Fate of the Jedi: Backlash

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi #4

by Aaron Allston

Locked in a war of wills and weapons, the Jedi Order and the Galactic Alliance must come to terms—before the Sith’s army of darkness enacts revenge.
 
Repercussions from the dark side’s fatal seduction of Jacen Solo and the mysterious plague of madness afflicting young Jedi continue to wreak galaxywide havoc. Luke and Ben Skywalker are in pursuit of the now Masterless Sith apprentice—a chase that leads to the forbidding planet Dathomir, where the Skywalkers will be forced into combat for their quarry and their lives. Meanwhile, Han and Leia have completed their own desperate mission, shuttling madness-stricken Jedi to safe haven beyond the grasp of Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala. Yet no greater threat exists than Abeloth, a being of ravenous dark-side energy who calls out to Jedi and Sith alike. For some it may be the ultimate source of answers for survival. For others it could be the ultimate weapon of conquest. But for all, it is a game-changing encounter of untold magnitude with unimaginable consequences.

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

309 pages, Hardcover

First published March 9, 2010

About the author

Aaron Dale Allston was an American game designer and author of many science fiction books, notably Star Wars novels. His works as a game designer include game supplements for role-playing games, several of which served to establish the basis for products and subsequent development of TSR's Dungeons & Dragons game setting Mystara. His later works as a novelist include those of the X-Wing series: Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, Solo Command, Starfighters of Adumar, and Mercy Kill. He wrote two entries in the New Jedi Order series: Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream and Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand. Allston wrote three of the nine Legacy of the Force novels: Betrayal, Exile, and Fury, and three of the nine Fate of the Jedi novels: Outcast, Backlash, and Conviction.

Reviews

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me smile, even though I was in an awful mood today. It didn't change my mood, but it helped me forget my problems for a little while. I love Star Wars. These books are fun and entertaining. Luke and his son, Ben, are two characters that I've come to love in this series. Han and Leia were also in this one. Their adopted granddaughter was a little annoying in this one. I think it was possibly the narrator's inflection on some the dialogue that I didn't care for. I found myself pausing and asking myself that if it had been said differently would I be as annoyed. I'm not exactly sure what that answer is...still, even after thinking about it. But this book was still 4 star worthy for me.

[Khurram · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the Fate of the Jedi series. This is another great book. The series is a little slow moving, this book does move things forward a bit, but not as much as I would have liked. The reason I don't mind the slow simmer boil of the series is because there are many issues and what the series lacks in speed it makes up for in character development.

The book lets Ben Skywalker have more print time. I have to say this has worked well as from the last series I found Ben as whiny little brat, he seems the have matured considerably in his mid teens, and his military experience is also shining through. He also has the Connan like legacy of not one being the sone of 2 of the most powerful Jedi of their generation, but he was born on the battlefield.

The story. Following Sith apprentice Vestara Khai to the planet Dathomiri, Luke and Ben Skywalker find a scoitity in transition. Dathomiri formally dominated by the female darkside users the Nightsisters, now has more accepting of males. The most powerful and influential male clan known as Broken Columns starting to form a union with the Raining Leaves clan. This does not sit well remaining Nightsisters, who intend to destroy both clans for breaking their traditions. Vestara has also in infiltrated the Raining Leaves, to hide from the Skywalkers. However does her true agenda go even further as Ben say "Nightsisters snd Sith go together like caf and cream". The Solo's minus Jaina also make an appearence on Dathomiri, before heading back to the Core.

On Coruscant Daala makes good on her threat to use the Mandos against the Jedi. However this does not go over as planned, and she must deal with the political backlash of her increasing anti Jedi stance, and her predecessor. Even Jagged Fel littilary comes under fire from his political rivals, and new imperial alliances are fromed.

The only thing I did not like about this book is Luke exceptional moments was pretty much redundant. I understand why this was the case it was to give Ben more time go shine and develop. However I would love to see more duel between Luke and a Sith Lord. Something to look forward to in the next book I guess. Especially with the ending of this book I wanted start the next book right away. Very good book, it has to be read as part of the series it is not a stand alone story.

[Jonathan Koan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fate of the Jedi series really is killing it with each entry!

This book has a very fun plotline on Dathomir. It didn't feel like it advanced the Sith plotline a ton, but rather it felt like it brought character development for Ben and for Vestara, building what will be important for them later in the series. The minor characters were good as well, and the way that Allston made connections to other Star Wars properties were really cool!

I really enjoyed the storyline on Coruscant again. The political intrigue and action is just superb. Everything with Daala and Jagged and everyone else is just so frustrating (in a good way!).

Allson is definitely the funniest of the classic Star Wars authors, and boy did he get a few chuckles out of me. I love his humor in this book, particularly between Ben and Luke.

I am so excited to continue the series, and this book has me pumped for more. 9 out of 10!

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luke and Ben seemed to have abandoned their mission to uncover the murky truth of Jacen’s turn to the Dark Side during the third FOTJ book, Abyss, when a weird new tribe of Sith caught their attention. In Backlash, the adventure continues. Luke’s on the prowl, metaphorically sniffing out Vestara Kai like some crazy bad ass Jedi hunting dog; with his blood splattered on her person after a lightsaber battle that ended with the death of her Master, Vestara’s unaware she’s even being tracked, but you can bet she’s looking for a place to hide. Ben’s aware of his father’s exhaustion, despite Luke’s protests, and elicits the help of the Jedi via an encrypted, sneaky, and very under-the-radar message intended to make absolutely clear it isn’t Luke who’s asking (which would violate the terms of his parole), it’s his son. Eager to help and reminding us the “good thing about the Solos and Skywalkers” is they “never run out of things to do” (p. 6), Han and Leia pack Allana and her pet nexu aboard the Falcon and head to the only place Luke and Ben can guess is the most likely location Vestara would land: Dathomir. And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where the fun begins. What follows is a witty and wild adventure in which Daala realizes she’s in over her head, Han gets a flamethrower, and a nexu manages to elicit more pathos out of me than Allana ever will.

