating 1 out of 5]

"What has this all been about?"
The crisis with the Koornacht cluster is on the brink of war. Leia's position as president is in turmoil and Han has been captured. Meanwhile, Lando and team are on the cusp of discovery and Luke is growing closer to finding the Fallanassi.

I Liked:
Kube-McDowell saves this series with the political machinations between the New Republic and the Yevetha. Leia is forced to choose between her tenure as president and her husband. This decision is tough and ugly, but it is realistic, and I appreciate an author who isn't afraid of putting an unhappy solution in a novel.
Lando's mission reaches an interesting climax when Lobot interfaces with the Vagabond, though I would be lying if I said I enjoyed the resolution of this plot line.
In the previous two reviews, I have been exceedingly critical of MKM, but I think he deserves credit for elevating Chewbacca above the sidekick role. Here, we get to see his family, how he behaves with his son, and his rescue of Han, one of the best things Chewbacca has ever done in the series.

I Didn't Like:
I can't help but echo Luke's thoughts: What has this [trilogy:] all been about? Why do we care about these missions, these crisis, these journeys? They bear no relevance on later books, they have no lasting impact. To illustrate, let me take the major plot lines:
Lando: So Lando learns the secret of the ship, but he and Luke, who comes whizzing to the rescue at the end in the only plausible tie-in to the rest of the trilogy, won't see any results of this three book long quest, because it takes 100 years for their efforts to "bloom". Wow, and why again was this mission so important that we needed to shoe horn it in with the Yevetha crisis?
Leia: So Leia's presidency is challenged and she declares war on the Yevetha. This could be the beginning of an amazing series...but it is promptly wrapped up with the appearance of Luke and the Omnipotent, Amazing, Peaceful, Wonderful, Godly Fallanassi. Thanks, MKM, for destroying a good story. You put us through one book that barely begins the conflict (I guess that's why it was called Before the Storm, yuk, yuk), another book that steadily rises the conflict to the next level, then rapidly, and hastily wraps it up in the last one. Talk about a waste of effort!
Luke: His whole reason for leaving Yavin 4 was supposed to be because he needed to be a hermit. But that lasted all of one chapter, for he spent the rest of the trilogy with Akanah, the worst girlfriend he has ever had (and proof positive that he is a diehard submissive). The most distrusting, untrustworthy, dishonest, deceitful, manipulative, oppressive, and demanding woman that supposedly was a "good guy" (Uh, huh, yeah, you really bought me on that one--not) proves her integrity by lying with Luke to get him to tag along with her. And I really don't know why. She found all the "clues" (i.e. big, huge, obvious arrow signs) and refused to listen to any of Luke's advise, resting solely on her "vastly superior" knowledge of this previously unknown force, the White Current. It is my personal belief that she is on drugs and what she sees during her psychedelic mind trips is the White Current. So, we (and Luke) trudge through this, supposedly to learn more about Luke's mom (which, those of us who have seen the prequels, know won't happen) only to come out with absolutely nothing. Luke returns to Leia with the always insightful knowledge that he ought to spend time with family. God, and we had to read three books with the worst chemistry, the worst female character ever to come out with this gem???
All in all, the only things we've come out through this tripe are the following:
1) Tie-ins with the most derided SW EU media, the Star Wars holiday special
2) Luke learning the value of family (cue sappy music)
3) Lumpawarrump becoming a man and killing his parents for giving him such a God-awful name.
Wow, I so couldn't live without that.
I've lambasted the plot and the characters (specifically Leia, Luke, and Akanah) to no end, but there is one thing I've forgot to mention in my reviews to the previous two books: Nil Spaar and the Yevetha. While there were some good aspects, I felt on a whole, they were just an excuse for an enemy, one that had absolutely no redeeming value (to human morality), so they could be wholesale slaughtered and no one would bat an eye. I never once sympathized with the villains or felt anything beyond disgust and revulsion. Even the Yuuzhan Vong from the New Jedi Order were better done. I could feel sympathy for Nen Yim and Mezhan Kwad, even for Tsvong Lah.

Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
Little to none.
Akanah and Luke share a room.
The violence in this one is pretty darn heavy. Nil Spaar kills someone so violently, his head is severed. Han is brutally beat to a pulp and people think he is dead. The entire Yevetha society considers murder only a crime if a lower-caste member kills an upper-class member.

Overall:
Political intrigue aside, there really is no reason to read this series. Want a real threat to the New Republic that doesn't deal with the Empire? Go to the New Jedi Order. Want political intrigue? Try Cloak of Deception or Specter of the Past. Want to see Luke learn about his family? Er, guess you will have to keep waiting (Leia finds out about her dad, though, in Tatooine Ghost. Follow Obi-Wan's advice and just "Move along. Move along."

[Scott Rhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tyrant's Test" is the third and final book in Michael P. Kube-McDowell's Black Fleet Crisis series. Highly enjoyable, fast-paced, and written with intelligence and respect for the Star Wars universe and characters created by George Lucas, this series is a must-read for Star Wars fans.

In this one, Leia makes a tough but necessary decision as President of the New Republic in the war against the Yevethans.

Meanwhile, Chewbacca, and several of his Wookie relatives including his son, Lumpy, decide to make a dangerous attempt at a rescue mission to save Han from the Yevethans.

Also meanwhile, Luke discovers Akanah's secrets, which may be used as a secret weapon against the Yevethans, if she agrees to it.

Also also meanwhile, Lando and the droids, still stuck on the vagabond ship, discover its real purpose as it arrives at a seemingly long-dead planet that still harbors life deep beneath its frozen surface. Bravo, Mr. Kube-McDowell!

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to give this four stars, but the last hundred pages failed to pay off the build up of the preceding thousand. The only-tenuous connection of the "Lando thread" to the rest of the story and the inadequate resolution of the Han's and Luke's threads weighted down the otherwise excellent story telling.

It wasn't Kube-McDowell's fault that he wrote this before Episodes One, Two and Three movies were shown, but even so he kept the story within the bounds of "orthodoxy."

But how did the Empire find the White Circle if they could hide so well from everyone else?

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’d never go as far as to say the first 2 books in this trilogy were “good”, but I did enjoy them for what they were…a moderately enjoyable foray into a more grounded and militaristic look at the world of Star Wars after the fall of the Empire and into the fledgling New Republic.