Now that there’s more time between FOTJ releases, the page count per book can go up and fans like me can feel we’ve bought something worth the cover price. Let me make this clear: the extra pages were not only needed, but they’re everything that made Backlash read like a complete installment in the series rather than a rushed addition or careless afterthought. Every success reveals a new failure, though and unfortunately, no matter how much I’m enjoying this series, something went wrong. To be fair, there’s many things going on behind the scenes that have affected FOTJ. One of those is the release of the Lost Tribe of the Sith books as e-books. Sure, they’re free, but they’re e-books. I don’t know about you, but I hate e-books. Sitting to read in front of my computer for extended periods of time isn’t as easy as sitting with a physical book. There’s considerably less eyestrain; not all of us can afford fancy e-book readers with e-ink (or to keep printing each story). Some of the plot in those books, which I still haven’t and refuse to read until they’re in print, would, I hear, have helped clear up some of my confusion over the latest band of Sith apparently no one’s ever run into before. With the release of Crosscurrent, I finally got a lot more information and backstory that I really should have gotten before I read the first FOTJ book, Outcast. It might be too much to ask for books to be released chronologically, but it would have been really, really helpful.

I bring this up because suddenly Zekk’s madly in love with someone named Taryn. I was as baffled as everyone else--when did this happen? I can only guess, after a kind fan suggested, theirs was a romance forced to bloom behind the scenes, after Blood Oath was cancelled. Honestly, though? I think these kind of “surprise!” revelations lose any real relevance when they come out like this, especially because Zekk played a larger role in LOTF and has since then suddenly dropped out of existence. His return is lukewarm, unexplained, and unfortunate in execution. Allston, to his credit, was doing the best he could. It’s not his fault Blood Oath was cancelled, and I’m sure at some point, if it wasn’t him who corralled Zekk back into the narrative, it’d just be another author. Kudos to you, Allston, for taking the bullet.

Now that Zekk’s back, I couldn’t really understand his role in Backlash. Luke and Ben have made it on planet and are tracking Vestara when they run across a clan of Witches and a little bit of trouble; Han and Leia are off to investigate when they leave Allana in the Falcon with the droids and nexu; Zekk and Taryn are supposed to be watching the kid, but fail to intervene or even notice when Allana successfully outmaneuvers 3-PO (we all know how hard it is) and sneaks off to rescue Artoo. He shoots something once (I think) and is never brought to task for her being scared half to death and the nexu getting a concussion. Someone please correct me and point out where I misread Zekk’s actual involvement. I’m not above being corrected, I’m just confused.

Zekk and Allana aside, the return to Dathomir was, surprisingly, most of what made this book so much fun for me. Sine Luke’s last visit, the Dathomir Witches have evolved a little and emancipated their men--they can leave clans, form others, own property, vote, and wear pants, too. There were many jibes at the expense of traditional Dathomiri gender roles made even more entertaining when the gang is politically caught up in the elaborate process of the joining of two mutually exclusive, gender-polarized clans in the one thing that I never knew was missing from Star Wars: Dathomir Olympics. It’s about as backwater as you’d expect: rock throwing, sharp shooting, wrestling--you get the idea. There’s even medals; Han wants to make his into coasters. Dathomir’s also famous for rancors and darned if there isn’t an influx of them and some skirmishes that bring to memory Luke’s caged battle with Jabba’s wee baby pit monster. Delicate political negotiations aside, the diversions of the games was a great balance to Ben’s investigation into Vestara’s real motive.

We also get to meet some new and interesting characters. In particular, I’ve grown fond of Dyon--a Force-sensitive and unsuccessful Jedi candidate Ben hires for the cause at 5 credits, apparently the going rate for Jedi. Dyon is the little character that could and the type we don’t see enough of in a world saturated with familiar heroes and villains. Speaking of villains, Allston’s portrayal of Daala turned into a bit of a caricature of the stiff woman we’ve come to know and expect. At times it seemed she was making fun of herself, or perhaps it’s just Allston’s characteristic touch of humor that unclenched the Chief of State and finally started letting her realize just how big a can of worms she’s unleashed. Although, if you ask me, “policing” the Jedi is not the same thing as sending Mandos in for guerilla attacks when no one’s looking and causing hundreds of thousands of credits worth in damage. She needs a dictionary as much as everyone else needs more ginko bilboba in their diet.

Everyone (Han, Leia, Jaina, Jag) is not only surprised when there’s a Mando attack, but act as if it didn’t just happen in Abyss or as if Wyn didn’t try to warn them about it through Fel, who as we all know by now, failed miserably at being the good guy by not passing along the information to everyone who should have found out about it sooner rather than later. The powerful dynamic and tension created from that misstep in the last book is gone from Backlash. Jaina and Jag are, blessedly, hardly ever front and center, which I’m glad for, not caring for either as a character and being lukewarm at best to their relationship. Unfortunately, there’s bound to be more Jag with the direction the plot is going, but I’ll deal with that when it comes.

Overall, Backlash was just as good, in my opinion, as Abyss, but a little less weird. I really love that Luke’s not allowed to do any real important Jedi-related activities. It’s as if the entirety of Star Wars has said, “Enough. You’ve been sitting at a desk and meditating too long on the academic abstractions of the Force. Time to go out, play with a lightsaber, and have some fun.” Really, I can’t be the only one that misses Luke going out to take care of business when he’s been acting like the Grand Master mentor figure for so long. The story is definitely picking up and moving along, even though it took the gang an entire book to figure out if Vestara was really “evil” or not. Their doubt made way for some entertaining distractions, sleuthing, and allowed a couple of backwater no-fame secondary and tertiary characters shine like only Allston can make them. Dyon and Tarth, here’s looking at you, kids.

[Ryan Wild · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth entry in the series brings about a reunion and an oft mentioned planet in EU lore - Dathomir.

An exceptional entry in that the Luke / Ben narrative dominates the book and brings to focus the second trilogy, Backlash is the first step of the second act, the beginning hint of action rising out of the opening trilogy. Overall, a great book and a worthy entry in the series

[Meggie · Rating 2 out of 5]

For 2023, I decided to reread the post-NJO books set after the Dark Nest trilogy, especially as I abandoned the Legacy of the Force series after Sacrifice all the way back in 2007. This shakes out to the nine books of the Legacy of the Force series, the nine books of the Fate of the Jedi series, three standalone novels, and five short stories.

This week’s focus: the fourth book in the Fate of the Jedi series, Backlash by Aaron Allston.