Tyrant’s Test, however was an absolute slog to get through, boring as hell and full of fat too many side plots and nuances of inane political banter/hard sci-fi elements. Many of the interesting ideas and possible climaxes that McDowell introduced in the first 2 books are either complelty nonexistent here, or at wrapped up in such lame and uninteresting ways.

Of course Lando and LoBot return to save the day in a ship that ended up being totally pointless to the overall story arc. Of course Luke shows up just in time with some of the most annoying examples of Deus ex machina I’ve ever read. Chewbacca’s rescue of Han was a highlight but it was, sadly, way too short to make up for the wasted pages of description and dialogue that it took to get to this point. And of course the Yevetha, the main baddies of this entire trilogy, are, lamely, brought down more from within than with a legit knock out fight with the New Republic army.

It’s a bummer because this whole set of 3 books had potential to do something different with this franchise. Instead, it became a massive, irritating bore that forced me to skim/speed read the last 50 or so pages because I was just over it.

[Nat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Finally. It's over.

[Meggie · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 final book in the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, Tyrant’s Test by Michael P. Kube-McDowell.

SOME HISTORY:

I mentioned previously that McDowell saw his target audience as older adults. But it’s interesting how darker and edgier the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy is than any previous Bantam releases. In Tyrant's Test alone, we have the first appearance of profanity like "son of a bitch" and "bastard" when Han is talking back to the Yevetha in Chapters 4 and 5. The violence can get pretty graphic (a very descriptive disembowelment in Chapter 4), and Akanah is asked in Chapter 5 whether she's ever had sex in hyperspace. Tyrant’s Test made it to number thirteen on the New York Times paperback bestseller list for the week of December 22, 1996, and was on the NYT list for three weeks.

MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:

Wow, I really remembered none of this. The only familiar part was the cover. And yet I know I read this before!

A BRIEF SUMMARY:

Chewbacca and his family set out to rescue Han from the Yevetha, while Leia calls upon the Senate to eliminate the threat posed by the Duskhan League--even if it means losing Han. Lando faces off against Imperials in the runaway Qella spaceship, and Luke finally makes some progress on his hunt for the Fallanassi.

THE CHARACTERS:

Lando’s storyline felt even more irrelevant to the greater action, mostly because McDowell relegated his story to “interludes” interspersed between chapters of the main action. Did I still like Lando’s adventure? Did I appreciate the further development of Lobot? Yes to both. I wish, though, that it hadn’t ended with such an obvious deus ex machina. Luke appears, uses a Fallanassi technique to board the Vagabond, talks to the ship with Lobot’s cybernetic headgear, and then uses that same Fallanassi technique to hide the ship as it initiates Qella’s thaw. Lando and Lobot don’t play any role in the conclusion of their arc, and without Luke they might have never been able to disembark. And it’s completely unrelated to the Black Fleet Crisis, which makes you feel like you’ve been subjected to a shaggy dog story.

Luke’s quest for his mother was ultimately a fool’s errand; although filming on Episode I didn’t start until 1997, art development on the film began in January 1995. The casual reader might not have been aware of it, but McDowell presumably was told something. The identity of Luke and Leia’s mother is too important to reveal in a paperback book, so Akanah’s deception doesn’t come as a surprise. He’s better in this book than books 1 or 2, but he’s merely an observer. They find the Fallanassi, Wialu agrees to aid the Fifth Fleet against the Yevetha, yet Luke doesn’t actively fight: he tells A’Baht that his “part in this will not be as a warrior.” In the end, he swoops in to save Lando & co. and agrees to help Leia with the children, but it feels like too little too late. I can’t shake the feeling that his plotline is a demerit against the trilogy as a whole.

I both love and loathe Akanah. I love her boldness; she has the balls to outright lie to Luke Skywalker’s face so that she can drag him along on her journey. I would respect her more if she owned up to it, but there’s too many regretful excuses thrown around for me. Some people lump Akanah in with Luke’s other sad past girlfriends, but I think McDowell makes it pretty clear that they were never intimately involved.

Leia’s plot continued to be the strongest and most interesting. (I would probably have rated these books a lot higher if they were solely focused on her!) It’s a bit repetitive in that she is once again facing the threat of removal from office, but I like how she addressed it so much better than in The New Rebellion. Instead of handing over the reins of power and taking off, she stays put. She doesn’t listen to any of the spin doctors, because Nil Spaar wants her to step down. So even though Han’s life is in danger, she doesn’t waver in declaring war against the Duskhan League.

After Chewbacca went home in Before the Storm, I didn’t expect to see him again, especially after his continued absence in Shield of Lies. But McDowell brought him back for an exciting rescue mission, did some worldbuilding on Kashyyyk, and actually let him speak! Lumpawarump also passes his coming-of-age hrrtayyk ceremony, and gets to exchange the awful nickname “Lumpy” for the slightly more palatable “Waroo.” Han, though, continues to play a lesser role in this book. He’s imprisoned by the Yevetha and savagely beaten, and after his rescue is endlessly either in hospital or en route to a better facility.

On the one hand, I’m glad we’re not just fighting the Empire again. The Imperials who retake their ships during the climactic battle don’t even want anything to do with the New Republic! But the Yevetha continue to be irredeemably evil, obsessed with violence and blood and victory at any cost. I half expected the Yevetha to turn on Nil Spaar, but instead he was taken out by their Imperial slave labor. They’re OK villains, I just wish they had been depicted with a little more nuance.

ISSUES:

I guess I was expecting more from the final battle? We have a previous attack on the thrustships and the shipyard (and I have to agree with the second-in-command here, that it makes far more sense to alert General A’baht so that they can come back with more ships), but the main fight is strangely uneventful. The Imperials escape with all the Imperial ships, Wialu’s illusion keeps the Yevetha occupied for a while, but then it’s literally just A’baht having to destroy every single Yevethan ship because they won’t surrender. It ends up being a bit anticlimactic.

McDowell adds a lot of interesting details about the Senate and how the New Republic works, which later authors completely disregard. And while I like Leia’s political career, it’s a little disheartening how much later books dropped Leia the politician in favor of Leia the Jedi. Likewise, he left the fate of the Black Fleet open-ended for someone else to pick up (loads of Imperial ships in the Deep Core), but no one did.

Similarly to The New Rebellion, I felt like Tyrant’s Test was also lacking resolution. Han is OK, I guess, because Leia mentions that the children and she just visited him. Luke isn’t ready to be a hermit. Lando is alive, which is the best that can be hoped for. In the end, it seemed like an obvious reset to the status quo.

IN CONCLUSION:

In the end, I wish that McDowell had solely focused on Leia, because her plot is powerful and nuanced. Unfortunately, though, you end up having to wade through an irrelevant Lando adventure and a truly skippable Luke arc. (Read for the political subplot, not the Qella wild goose chase or the Fallanassi stuff.)


Next up: the third of the short story collections edited by Kevin J. Anderson, Tales of the Bounty Hunters.

My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/7RL67yr2b0E

McDowell’s FAQs for the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy: https://web.archive.org/web/200805091...

[Andreas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I skimmed the hell out this one. My god it was boring.

1.9/5 stars

[TheGeeksAttic · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Black Fleet Crisis trilogy had a strong start. However, the story arch as a whole was weak, especially in the entertainment department. McDowell did fine with descriptive details and squeezing in some action in a rather boring tale. Though the story was boring, we did get to experiance some cool things that we haven't before, such as Chewbacca with his son, Lumpawaroo.

The trilogy did have character arch's for our heroes, the only one I'll mention is Luke's. The pointless goose chase that he had been on, searching for his biological mother, was a disappointment not only for the reader, but for the character. He was manipulated and somewhat humiliated by the Fallanassi woman that came to him. Through his disappointment however, Luke came to realize that the family he'd been searching for was with him all along, Leia and the kids.

Nil Spaar met his end and thankfully, I reached the end of this trilogy. It isn't as bad as I'm making it out to be, as the story overall did have some good points and fun moments, but the way in which the story had dragged on, it wasn't exciting.

I will give Star Wars: Tyrant's Test a C+.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here is the positives: small improvement in Lando's character, Lobot has probably the most story time in the whole star wars universe, Luke "mother" is fully explained and chewbacca.
Negatives: Leia is boring in this book, Han is okay, the duskhan league is mediocre, and the ending was okay. The story is a bit slow.
Overall solid 3 stars.

[Kasc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tyrant’s Test concludes the Black Fleet crisis series and I have mixed feelings about it (both this particular installment and the series as a whole). Although based on an interesting premise, there is an abundance of inconsistencies alongside many lengthy sections. For the most part, Tyrant’s Test is pretty much on par with its predecessors. Compared to the other books it has more passages that I perceived as boring, but it also has higher stakes and some very tense scenes to make up for the lengths. Yet, the final two chapters caused me to bump it down to two stars. For me, the conclusion is handled so poorly that this novel stands out as the weakest of the series.

As the final novel in a series of three, Tyrant’s Test has a clear purpose, i.e., to conclude and/or bring together the three parallel storylines developed over the course of the first two installments. In the following I will share my thoughts on each of them and want to apologize in advance if my remarks turn into a rant.

Leia:
The central storyline of this novel is the one revolving around the Black Fleet Crisis and in her capacity as Chief of State of the New Republic, Leia is caught up in it completely.
Throughout the novel, the conflict with the Yevetha escalates ever further as the New Republic’s decision makers gradually come to realize that they not only pose a serious threat but also an unyielding enemy who will never surrender. Irrespective of the situation’s gravity, for a considerable amount of time the government suffers from inertia as it is too concerned with internal matters and questions of principle to take action. Leia is in a very tight spot and must justify her being in charge while Han remains imprisoned by the Yevetha. Understandably, many of her colleagues doubt her ability to stay objective in this crisis. Hence, a lot of the earlier chapters featuring Leia focus heavily on these internal struggles. Eventually she seeks the Mon Monthma’s counsel and makes a burdensome decision essentially choosing between saving Han and doing what is right for the New Republic. Only in doing so and in presenting her course of action as a matter of principle is she able to attain the Senate’s support. I really liked Leia’s journey in this book, but I understand that to some the focus may be too much on politics here as the actual action happens rather late in the novel.
Naturally, everything turns out fine for Han eventually despite his having been pretty much sacrificed by Leia for the sake of the New Republic. He is rescued by Chewbacca and a crew of other Wookies including Chewie’s son Lumpawarrump. Interestingly, no one bothers to inform Leia of the imminent rescue even though she was the one to initially inform Chewie of Han’s plight and ask for his help. Apparently, he never checked in with her and she never thought to follow up on her request. Chewie’s entire storyline is a little strange here. There is exactly one chapter set on Kashyyyk, in which we see him engage in a sort of coming-of-age rite for his son. There he learns of his honor brother’s situation and, actually wanting to go on his own, he begrudgingly arranges a rescue team and jets off to rescue Han. After that the Wookies are never to be seen or heard from again until they show up at the exact right time and in the exact right place to liberate Han. As for a conclusion all we get is Chewie acknowledging that his son’s actions during the rescue count as completion of his interrupted coming-of-age rite. I can’t help but wonder why Kube-McDowell would go through the trouble of doing a big flowery introduction scene for the Wookies if they were going to be an irrelevant side note anyways. I think if an author bothers to introduce major characters to a story, they should see it through and give them a proper storyline. It is not that I really needed Chewbacca to play a role in this novel. However, since he was introduced, I feel that it would have made sense to shorten or even cut some of the other stuff in the book to make room to elaborate a bit on the Wookies’ journey towards finding and eventually freeing Han.
Incidentally the Wookie rescue mission falls together with the conclusion of the Black Fleet Crisis and Luke’s reemergence, but more on that in the Luke section below.