SOME HISTORY:

In 2008, eagle-eyed Star Wars fans noticed a new book listed on the Random House catalog: Blood Oath by Elaine Cunningham. More details started to emerge: it was going to be released in April 2009, it was set after Invincible and it was about Zekk and Trista & Taryn Zel (Tenel Ka’s Hapan cousins). Unfortunately the release date was pushed back to November 2009 and then April 2010 before the book was ultimately canceled. But that led to Zekk being missing from the narrative for the first few Fate of the Jedi books, only to show up in Backlash with an extremely abbreviated explanation of where he’s been and what he’s been up to. Fate of the Jedi: Backlash by Aaron Allston made it to number four on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of March 28, 2010, and was on the list for two weeks.

MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:

All I knew going into Backlash was that Ben and Luke were chasing after the Sith apprentice that they confronted in the previous book, Vestara Khai, and that…maybe…the Jedi madness stuff would continue? But otherwise I didn't have a clear picture in my mind of what to expect.

A BRIEF SUMMARY:

Repercussions from this mysterious plague of madness among the young Jedi continue to put Chief of State Daala and the Jedi Order at odds, and Han Solo and Leia Organa find themselves placed in an interesting position between the two. Meanwhile, Luke and Ben Skywalker’s chase after the masterless Sith Apprentice leads them to the wild world of Dathomir. The presence of dark side-using Nightsisters may give Vestara Khai the edge she needs to escape their search, and may also lead to the Skywalkers fighting not just for their quarry but also for their own lives…

THE PLOT:

Unlike the previous three books, in Backlash the Han & Leia plot and the Luke & Ben plot combine for part of the story! (Unfortunately, they split up again, as the Solos have to return to Coruscant.) Luke and Ben follow Vestara Khai to Dathomir—thanks to the blood trail Luke marked her with—so they contact Han and Leia and it’s a mini Skywalker family reunion. Han and Leia leave Allana behind at the spaceport, which leads to a kid-friendly adventure recovering R2-D2, and the Solos venture into the jungle to connect with Luke and Ben. The Skywalker/Solos join up with the group of Witches who took in Vestara and who want to join clans with a separate men’s clan, but there’s trouble afoot, as the local Nightsisters try very hard to prevent this clan union.

Meanwhile, Daala sends Mandalorian mercenaries to attack the Jedi Temple and take the maddened Jedi into custody, and fortunately that fails thanks to Jaina and Raynar Thul. So Han and Leia and Allana rush back to Coruscant. They’re approached by Daala, who wants to work out an agreement with the Jedi because the political climate in Coruscant is not great. Turns out the political climate in Coruscant is not great because there’s a pro-Imperial conspiracy afoot to remove Jagged Fel from power, and maybe Daala as well.

Back on Dathomir, the Witches and the men successfully repel the Nightsisters, and they become the Bright Sun clan. Luke and Ben finally figure out how Vestara got a message back to the Lost Tribe of the Sith, and they rush to confront her. In the meantime, the Sith land on Dathomir, steal a bunch of Nightsisters, and leave Vestara behind. As the book ends, Luke, Ben, Vestara, and Dyon Stadd (part of their Dathomiri group) are headed back to the Maw…when they are confronted by a bunch of Sith ships.

ODYSSEY ELEMENTS:

Continuing with the tradition of “each Fate of the Jedi book contains some allusion to Homer's The Odyssey, Allana faces off against a dockworker named Monarg while searching for the lost Artoo in Backlash. Definitely some parallels between Polyphemus the Cyclops and Monarg here, as both Odysseus and Allana have to outsmart a one-eyed foe.

CHARACTERS:

In the excitement of discovering there are Sith out there!, Luke and Ben have apparently forgotten that they’re supposed to be retracing Jacen’s Force pilgrimage to figure out why he fell to the dark side. (Maybe you could spin it that Jacen also went to Dathomir because he knew about the Nightsister blood trail trick, but that’s a thin line of justification.) Luke and Ben have a good rapport here, and I like the joke-y relationship they’ve developed, and how Luke often lets Ben take the lead, trusting in Ben’s insight and skills. And as with the previous books, they’re ostensibly following Vestara but instead get sucked into outside problems: in this case, the attempted union of the Raining Leaves clan and the Broken Columns clan into something new. Ben’s strategic mind helps them win against the Nightsisters, and the Skywalkers end up with a plot of land for a future Jedi Academy on Dathomir, which would be good. At the very end of The Unifying Force, Kirana Ti and Streen were headed off to Dathomir, and it would be nice to see a school there again after Luke withdrew everyone during Jacen’s civil war.

And I enjoyed getting to revisit Dathomir, as it played such a prominent role in The Courtship of Princess Leia and introduced so many characters to the GFFA: Teneniel Djo, Kirana Ti, Tenel Ka, and more. The world and the wild Force skills of the WItches were my favorite part of CoPL, but then we never really returned to it. I liked seeing that progress that has happened on Dathomir in the decades after that first novel. We see the reverberations of Leia and Han and Luke and Isolder’s visit, that male slaves wanted freedom and formed their own groups, that Hapans came to Dathomir because of the example set by Teneniel Djo, and now we have Witches and men coming together to form something more diverse and inclusive. Their culture is changing, bit by bit.

There’s also this slightly antagonistic relationship developing between Ben and Vestara Khai. He keeps trying to question her, and she won’t give him a straight answer—Ben, she’s a teenage girl! She’s actively trying to frustrate you! But at the same time, I think Vestara enjoyed aspects of her sojourn among the Dathomiri. She’s lying through her teeth and manipulating the Nightsisters to achieve her ends, but there’s this reluctant sense of camaraderie that develops between her and the Witches, and even Vestara and the Skywalkers at moments. They’re her enemies, but not always so.

I liked that Han and Leia were able to reunite with Luke and Ben, but it was very brief. There haven’t been a lot of opportunities for the extended Skywalker/Solo family to work together (where is my book about the twins having an adventure together or uncovering family secrets??), and it felt like Han and Leia rush off to Coruscant just when things start to get interesting on Dathomir. I thought that Daala approaching them as a go-between was a good idea—Leia seldom gets to flex her diplomatic muscles anymore, and seems to aggressively disregard her old skills at times—and I thought Leia and Han’s good cop/bad cop act was fun. I wish they had brought Allana to the Dathomiri gathering, though, because it’s part of her heritage and I don’t think an eight-year-old should be left unattended (since she never knew about Zekk and Taryn).