Luke:
Luke and Akanah’s quest for the Fallanassi is finally fruitful in Tyrant’s Test. For a while, their search goes on in a similar manner as before, but they eventually find the Fallanassi – on a planet in the sector under Yevethan control of all places. Unfortunately for Luke, he does not find any trace of his mother there as it turns out that Akanah has been lying to him. Akanah did meet a nice Fallanassi lady once who mentioned having been separated from her two children. Yet, it is a bit farfetched to assume she was Luke’s mother. (At least this conclusion to Luke’s quest for his mother does not really clash with Canon. Of course, it would not have been Kube-McDowell’s fault if it did, as the Phantom Menace was released after this series. Contradictions always suck, though).
However, Luke does learn just how powerful the Fallanassi are especially in terms of hiding themselves or others or creating potent illusions if need be. Feeling that a strong illusion might help resolve the conflict with the Yevetha in a less sanguineous way he quickly convinces the Fallanassi, who oppose violence, to help. Hence, after having gone MIA for literal months, Luke waltzes into the New Republic’s control center with a convenient solution to their problem. Everyone is quickly on board (but apparently no one bothers to contact Courscant before changing plans) and the final confrontation with the Yevetha is aided by the mirage of a massive fleet easily outnumbering the Yevetha’s. Interestingly, the illusion is not the decisive factor in the end, but rather insubordination of Imperials that are under Yevethan control. This was an interesting and pretty unexpected final twist. After a final armed conflict that turns out a bit more violent than Luke and the Fallanassi intended, the Yevetha are quickly defeated, and the crisis is averted. As for the aftermath we are left in the dark as only Luke’s arc is properly wrapped up. Once the battle is over and he has helped rescue Lando (see below), Luke returns to Coruscant. There he first destroys his little fortress of solitude (alongside the state-of-the-art fighter ship inside, which is New Republic property), then he shows up at his sister’s doorstep to announce that he is now ready to support her. Instead of giving him a piece of her mind, Leia immediately accepts his apology with “misty” eyes and welcomes Luke back into the family. This is the one instance, in which Leia really acts out of character in this book and it was the final straw that made me bump this book from a 2.5- to a 2-star rating.
Throughout the entire series Luke acts like a complete jackass, he neglects his duties and his family and justifies this by his allegedly having reached some sort-of superior moral level that absolves him from everything and allows him to withdraw himself to do whatever he damn well pleases. It is lucky that his journey eventually leads him into Yevethan space anyway because there is no way he would have traveled across the galaxy had the Fallanassi and their simple solution to the conflict not conveniently been right where they were needed. It serves him right that his mission turned out pointless in the end and it is sort of amazing how gullible he, a Jedi Master, appears to be here. It does not really take a lot of convincing on Akanah’s side for him to tag along (I still don’t understand why she did it, she never really needed him) and although she keeps acting strange and he is suspicious of her, he sticks to the belief that he will eventually encounter his mother until the very end. Given how terribly he acts towards everyone else I do not feel sorry that he spends months with Akanah to no avail. Akanah really is a terrible character. She is constantly whining, secretive without reason, and always beyond preachy. I would not have minded had the author killed her off in the end. At least she goes into hiding with the Fallanassi, so it is very unlikely that she will ever make a comeback.

Lando:
Throughout the whole series the storyline revolving around Lando seemed somewhat detached from the others. Here, this characteristic is stressed as the Lando-centric chapters are now labeled “Interlude” making it perfectly clear that they have nothing to do with the main plot whatsoever and will not eventually tie in with it (I guess I was a little mistaken in this assessment, but more on that later).
Lando and his gang (= Lobot and the droids) are still stuck aboard the Qella vagabond, which has just escaped from an accidental run in with an Imperial star ship during which it has been damaged. The prospect that the ship just might collapse, makes the team’s situation even more desperate. So, they continue their exploration of the ship in the same disorganized manner as begun in Shield of Lies, but there is a bit more urgency to it.
Meanwhile, what remains of the task force that initially brought them on this journey is running a somewhat chaotic rescue mission while a bunch of scientists are trying to unearth information about the Qella on their former home planet.
Eventually, the damaged ship returns to its point of origin, where the task force is waiting for Lando and the others and then able to get them off the ship aided by Luke of all people.
Compared to the previous novels, larger portions of the “Lando chapters” focus on what is going on outside of the vagabond and perhaps that contributed to making these chapters feel so long. Initially, I was intrigued by the Lando storyline as it is so different from the usual Star Wars plots. In Tyrant’s Test I grew tired of it relatively quickly, though, feeling that it constituted an unnecessary distraction from the more interesting main plot.
At least this storyline’s conclusion is satisfying as eventually the true purpose of the vagabond is revealed and there is a hopeful outlook for the Qella species. Regardless, I found it really befuddling that Luke would suddenly show up for the rescue. Remember, he is the guy who first refused to help her sister with her Jedi children, then went on a months-long self-serving mission without a clear objective while choosing to ignore a major intergalactic conflict he could possibly have helped with, but the second someone gives him a call telling him his buddy Lando is in trouble he comes to the rescue? What a jerk. Once Luke shows up everything is wrapped up pretty abruptly but comprehensively. Finally, the fact that Kube-McDowell would choose to wrap up the pointless side plot after the main one and then not mention the aftermath of the huge intergalactic conflict just once is ludicrous to me. It really takes away from the potency of the Yevethan crisis to structure the conclusion in such a way.

As a whole, Tyrant’s Test has many flaws, it is at times pretty lengthy (I remember one space battle scene I just skimmed because it didn’t seem to add anything to the plot and was just so boring), some characters are terrible (Luke and Akanah!), and not everything makes a lot of sense. However, in principle there are some great ideas here. First, I kind of like the Yevetha as enemy because they are just so inherently evil. It is very easy to root for the good guys to eradicate them because there is absolutely no duplicity. Of course, such black and white character building is a bit simplistic. Second, the conclusion to the conflict is truly unique. The idea of creating a decoy fleet using the Fallanassi’s abilities is curious and seemed like it just might work. That in the end it would not be the decisive factor but that interference by Imperials would be, was entirely unexpected for me and makes for a cool final twist. Third, and finally, I really enjoyed the political conflict on Coruscant and Leia’s personal journey towards choosing the right path and accepting its consequences.
In the end the Black Fleet Crisis series is no peak Star Wars content, but relatively stable, nonetheless. There is no harm in reading it, but I could think of a bunch of other stuff I would recommend before recommending these books. Unfortunately, Tyrant’s Test is the weakest novel of the series, but that is largely due to its ending.

[Taylor Atkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short, fun listen. The narrator, music and sound effects make this engaging.