Speaking of Zekk: I know this isn’t Backlash’s fault, that he shows up after three books with a girlfriend and no explanation of where he’s been and what happened—no one could have guessed that Blood Oath would be canceled—but after a prominent role in the previous series, his sudden reentrance here is pretty clunky, and the lack of that standalone novel really shows.

Back on Coruscant, that silly Solo family tension doesn’t carry over from the previous book. Instead, we have two assassination attempts against Jag, and the second one also seems to be directed at the Solos. Everyone suspects Daala, but the true schemers are a conspiracy of Senators and Imperials who…want to bring back the Empire? Whatever dudes.

But they are the main culprits behind Daala’s bad PR, and I appreciate that Daala isn’t a two-dimensional villain here. You can see that she’s in a difficult situation, and she’s being pushed into making the worst decisions, but you can also see why she’s making those terrible choices. (Do I still think that Daala as Chief of State is bonkers? Yes! It would have made more sense for her to become Imperial Head of State after Pellaeon’s death, but we gotta work with what we have here.) She’s pushed into putting Cha Niathal on trial, but her head’s up call about the trial leads to Niathal committing suicide and public perception shifting against Daala even further.

We see a little bit of Tahiri Veila: her trial is still going forward, since Nawara Ven can’t represent her she has a new court-appointed lawyer, he thinks she was a victim who was manipulated by Jacen Solo but also she should take the plea deal and inform on the Jedi, and Tahiri does not comply. She views herself as culpable for Admiral Pellaeon’s death, and I fall…somewhere in the middle here? I don't think Tahiri's case is clear-cut. I think she absolutely was a victim of Jacen’s machinations, but she did assassinate Admiral Pellaeon.

Towards the end of Abyss, I got a little confused about what was going on with Abeloth. Not Abeloth’s nature, as she's obviously very evil, but the logistics of that ending bit. The Sith wanted to take her off her planet, so when they attacked the Skywalkers on Sinkhole Station I wondered if Abeloth was with them? In Backlash, I got the definitive answer of NO. Abeloth is still on her planet, but since Vestara sent them the coordinates there I guess the Sith remain interested in her. So the Abeloth the eldritch terror is not just one of Luke and Ben's one-off Force adventures, and presumably her threat will continue through the following books.

ISSUES:

Before I get into my issues with Backlash, I wanted to give a little bit of the real world backstory behind the novel: in March 2009, while on tour for Outcast, Aaron Allston suffered a heart attack and had to have quadruple bypass surgery. Despite all his health issues, Allston still had Backlash ready to go by March 2010.

So while I noticed a number of issues in Backlash, I wonder if Allston was rushing towards his deadline and didn’t have enough time to work on the book? There was a lot of repetition in this book, and I would expect an editor to catch those parts…unless they got the manuscript later than expected.

One of the most egregious examples I noticed involved two very similar descriptions of Jaina and Tahiri. In Chapter Two, Jaina is described as:

A tiny woman and a delicate beauty, had Jaina not been famous because of her parents and her own exploits, she might have been mistaken for the type of athlete who won fame for some sports victory, then spent the rest of her professional career fulfilling lucrative product endorsement contracts. In truth, she cared little about her looks or money; her continued service to the Jedi was proof enough of the latter. (19)

Jaina is Leia’s daughter, she clearly got her mother’s looks, and while I think that comparing her to an athlete who does endorsements is weird wording, I get what he’s going for. But then in Chapter Seventeen, these are Tahiri’s internal thoughts:

She knew she did not look like a killer. Tall and blond-haired, attractive though she did not enhance her looks with makeup or glamorous clothes, bearing curious faint scars on her forehead from events a lifetime ago, she looked like the sort of athlete who’d won championships early and then return to a life of endorsing breakfast foods while smiling at the holocams. But it had been a long time since she’d smiled. (214)

Twice? For two different characters? This should have been fixed during editing…

My second issue with Backlash carried over from my issues with books one, two, and three: mainly, that the mad Jedi are primarily new characters. Sothais Saar goes mad while meeting with Wynn Dorvan; we just met him, and I didn’t find him a particularly likable or sympathetic character. Instead, his previous scene with the Jedi Council makes him seem like a pedantic bore. If you want me to have an emotional connection to these characters, I need to know them better than an introductory scene followed by mad imposter-fuelled rampages.

But most crucially, I didn’t feel a sense of urgency from Backlash. Maybe you don’t need that in book four out of nine, but I read Backlash and finished it and didn’t feel like I immediately needed to pick up Allies to continue the story. I…liked it? I thought a return to Dathomir was cool, I wanted to see more of Vestara, but it wasn’t a page-turner for me. For a series dealing with Jedi madness and Luke in exile, the Fate of the Jedi feels meandering compared to the Legacy of the Force. Han and Leia meet up with Luke and Ben, but they don’t need to be there—and they scurry off back to Coruscant halfway through for the important plot. No further progress was made on solving the Jedi madness problem. In fact, Backlash contained a fair bit of setup with this political conspiracy against Jag and Daala, which was rather more setup than I expected for book 4/9!

IN CONCLUSION:

Backlash was a somewhat enjoyable read. We returned to Dathomir, which we had not revisited in many books, and I appreciated how complicated the political climate on Coruscant became with the addition of this pro-Imperial conspiracy. At the same time, I felt like there was something missing from Backlash—a sense of importance or urgency to propel me through the story—and I’m not sure if I should attribute that to the real life situations during which the book was written, or just meh editing and writing.


Next up: the fifth book in the Fate of the Jedi series, Allies by Christie Golden.

My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/XXUFjrTZsrk

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surprisingly, to me, I liked this book. I usually find Aaron Allston's writing about as interesting as watching paint dry (insert your favorite alternate cliche' here). I understand the author had some severe health issues around the time book #1 of this series came out. His writing has improved since then.

Backlash, book #4 of the "Fate of the Jedi" series, starts to slowly...very slowly...unify the disparate threads of the first three books. And that's WAY overdue.

If you've been reading this series and find the exploits of Allana/Amelia (Jacen Solo's daughter and Han Solo and Leia's gradchild) to be fun and interesting, you'll get more of what you enjoy. At least this time around her story was interesting. Yes, she's very cute and prone to trouble, but her exploits actually served to move the story along this time. Back in book #1, her story with Han, Leia and Lando was a dead end that took up a large portion of that first book.

Without giving too much away, I'll try to tell you what's up in book #4.

Luke and Ben are still on Luke's exile tour of the weird Force-related places of the universe. But this time they're chasing comely rogue Sith teen Vestara Khai and end up on the world of Dathomir...home to a matriarchal hunter-gatherer type jungle society where men are subjugated and female "Force Witches" lead. Some of those Force witches are Sith Nightsisters. So it's not a happy place. And there are plenty of rancors about. The problem? Vestara has "renounced" the Sith and joined up with the Force witches, so Luke and Ben have to do a lot of "respecting of tradition" and such. So much so that they need to call in Han, Leia, Allana, C-3PO, R2-D2 and so on for the respecting of tradition and diplomacy involved...which quickly turns into a jungle war with the Nightsisters that takes up a large portion of book #4. It's not badly written, but it also doesn't move the main story forward very much.

Meanwhile, Daala is still trying to subjugate the Jedi--using Mandalorians to blow holes in the defenses of the Jedi Temple--but also seems to be playing into the hands of a cadre of conspirators from the old Empire (and from the Senate as well) whom she has mightily offended. Those same conspirators are also targeting Jagged Fel and all the remaining Solos, which anyone knows is a bad idea. But they're trying to keep the Solos and Daala from working together. Lots of plotting, a little action, a funny scene where the conspirators dress up in costumes from the Empire and Old Republic to play cards.

The madness of the young Jedi seems to be squarely blamed on Abeloth, the freaky Sith planet monster in the Maw from book #3. Abeloth is mentioned a few times in Backlash, but not in any way that suggests her plotline will be resolved in book #4, that's for sure.

And they keep ending these books on cliffhangers in hopes that age-old clumsy and heavy handed technique will get people to buy the next book in the series.

What I would say about this book: better than expected, especially if you like rancor monsters.

[Priya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this is a sign. I've been a huge, SW Expanded Universe Fan for over fifteen years. I love Aaron Allston, Tim Zahn, Michael Stackpole. I however have a problem when I'm reading a Star Wars book and it starts to feel like I've read it before I've even read it. Ever since the Legacy of the Force series things haven't felt like Star Wars. I feel like there are only so many times you can have one of the Skywalker/Solo's tempted by the Dark Side and while Vestara is an interesting character, I wonder sometimes if going back to old haunts like Dathomir are worth it.

However this was the first time that Aaron Allston's jokes just felt out of place--normally I love the humor in dangerous situations, but it felt forced and at sometimes really random.

Also what's the deal with Han and Leia leaving an 8 year old alone on the Falcon with C3P0?

I knew I'd have some issues after they killed off Mara Jade in the LoTF series, but now I feel like every book has unoriginal political intrigue that is superficial and Sith that are a little hard to figure out.

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting developments in this fourth volume.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost enough happens in "Backlash" to make up for the fact that it is just as clunkily written as the three previous entries in the "Fate of the Jedi" series. And I suppose that, at the very least, its a little promising that Allston is finally playing around with the Machiavellian plotting that characterized the far superior "Legacy of the Force" novels. But the lurking problem still remains: Del Rey have purposefully asked their authors to write for a younger audience.

There is no other explanation. The overblown melodrama; the beat you over the head humor; the awkward expository dialogue; an entire scene where a 12 year old fights an evil mechanic; the way too maleable personalities that transform to fit the necessities of the plot. This all feels like the publisher assumes its readership has low comprehension skills.

And it would be easy to blame this on Aaron Allston, but Aaron Allston has written better Star Wars novels than this. His X-Wing novels were great, as were his entries into the aforementioned "Legacy of the Force" series. One can only assume he was asked by his publisher to pretend his entire audience is between the ages of 8 and 15.

Its not all bad. We've finally put behind us the tedious Jedi freak-outs. One occurs in "Backlash", but it is handled briefly, and its fallout gets the most focus. Events of some import occur as the Skywalkers catch up to the Sith-Harry-Potter, Vestara, and her struggle with the two Jedi takes an interesting turn. And there are a few well-written action scenes, a list on which I'll begrudgingly include Allana's fight with the evil mechanic. I'm kind of against plucky tweens fighting evil stereotypes on principal, but I'll admit it was effectively executed. Oh, and Allston's explanation for why Carrie Fisher spoke with a weird Britishy accent in "A New Hope" is kind of funny.

But for all the good, Allston seems intent on balancing it out with eye-rolling lameness, such as...

a) characterizations-to-go: Characters like Daala and Ben are frequently reduced to shadows of the characters they were in "Legacy of the Force". The fact that Luke awkwardly mentions Ben's training the GAR (as in, "Hey, remember that time you trained with the GAR?") draws undue attention to the fact that Ben spends the first half of the novel being antagonised by a known enemy. The Ben from just a few novels ago would never have fallen for so obvious a tactic. But since Ben needs to be written as a petulent cliche teenager to move the plot forward, then that's the way he'll be written, darn it. Until, that is, he needs to suddenly regain his steely analytical prowess to again move the plot forward. So he turns back into regular Ben later in the novel.

Daala also suffers from a mental regression and sometimes into downright nonsensicalness. Her clumsy attempts at politicking and playing to the media are a far cry from the smooth operator that rose through the Imperial ranks and was a confidant to Palleon. And I have no idea what the intent is in having Daala ponder being more subtle in her efforts to bring the Jedi under control (a good idea and progress in a character arc), only to then have her violently attack the Temple with Mandolorians in order to...well, it wasn't really clear why. Unless the series is supposed to witness Daala's spiraling descent into schitzophrenia, I'm going to go with my instincts and proclaim that whole scene kind of weird and out of character.

b) The Big Bad: The jacket cover of "Backlash" proclaims that the horrible entity we met last novel was called Aberoth, and he poses some kind of threat to something something way of life. I'd forgotten his name, and Allston's solution to helping me understand why I should care about him is to promptly not mention him at all and to not even have Luke or Ben make even so much as a passing reference to what they experienced while in the Maw. Another feature of the "Fate of the Jedi" novels has been the low stakes, and by making the central tension of this novel whether the Dathomiri Nightsisters are going to foil an alliance of two tribal clans (spoiler: no foiling occurs) we've now spent yet another novel where the the tension is so thick, it slides right off the bone.