[Kurtbg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The final book in this trilogy among a trillion of trilogies in the SW universe. There’s some good story, but tries to do too much by weaving four story lines and trying to give the main characters all something. The establish Lucas paradigm is to have three story lines to pull at each other to build drama.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Tyrant's Test" is the third book of a Star Wars trilogy written by Michael P. Kube-McDowell. According to the "About the Author" page, this is actually the pen name of Michael Paul McDowell. I understand why authors use different pen names to keep from being typecast with a certain genre but I'm not sure how they came up with the mouthfull for this one. Oh well. This trilogy take place about twelve years after the "Return of the Jedi" and was written in the still early days of the first group of Star Wars fiction. Consequently, it suffers, I believe with having to rely on plot development, filling in the "what happened next" syndrome and just doesn't have to time to really expand on the characters. Most of us know a lot about Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, Lando, etc. but do we really? The plot of this one is fairly straight forward. Each of the main characters I just mentioned plus some bad guys have their own sub plots and that's really too many to fully develop in a 350 page paperback book, especially when all of the sub plots need to be wrapped up. I thought Luke's plot was especially contrived because it turned out he was just being lied to the whole time and nothing came of it. But somehow at the end, that experience had substantially changed him and his outlook. Hmmm... Han didn't play a big role throughout the trilogy, just uncharacteristically being captured and having to be rescued. Didn't ring true.

All in all, this trilogy has some of the worst reviews I've seen for SW books. It wasn't that bad in my opinion but still, I am glad to see it come to an end.

[Dominic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still like the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, but this finale spent a bit too much time on the weaker plot threads and resolved some of the more interesting ones too quickly. I was riveted by Leia's political struggles and I like what this book does with that subplot. Unfortunately, the political struggle ends fairly abruptly once the war starts and isn't really revisited.

Meanwhile, the revelations in this book make Luke's journey seem like a bait and switch - although I appreciate that the Fallanassi tied into the broader conflict with the Yevetha. In retrospect, Luke's character arc, while worthwhile on its own merits, didn't carry over into other EU books. Lando's subplot with the Teljkon vagabond seems more like a Star Trek than a Star Wars story and always felt like an intrusion. The revelation at the end was interesting, but I also couldn't help but feel that all of Lando's chapters could have been removed from the trilogy with no impact on the rest of the story.

Kube-McDowell's battle scenes are extremely tense and he does an excellent job depicting the horrors of war. This series provides great world-building for the New Republic and fleshes out several fleet officers. The Yevetha were an interesting and different threat for Star Wars. I do think this third book veered a bit too much into violence and grimdark, stripping the Yevetha of some of the nuance and cultural sophistication they seemed to exhibit in "Before the Storm." The New Jedi Order series would later double-down on this darker take on Star Wars, but also better fleshed out individual Yuuzhan Vong characters.

[Darryl Dobbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Closing off the trilogy, the third book was as riveting as the others. That is to say - for the Han and Leia parts I was riveted, but the other parts not so much. The Luke area never really got going for me, not only because Akanah Pell (his lady friend) is annoying, but their search for her people (and his mother) was a pretty boring one. I've also made no effort to hide the fact that the only magic I enjoy in this series is the Force. Akanah uses the 'Current' and they apparently have the ability to hide items as large as spaceships and create illusions that are just as big. One good thing to come out of it though is that now Luke has that added ability (invisibility) which he was taught. This storyline did eventually tie into the Han and Leia tangent. So it had a point. That's something that can't be said about the Lando plotline.

Pointless. The story got worse as it went on. And in the end it had nothing at all to do with the other story threads.

Besides the interesting Han and Leia story, I also enjoyed the Chewbacca tangent. He caught wind of Han being captured by the enemy and he immediately dropped everything to go rescue him. It was good enough to salvage a novel that Lando's 'adventures' almost ruined.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's been a bit of a slog to get through the series, but here I am at the conclusion to the trilogy. The three plot points essentially merge into two. Lando's plot is still irrelevant and should have been concluded in book 2. In the second book, the three plot points were addressed separately which was a good move, but now we are back to Lando's story been interspersed through the book.

The overall trilogy is about “The Black Fleet”; an almost unstoppable fleet of ships, but yet the Yethetha take over a few planets (only a couple are described, the rest happen behind the scenes) and so you don't get much action. You don't even get any build up, since this happens fairly early on in the series.

The main story in this book doesn't really get going until halfway though the book; so until that point, you have to read superfluous plot threads. Once it does get going, it is fine and better than the second book; but still incredibly disappointing.

[Joseph · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book stunk!!! It was well written, but the plot and story line stunk. I had the first 2 books as 4 stars because I thought well not that great it was still better then some of the other Star Wars books. But reading this book moved them to 2 stars and this one gets a 1 star. The ending was lame and really disappointing. The only thing that was good was Chewie kicking butt. Everything had to go.

The author should have saved the readers time and money and gotten rid of the Luke and Lando stories and it would have been 1 book. They really didn't have anything to do with the overall story and it was a waste. Leia wasn't mentioned in the last 100+ pages and her character had some serious things going on. I am super glad I bought these books used and a total of less then $7 combined.

I should have listened to one of my friends on this site and skipped it. I don't recommend.

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having started this conclusion to the trilogy back in February, it took it for me to be sat on a beach with not too many distractions to finally finish it.
The Black Fleet Crisis trilogy is by far the most disappointing series I've read from the Star Wars Expanded Universe and was a real slog to get through.
This final book is a definite improvement over the first two but the character of Akanah is by far the worst from the whole franchise. Absolutely awful and the revelation at the end of this one made her even worse.
Thankfully she's not in this book too much and the other storylines do have a reasonably satisfying conclusion.
The main problem with the series is it is written as a much harder sci-fi than Star Wars should be.
Glad I've finished it, but unlikely to read again.

[Colin McEvoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I basically feel about Tyrant’s Test the way I feel about the entire Black Fleet Crisis series: not without flaws, and there are certain aspects of the story I would have handled differently, but overall it was enjoyable enough and there’s more that I liked than there is that I didn’t.

So let me focus first on what I liked. There have essentially been three major subplots throughout this series: Lando Calrissian investigating (and being trapped upon) a mysterious phantom spacecraft, Luke Skywalker travelling with a mysterious woman and trying to learn about his long-lost mother, and Princess Leia trying to grapple with the threat of both the evil Yevethan species, as well as political foes attempting to remove her from power, not to mention the kidnapping of her husband Han Solo.