Remember in the old days when a novel in a series would end, and everything sucked and the heroes were on the verge of defeat and you had no idea how they'd ever manage to straighten things out? Characters died, Jedi would have their backs against the wall, somebody would have to make an impossible choice! (I'm sure a few of you saw "The Empire Stikes Back"). The stakes were high, and they kept getting raised until the good guys would impossibly rise to the occasion and win in the final act! Each novel in the "Fate of the Jedi" series has thus far dialed up storylines from the stock-conflict-machine, that our heroes plop into then solve in no-time flat. The overarching storyline (which I guess has something to do with the Maw and Aberoth) barely registers in "Backlash". I thought Troy Denning was finally getting us around to the meat of the story with "Abyss", but apparently not. We're back to traipsing around a new exotic culture and dealing with their crises instead of the HORRIBLE MYSTERIOUS FORCE THAT THREATENS ALL JEDI.

c) Tribal Cliches: I guess if we're going to spend so much time on Dathomir, somebody has to invent a Dathomiri tribal culture, but do we have to build it using the scraps of every nomadic, noble-warrior cliche ever conceived? About the only thing missing was a peace pipe.

d) the Humor: I think there should be a constitutional ammendment banning all jokes and snarky asides from all EU characters until the offending authors take witty dialoge lessons from Karen Traviss. The humor in the entire "Fate of the Jedi" series has been eye-rollingly atrocious.

e) Why did the Skywalkers go on this quest again? I seem to recall something about searching for answers about Jacen's mysterious Force abilities and their link to the Jedi freak-outs. Wasn't that the whole reason Daala let Luke leave Coruscant in the first place? To figure out how to deal with whacked out Jedi? I guess he and Ben got distracted by the Dathomir Tribal Olympics.

Anyway, I'd like to make it clear that my distaste for the current EU storylines isn't some inate prejudice against cheesy sci-fi space opera. I adore Karen Traviss's Commando novels, I loved the X-Wing series back in the day, and with the exception of the ridiculously stupid concluding chapter, "Invincible", I thought the "Fate of the Jedi" series was some of the best Star Wars I'd ever read. No, my annoyance comes from the dumbing down of the line. I wish that real cleverness and maturity would return and that we could get away from the incestuous self-referential simplicity that is plaguing the EU.

[DiscoSpacePanther · Rating 4 out of 5]

The series continues with Fate of the Jedi: Backlash, and Aaron Allston back on writing duty.

This time the action is split between Coruscant and Dathomir, with the lion’s share taking place on the planet of the Force witches. To be honest, this is one of those settings that I feel works so much better in canon than in Legends—the spooky ash-white witches led by Mother Talzin and tatooed Zabrak men are far better realised than the leather and lightning misandrists created by Dave Wolverton for The Courtship of Princess Leia. Taking the descriptions of the Nightsisters literally conjures an image in my head of Emperor Palpatine cosplaying as Leela from Doctor Who—not a pretty picture!

We get some fun scenes with Allana and C-3PO as an interlude during the trek across Dathomir, and back on Coruscant there is more conspiracy weaving and assassination attempts.

Allston definitely has a writing tic when it comes to female characters—they almost always seem to be redheads. Or at least, redheads crop up with more frequency than one would expect south of Berwick on Tweed, and that is a little surprising.

Probably among the best bits of the book are the added layers of complexity to Daala, who has become a far more fascinating character than the cartoonish vamp-admiral of Kevin J. Anderson’s mediocre Jedi Academy trilogy. She only gets a few scenes, but she is compelling in all of them.

Other than Daala, we get some good stuff with Luke and Ben—Allston gives Skywalker jnr. plenty to do, and he is becoming quite an interesting and distinctive character: his detective inclinations being rather different from his father’s farmboy simplicity.

The overarching plot chugs forward in this fourth entry in the series, but there are no significant revelations or major twists (until perhaps the very end, but we shall see how Christie Golden develops that element in Fate of the Jedi: Allies).

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would probably rate this 3.5 stars if I could; so many competing plot strands threaten to topple this novel like an unstable game of Jenga. Yet somehow it all holds together, thanks to one of the quickest paces set so far in the "Fate of the Jedi" series, as well as a great deal of inventive, first-rate character work. Definitely more than the sum of its parts, but only just.

[Josiah Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

maybe the worst book of the series so far, it was a tough read to say the least😂 this was basically a filler book, tho still fun. once again the chemistry of the skywalker and solo families was the highlight. i’m ready to get back to the abeloth plot line, it was much better than what happened in this book.

[Jay DeMoir · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was as dull and all over the place just like the other books, but at least the ending was fun.

[Shane Amazon · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part, the three first Books in the Fate of the Jedi series have been a pretty cookie-cutter presentation as each have had the same rinse-lather-repeat feel that preceded it. Backlash, however, breaks the mold and takes the reader in a near completely different direction. For some this may be a bad thing and for some this may be a needed break from the norm. For me, well, I'm pretty well torn with this book. I liked Abyss. I thought it was a great read, and with its introspective look into the Force and its wielders (the Mind Walkers) I got reminded of what I loved about Matthew Woodring Stover's, Traitor and Shatterpoint. I like books that delve deep into the meaning of the Force, and use that exploration to add depth to the characters and their stories. I also love books that take a less introspective look and dish out action packed scenes of ships blowing each other apart and Jedi kicking some tail. And there can be no doubt that, Backlash is the later of the two.

Where Abyss leaves off Backlash takes over but the two books could not be more different. Backlash completely abandons the ongoing quest by Luke and Ben Skywalker as they search for answers into Jacen's fall to the darkside. Gone also is much of the Vestara storyline as she, for the most part, has little impact on the book until the last four chapters. Instead, Allston opts to present his tale in a light we have not seen in the previous FOTJ installments.

In come the Nightsisters and the Witch clans. And from left field, Allston tells a tale that has nothing to do with the larger FOTJ story. The reader is exposed to battle scene after battle scene after battle scene that in the end proves to be for not in the broader picture. Even the Solos take part in the struggle of Nightsister vs Witch clans at one point only to up and leave for Coruscant.

And that is where the main fault of the book lies, directly in the center. For nearly 150 pages you will read nothing more than a story that has been found in books from long ago about the Nightsisters, and after reading it you will have gained nothing more than that with which you entered into it. Intertwined with the Nightsisters tale is the continuing story of Daala's struggle to maintain control of the GA and a single event of a Jedi falling to the psychosis that continues to spread. But, for the most part, even the suspenseful portions of the book that Allston creates he almost always abandons too. The story around Tahiri is set up well only to be forgotten as Daala gives in under public opinion as it turns against her. And the continuing threats against Jag only appear at the end of the book so that the next book in line has something to build off of.

When said and done the book only feels loosely connected to the broader FOTJ tale and only in the first and last four chapters do we see anything that relates to the larger story arc. Everything in between could have easily been a stand alone book outside of the FOTJ series and a successful one too. For everything that is not so good about the book there are some great things as well. The action in the book is very entertaining and the story surrounding the Nightsisters and the other clans was good reading, however, none of it had anything to do with anything set up in the previous books and had zero impact on the larger story.

Not bad but not great either.

[Oliver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eat your vegetables, children, or Admiral Daala will come for you.

Aaron Allston suffered a heart attack while on a promotion tour for his first Fate of the Jedi book, Outcast. Following a successful quadruple bypass surgery (!), he was able to recover and presumably hand in his manuscript for this book in time; Del Rey published Backlash as scheduled. First off: my sincerest sympathies to the late and great Allston for getting through that terrible ordeal. Writing a cohesive 300-pager in time and without delay speaks to his skill as an author. Backlash carries most of FOTJ's sensibilities and operates in much the same way. It works solidly well as an individual book. Yet, perhaps because of the circumstances that brought it about, this novel feels more like an extended epilogue to the series' first third then the beginning of its second.


Truth be told, I did not enjoy reading Backlash. It's not a terrible book by any means, and I would call it a more respectable offer than about half of its predecessor series, more competent than Omen, and probably more well-meaning than Allston's prior weakest offering in Exile. But I still prefer Omen and probably even Exile. This one simply doesn't progress anything. It's like a radicalization of FOTJ's episodic nature lending itself to progression-via-baby-steps: We are done with Luke & Ben visiting Force sects as the main attraction, and yet we still find ourselves amidst a Force sect - the Witches of Dathomir (there aren't even any lessons learned this time!). There's yet another Jedi who goes crazy. I don't even know if we're following the Shelter connection anymore. Tahiri now has a different lawyer who implies he too will leave the case. Han & Leia seem to at least be integrated into the wider Coruscant/Jedi/Daala plot, but the rest of it continues to spin wheels. Allana gets a subplot for herself which doesn't accomplish anything except give Threepio and Artoo some valuable POV time - but even there, Allston did it better back in Rebel Stand! Jaina doesn't do anything. Well, I guess she helps combat a Mandalorian attack on the Jedi. The second one in this series... I think my point has been made.

The problem too is that nothing in here is as fun as those other Allston novels I mentioned. A good two thirds are spent on Luke and Ben's Dathomir adventure, which would have been a C-plot in any other book. Ben plays a game of Bloons Tower Defense against Rancors, and the Dathomir Olympic Games 2010 are running in the background - not exactly terrible material. Yet problems with Legacy of the Force's innate being aside, at least Exile had a gripping Ben story full of moral quandaries and great character moments. Characterization in here reflects plot progression and is few and far between, despite running on a solid foundation. What does Luke even do in here? Actually, I think this is his weakest portrayal in FOTJ, given that most of the jovial father-son banter, not to mention his wisely sage attributes, have been dropped in favor of a mildly bland and rude depiction you'd expect in one of the less offensive Denning books. And I have just read a Denning book which did him better.

Also, where is Abeloth??? Here we are back to the first/second act dilemma I alluded to. The prior book built on allusions and mysteries to finally give a face to FOTJ's main threat... and now she's not even mentioned. Luke and Ben had seen her during their Mind-Walker escapade, and they never bring her up again. Vestara had lived with her, was the only one to see her deformed true form, and doesn't think to mention this to anyone, or even reflect on it. This is probably the weirdest development - or lack thereof - in Backlash. Vestara is promised a bigger role via an opening POV scene, but is then mostly forgotten until the end. Honestly, if Denning had added another paragraph or two to his book, and were Golden's Allies to have introduced the two or three side characters Allston gives us here, you could have probably saved an entire publishing spot.

No, the main developments here pertain to one of FOTJ's previous D-plots. There's a conspiracy against Jagged Fel brewing among Imperial Moff Lecersen's circle, now including the Senator of Kuat, Senator of Coruscant, and the Chief of Armed Forces of the Galactic Alliance. There's Allston back at it, trying to imbue the post-NJO setting with a military-political conspiratorial circle once more. At least this time, I'm convinced the other authors aren't going to wholly ignore him. Most notable of these is the Kuati Senator, a woman in her eighties called Haydnat Treen. She's sort of like Viqi Shesh except instead of crushing on Tsavong Lah she has posters of Palpatine in her room. We're once more talking baby steps here, but it could end up being fun. Jag Fel isn't granted any character development either, but at least his few scenes have a sense of urgency to them. I do hope this plot is given the attention it deserves in later volumes.

Does Backlash have anything to say? One theme I managed to identify is trying to contend with Otherness: There are two clans on Dathomir, one made up of woman and the other, men, and they have to learn to live together. Ben is constantly wary of Vestara just for being Sith, and we get Ves' perspective on Luke and Ben mercilessly killing other Sith during the climax. I was convinced Allston would do more with this, though perhaps it's setup for a later novel. These ideas intersect with some thoughts on tradition vs. progressivism as relates to Vestara & Dathomir and the Kutai Senator & the Old System vis-à-vis the new. While Allston does go the progressive route, there are some jabs at "civilized", current-day society on Coruscant, and indeed everything feels very much of its time. None of these ideas form much of a message. On a completely different note, the Homerian allusions continue in the form of Allana facing off against a cyclops! Actually, when viewed through that lens, this subplot does kind of rock. I apologize, Allana.

Two more things. First, what is it with Fate of the Jedi and introducing so, so many new Jedi characters every book? I know many of them are just Jedi Psychosis fodder, but just as many (seemingly) aren't, and I'm genuinely having problems distinguishing one from another. This is less of a colorful cast and more of a game of throwing darts at the setting. I think I can divine how this came to be: I distinctly recall reading a transcript of a convention Allston attended, wherein he half-jokingly lamented that most of the very few new Jedi introduced in LOTF didn't come out of that series alive. We know FOTJ was meant to put a fix on its predecessor's nihilistic tone, and I know I had major problems with how it went down as I read LOTF. So maybe this barrage of new characters is meant to liven up the setting again? If so, remaining five books that have already been written, please look to Outcast to see how it's done: Octa Ramis and Seha Dorvald, previously underutilized characters from NJO and LOTF respectively, were given a shared subplot together. Less is more, and I want to stress that even characters like Corran Horn and Kyp Durron have all but become window dressing by this point in the timeline.