Throughout the series, Princess Leia’s chapters have been the most interesting to me, while Luke’s subplot has been the least interesting, and indeed, I thought Leia’s story arc wrapped up nicely in Tyrant’s Test. While in the first book of this series I found that author Michael P. Kobe-McDowell had made her character far too uncertain and weak-willed, in this final novel she seems much more like the Leia we all know and love. In the face of moral dilemma over whether to do what she believes is right for the New Republic or to throw that all aside to save her husband’s life, the way she ultimately handles that decision feels truly in character for her, and it is a triumphant moment. (And it was nice to see Mon Mothma reemerge in a chapter to provide her some morale support!)

What surprised me, however, was how much I enjoyed Luke’s storyline in this one as well. For the first two books (and especially the second one), I found myself extremely uninterested, and felt that Kobe-McDowell (as with Leia in the first book) handled Luke’s character and personality entirely incorrectly in the second novel. In Tyrant’s Test, however, he took what had previously seemed to me to be an unnecessary tangent from the main storyline and tied it surprisingly well back into the book’s major conflict with the Yevetha. The Luke B-plot didn’t sustain my interest for most of the series, but it won me back in a big way here.

On the flip side, the Lando subplot, which I have otherwise enjoyed for most of the season, kind of sputtered into its final chapters. The surprise revelation of what exactly this ship is was not a bad one in and of itself, but I was surprised that it ultimately had nothing to do with the main plotline of the series. The Luke story seemed that way for the first two books as well, but it ultimately tied back into it. Lando’s story never did.

As with the other books, I also enjoyed the Yevetha (and especially its leader, Nil Spaar) as an antagonist, but I was disappointed with how the conflict between the Yevetha and New Republic came to an end. After three books of developing this species’ culture and building up to a war between the two, they are ultimately felled in large part due to an unexpected betrayal by a character who had not even appeared in the series until the very end. It felt very unrewarding and a bit like a deus ex machina.

But again, there was enough to enjoy in Tyrant’s Test to let me forgive its shortcomings. We also get Chewbacca back in the fold, after he had gone missing since the first book, and his side quest to recapture Han Solo along with fellow Wookie family members is good fun, not to mention a nice little coming-of-age story for Chewie’s son, Lumpawaroo. And Kobe-McDowell does a good job of developing little minor characters who will never be seen again after this series and making us root for them all the same, like Esege Tuketu and Skids (a pilot and bomber duo who we first saw in the first chapter of the first book, and who play a brief but important role in ths one) and Plat Millar (the sole survivor of a deadly Yevethan raid who becomes a New Republic pilot and is desperate to contribute to strike a blow against them).

So yeah, in the end, Tyrant’s Test and the Black Fleet Crisis may not be the best Star Wars books around, but if you like Star Wars books, you’ll probably like them.

[Tibbs · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is book 42 on my read-through of the Star Wars Legends books.

Well, this series turned out to be a profound waste of time.

The first half of this book reads like a continuation of Shield of Lies, dwelling on the same handful of plot points ad nauseam without any meaningful plot development. Then, around the halfway point, the author clearly realized his predicament and attempted to cram two novels' worth of plot into half a book. The result feels rushed and underbaked. But, frankly, even if it were given the proper time, the various conclusions to the series' plotlines are so dull and anticlimactic that I doubt any amount of extra buildup could have saved them.

The plot is ponderously slow most of the time, and when something finally happens, the book often rushes through it, as if eager to get back to doing nothing. I cannot believe how much time was wasted on Leia's storyline, given its sudden and anticlimactic ending -- an ending with basically zero impact on the actual central conflict. I cannot believe how much time was wasted on the Teljkon Vagabond storyline, only to speedrun all of the genuinely interesting revelations about it in the final pages of the book. I cannot believe how much time was wasted with Luke and Akanah just wandering around aimlessly.

But above all, I cannot believe how few space battles there were in these books, given that the series clearly positioned itself as a "military sci-fi" take on Star Wars and the author is clearly skilled at writing military sci-fi. This book has one genuinely good space battle, but the book provides only the most threadbare context for why the battle occurs or why the Republic combatants couldn't have just called for reinforcements or left instead of stumbling into a conflict they were likely to lose. Meanwhile, the big final battle of the series landed with a dull thud, hinged on not one, but TWO deus ex machinas introduced only shortly before.

The book also unfortunately dips increasingly into sections that eschew limited third-person perspective so that the omniscient narrator can engage in extreme levels of tell-instead-of-show in order to move the plot along. In fact, huge portions of the final battle of the book are described this way, completely ruining the conclusions for two major characters: the series villain and Plat Mallar, both of whom are discarded from the story with an almost hilarious level of disregard.

This book has good ideas. As in the previous entries, the author excels at world-building detail. But nearly all of this detail ends up feeling like a waste of time. The book spends two full pages describing the castle of a particular politician on Coruscant, along with his faction's homeworld, system of rule, and relationship with Leia, only for this character to fulfill only the most basic role in the plot and effectively disappear afterwards. Why? Why did the author do that?

Everything involving the wookiees was genuinely great. I loved hearing about the wookiees' social systems, and the interactions between Chewbacca and his son were excellent. But this plotline is given only the bare minimum screentime and isn't even allowed a proper conclusion. It ends up being half-baked, just like everything else in this book.

The book also tugs at some interesting philosophical questions with the Fallanassi, but it doesn't explore them in anything close to a meaningful way. Both Luke and Akanah's actions just come across as completely nonsensical by the end. I also just generally hate the way the author conceptualizes the jedi and the force, and I hate the way force powers are used in this book.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure how else to describe this book but deeply lame. Tyrant's Test is not aggressively, maliciously bad. It's bad in a very boring way. I'm tempted to say this series reads like a first draft, but, given the overwhelming "lameness" of it all, it's hard to imagine some great masterpiece lurking inside The Black Fleet trilogy that could have been found via further revision. Oh well. I am immensely glad to finally be done with this series. It's crazy to think that these books nearly derailed my Star Wars reading challenge. On to better books (I hope).

3/10.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book going into it. The stakes were high and I couldn't predict where it could possibly go. Neither did the author apparently because this book sure does peter out.

None of the plots really intersect in any meaningful way, I was really hoping the very detached Lando plot would somehow come into play but it's more just a foot note to show how Luke has grown. The timeline also makes no sense and it randomly jumps forward a week even though it seemed like Lando and Lobot couldn't last that long.

What's weirder is that the Black Fleet Crisis itself isn't even the main climax really. It builds up to it, but then it's just pretty quickly solved not by any of our main characters but by a total ass pull deus ex (seriously they never mention the imperial slaves once until the final book). Really just shows how little Luke and Han contributed.

The entire Yevethan threat is just dealt with in 2 paragraphs after the big battle. No twist or anything interesting with them, just a group of bad people doing bad stuff cause they can. I did end up liking Nil Spaar, the main antagonist, just because they were desperate to have another explosive big bad like Thrawn. This time however he's much more 90's "cool", not wasting time on art but bangs harems and executes those who are weaker. It's pretty silly but I still kinda loved it.

Leia meanwhile is so wrapped up in a vote of no confidence and being betrayed by some rando we just met in this book is pretty meaningless. Then it really doesn't matter because she just made her own decision and nothing really comes from it. With how much she blew off work during wartime, I'm pretty impressed how long she managed to keep her position.

The Luke arc is probably the worst however, nothing substantial happens, he blows off his family to be preached by a useless pathological liar with no redeeming qualities. He acts like an ass, completely misunderstands Obi Wan and Yoda's exile, and ends up looking like an idiot who was taken advantage of and doesn't even have the mental capacity to retort a group of hypocritical pacifists. I really hated this bit.

At the end this was a pretty mediocre ending to a decent enough trilogy that makes it pretty hard to recommend. Leia is naive and makes every stupid decision she could, Han is useless, and Luke is a dickhead. The only highlight is that the Lando stuff is really solid and could've been a novella. I also liked Chewbacca murdering a bunch of babies, that was pretty wild and caught me off guard



Edit: Felt like the Yevetha were low-key racist, but couldn't nail down why. Just realized they're WW2 Japan charictures

[Trevor Williamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tyrant's Test closes out the Black Fleet Crisis, perhaps one of the more underrated Star Wars trilogies from the 1990s. While it's forgivable to overlook the book because of its languid pace and conflicting ideas, this conclusion does posit some very interesting ideas about the nature of power, about how it is to be used or not used, about how we consider conflict and what fair resolution looks like when dealing with wholly alien cultural concepts about power.

The book is really centered on three major conflicts: Leia Organa's fight to control the New Republic after her leadership is called into question; Luke's continued search for his mother's people and his interrogation of their culture; and Lando's dealings with a vagabond starship and its mysteries. Leia's role in the book and the political intrigue she faces while chasing after her kidnapped husband is really the strongest part of the book, and it's where I think the book shines the most. Luke's story is a distant second, hamstrung largely by the seeming disconnect his role has on the central plot of the novel, even if his story is thematically relevant and represents an important character arc for him. Lando's part in the novel is easily the weakest, reminiscent perhaps far too much of L. Neil Smith's adventures from the early '80s. While Lando's story does serve as the bookend to Luke's journey and represents an important, hopeful counterpoint to the story of the Falannassi, I think it's easily the weakest (and frustratingly the longest) part of the whole trilogy.

But aside from its terrible pacing issues, the trilogy has some of the strongest thematic ideas in any of the books I've read through 1996. Kube-McDowell doesn't shy away from really complex and nuanced conversations through all of the book's characters, and it feels like the most philosophical trilogy Star Wars may ever see. While I could have done with a whole lot less Lando and a whole lot more Leia, I think the book has to be seen as part of the whole trilogy, and thus serves as a necessary chapter in the trilogy's overall thesis statement.

I honestly wish more of Star Wars were like this book, albeit perhaps better paced. The Black Fleet Crisis may not shape up as one of the more action-packed episodes in the EU saga, but it is easily the most intellectual and the most serious attempt at giving Star Wars some of the philosophical heft of other sci-fi.

[FP · Rating 2 out of 5]

Con este libro cierra esta trilogía de Star Wars Legends (no creo que me vaya a acostumbrar a eso de Legends algún día...). Las tramas vuelven a estar mezcladas, aunque al menos esta vez reconocieron lo desconectado que está Lando del resto, ya que ahora no son capítulos sino sólo "interludios".
Debo decir que me decepcionó un poco el cierre de las tramas más dispares de la serie: la trama de Luke termina tal como podíamos haberlo adivinado cuando leímos el nombre de la que se supone era su madre en el primer libro, haciendo que todo eso se sintiera inútil; peor aún, él podría haber estado ayudando a su hermana todo ese tiempo, pero en su lugar andaba cazando nubes espaciales. Tratan de compensarlo al final haciendo que él haga algo por ayudar a derrotar a los Yevetha al final, pero para ser más honesto, el imperio hace más que él en ese aspecto. Para hacerlo aún peor, R2-D2 siempre ha sabido el verdadero nombre de la madre de Luke y podría haberle dicho que no perdiera su tiempo buscando a una mujer equivocada (o, más bien, habría hecho unos ruidos agudos que C-3PO le habría traducido), salvo el hecho de que R2 estaba atrapado en la trama de Lando. Y Lando, por su parte, llega a una conclusión con respecto a la nave, que puede o no ser satisfactoria, pero el problema es que la verdadera conclusión... ¡se la da Luke, una vez que los dos se reúnen al final! ¿Qué pasa con eso?
La trama principal de Leia es lo que se puede presumir, pero tiene algunos puntos positivos adicionales, como la entrada triunfal de Chewbacca (a quien sacaron casi como si fuera un trámite de los dos primeros libros) en todo estilo héroe. Lo que sí extrañé fue una especie de cierre para la trama principal de Leia, puesto que las otras dos sí tuvieron las suyas.
¿Cómo resumir la serie? Tom Clancy en el universo Star Wars, tres androides y Lando, Luke demasiado todo poderoso y haciendo muy poco por la trama e historias inconexas. Honestamente, el autor podía haber sacado la trama de Lando por completo y haberla publicado como un libro solitario, mientras que a la vez habría hecho la serie más corta (sólo dos libros, probablemente).

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my favorite out of the trilogy for reasons that fall into three categories.
1. I no longer have any more books in this trilogy to read
2. This book took the bold choice of switching between 3 concurrent storylines, rather than telling all of one, and then the next, each in their own third of the book.
3. The content! Spoilers below.


- The beautiful and wonderful Akanah has been leading Luke Skywalker astray! It turns out, as I suspected, she was entirely making up knowing his mother. When Luke confronts her about this, she says something to the effect of "Well, it wasn't a bad lie because you would have liked if it were true." With this plot point, the trilogy avoids contradicting what George Lucas had planned for the prequal trilogy, which was unknown at the time.
- Lando Calrissian continued to have the most interesting plotline of the book to me, trapped in a living ship. I greatly enjoyed the primer on human genetics, nucleotides, and codon pairing, mixed in with made up science in the vein of 'lets use our laser guns to reverse an ice age.'
- While I still don't understand how politics work in star wars, and love procedure and etiquette too much to feel fully supportive of our maverick heroes who hate their media and PR teams, I liked to see Leia winning again in this book. She gives a speech that gets everyone on her side, choses the good of the galaxy and her constituents over the potential death of her husband, and is not talked down to by every male character like in the previous two Black Fleet Crisis books.

Death Star Rating: There are no death stars in this book

[Erik Akre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hey! A Star Wars novel written with genuine skill!

Kube-McDowell did things right compared to other writers in the vast miasma of Star Wars books. Here are two of them that stick with me:

He has an absolutely amazing handle on Star Wars technical information--way more than his readers can possibly have. The effect is that he draws the read on through the great lexicon of starships and gadgets and technological realities of the Universe. The reader understands maybe two-thirds of it at most, but the reader ends up completely trusting the author. We are in good hands here, and we can settle in to a well-executed description of the book's world.

And character! Kube-McDowell's treatment of the familiar and unfamiliar characters goes at least somewhat beneath the surface, which is more than one can say about many of the other books. The author is skilled especially at dialogue--another rare feat among these novels--and the plot, which relies so heavily on the characters talking to each other, becomes clearer, easier to follow, more enjoyable, and better driven.

Although the attempt to tell several threads of plot at once becomes a little distracting and feels disjointed, despite the fact that they (mostly? anti-climactically?) come together in the end, this book is solid. I read it stand-alone, as a simple diversion from my real life, and now I'm interested in digging in to the rest of the series. Especially if its written by the same author.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like some of this story is the "I have this great idea" and then work backwards to make it work problem. The entire plot with Luke drove me nuts from beginning to end. How does this guy end up with Mara Jade?

Also the author put a lot of work into making two seperate races that were very specific in their weirdness. Everything about Nil Spaar and his kind was so very disturbing. All of that took a lot of work and imagination that really wasn't needed. I didn't need to know about his breeding philosophies to know he was bad.

I loved every scene with Han Solo. I can never get enough of him. There is something about him that brings truth( sometimes with humor) to every scene.

There was so much drama in Leia's plotline. It seemed to be on endless repeat in this book, but I really enjoyed the scene with Mon Mothma.

Chewbacca's story tried really hard. I'll give it that. I liked the loop around at the end. I think I'd like to read about Waroo's adventures.

I still think Lando's plot had no real purpose. I see what it did, but honestly would it have changed the story much without it?

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are three major plot lines in the black fleet trilogy. Luke searches for his mother, Leia fights to keep her job and win a war and Lando gets trapped inside an organic spaceship.
I love reading about Luke’s adventures but this one left me annoyed. He complained that being a celebrity was too hard because everyone wants something from him and yet he’s gullible enough to go on a scavenger hunt with woman he just met in the hopes of finding his mother, meanwhile turning his back on Leia in a time of great personal need. Ugh!
Don’t get me started on Lando and his pointless and dangerous need for adventure. It should have been a separate book all together. I would have rather spent my time reading about Chewie’s family and how he spent his time on his home planet. The little I got to read about him in tyrants test was far more interesting than the monotonous chapters spent on Lando that I had to force myself to get through for the entire trilogy. Ugh!
I did enjoy Leia and Han’s story, dealing with betrayal and a strong, ruthless adversary. Leia is strong and vulnerable at the same time. Love her!

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am probably rating this higher than it deserves but putting at a lower score seems like a cheat. I like that his works are different from the rest of Star Wars. I appreciate that he gave the New Republic military lingo which they all understood. I didn't care for the Luke/Akanah story and Leia just up and disappears for the final 1/4 of the book except for the very end but her role was done and her part to play was over so it made sense. I thought the character of Plat Mallar, who was being built up all trilogy, was going to be a character going forward but he died "off screen" in a heroic way but no one knows it was him and I thought how noble that was and how random war can be. Speaking of war, there's battle and in a series called Star Wars it's skipped over like he didn't have time to write an action scene and basically summarized it "stuff happened". However, I did like the Wookie rescue of Han and the reveal of why they were so successful Lando's story didn't go the way I expected, Luke's story didn't go as I expected either and neither did the main conflict. Maybe I am just appreciating this book for being different and that's just fine.

[Elwin Kline · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not like it. - 1 out of 5 star rating.

Chewbacca and his family go on an adventure... mixed in with Lando, Han, Leia, Luke, etc.

Man... if you have watched the Star Wars Holiday Special, you just can't unseen content like that. I couldn't help but laugh at the thought of 'Lumpy' and crew in this book. I could not take it seriously at all.

Lando felt like a miss with a side story approach with little added value to the main plotline. It baffles me a bit how to blow it with characters like Lando and Han. They are just so much fun, it just seems like such an easy win and really makes me wonder how such a miss can happen so often like this.

Luke was status quo and subpar which seems to be the norm for his character unfortunately. I sincerely do not have it out for Luke, but numerous entries like that like just keep stacking up.

The end was unsatisfying as well. The author tried to do too much and go into too many directions. He would have be much better off picking 1-2 paths and focusing on them, instead of we get here.

Just not a good Star Wars book.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

For all the build-up Kube-McDowell created in the first two books, he sure sent everything into a tailspin for the final book. He concludes it, probably in the best way he knew how, but all of the tension evaporated under the heat of the battle scenes. The antagonists went from being despicable but understandable to mustache-twisting, evil-for-the-sake-of-evil, how-atrocious-can-they-be villains, and it was too easy to lose all interest in what they were doing. Add in two subplots that feature across all three books but have zero bearing on the main plot (the series is, after all, called "The Black Fleet Crisis", and anything not relating to that is just superfluous if it doesn't add to that plot), and you get a crushing disappointment of a book. It makes me want to go back and adjust my ratings of the first two books, because I wouldn't want someone to get the idea that this series pays off in any way.