Second, remember Nek Bwua'tu? Denning's original character from Dark Nest who was invented to kill off and replace a prior military leader, was characterized solely by way of his having bEaT tHE tHrAwN sImULaToR, and then failed to really work as a character, basically having unearned omnipotency? Well, he slept with Daala. Nek Bwua'tu spent a night with everyone's favorite (?) crazed sociopath pirate woman turned Galactic Alliance Chief of State. This is the absolute perfect payoff to his character. Oh and also Cha Niathal commits suicide rather than having to deal with Daala for any longer, hahaha. Kudos, Allston.


There goes the momentum built up by Abyss. Last time around, the fifth book marked the supposed big shift within the story, the mid-point achievement. I do hope that Allies will have more to offer than this tome.

[Kaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

FATE OF THE JEDI #4: BACKLASH

The setup for the series so far was basically the first three books. Now, we have the next three books, which are books four through six and then books seven through nine. They are the final three acts, so to speak. Or at least it seems that way, because the first three books have a good structure and we could call it the 'First Part'. This book, “BACKLASH”, maybe the best one yet and it is surprising because almost everything is pure filler.

The book begins where “Abyss” ended. Luke Skywalker and his son Ben are in the Maw tracking down the only survivor of the Sith who attacked them at Sinkhole Station. Now with no one else to turn to for help, Vestara Khai of the Lost Tribe of the Sith decides to hide on the planet Dathomir, to go unnoticed while she seeks to contact her people.

Ben contacts the Jedi and now everyone knows that the Sith are back. They then track Vestara to Dathomir and discover that her ship supposedly crashed on the planet, so they set out to find her and confront a Rancor and several Dathomiri. Han, Leia, and Allana along with R2-D2 and C-3PO go to Dathomir to help Luke and Ben. They meet up with the Skywalkers and engage in a brief battle with the Witches. They are introduced to the Raining Leaves Clan, led by Kaminne Sihn, who is there along with Olianne Sihn, Halliava Vurse, and Firen Nuln. They recognize Luke and welcome him, then reveal that they are about to have a special meeting with the relatively new male clan known as the Clan of Broken Columns, with whom they have been meeting to arrange marriages for the past few years. This clan, led by Tasander Dest, plans to join with the Raining Leaves Clan into a new clan very soon. It is also revealed that Olianne, who lost her son, has brought Vestara into the clan, meaning she is currently protected. Vestara claims to be a member of the Raining Leaves now, rather than a Sith. The Skywalkers don't believe her at all, but there's nothing they can do at this moment. There are a lot of funny interactions between Vestara and Ben, where she's basically making fun of him and it's very funny. There is some kind of contest where everyone participates but it is interrupted due to several attacks from the Nightsisters. The attacks leave several victims dead. Ben establishes a "Jedi Camp" on top of a more defensible hill and leads the offensive against the Nightsisters.

The Witches of Dathomir and the Nightsisters were created for the novel “The Courtship of Princess Leia.” After their first appearance, they make other cameos where, but the interesting thing here is, that the Witches of Dathomir clans have not separated, but rather have regrouped and are now planning to join another clan of men.

It's worth mentioning that there's also another plot here revolving around Allana Solo, who has been left alone on the Falcon along with R2-D2 and C-3PO. While no one is there, R2-D2 finds Vestara's ship and ends up being trapped by a mechanic named Monarg. Allana goes in search of R2-D2, only to be kidnapped by Monarg and has to be saved by C-3PO. The mechanic, Monarg, is described as a large human being who wears an eyepatch and has a prosthetic underneath. And, Allana, like a little girl sees him as if he were a giant cyclops and that was really very funny. There is also another moment when C-3PO has his heroic moment when he tries to rescue Allana only to get beaten up by the mechanic. They finally manage to get rid of Monar and we also discover that the Jedi Knight Zekk, and his new girlfriend, Taryn Zel (Tenel Ka's cousin), are watching that nothing happens to Allana. Zekk returns after of Legacy of the Force: Invincible, where his spaceship was shot down somewhere in space and he just disappeared without a trace and whatnot. His destiny was left open and now after half a dozen books later he reappeared with a red-haired girlfriend.
His story of how he survived was going to be told in another standalone novel called “Blood Oath,” but here it is summarized by saying that he was rescued and spent six months serving Tenel Ka before contacting the Jedi Order again.

In the Coruscant plot, we see that there are still tensions between the Jedi and the Galactic Alliance. There is another Jedi who goes crazy and tries to kill Wynn Dorvan, assistant to Chief of State Daala. Seeking to be firm, Daala decides to put former Admiral Cha Niathal on trial for crimes committed when she was allied with Jacen Solo and thus demonstrate that she has nothing special or personal against the Jedi. However, Niathal commits suicide with Carbon monoxide lol.

This drops Daala's popularity even further and Moff Lecersen takes advantage of this. There is also a failed assassination attempt on Imperial Head of State Jagged Fel in his office. It turns out that the Moffs (led by Moff Drikl Lecersen) were not behind this attack at all. It was the work of Kuati senator Haydnat Treen, who reveals his plans to Lecersen. He wants to manipulate the political situation to replace Jag with Lecersen as Head of State, so that when the Empire and Galactic Alliance merge into a single government again, Lecersen will be the new leader. To do this, he also plans to orchestrate Daala's removal from office by pressuring her to invoke the Emergency Powers Act as Palpatine did in the past and make everyone think she is just as much of a dictator. The whole crisis with the Jedi and the GA only benefits the conspiracies against Jag Fel and Daala to remove them.

There are a few pages where we see Tahiri Veila preparing her defense against the charges previously presented by Daala, who wants an Execution sentence. Tahiri is proposed to serve as a spy for the Jedi and thus have a less severe sentence, but she refuses and is left without a lawyer. The entire plot is extended and I suppose it is to fill the book and the next ones to come.

On the Jedi side, we see how they continue to deal with the crisis with the GA. And there is a very interesting part where a meeting of the Jedi Council is taking place, and Jaden Korr through a hologram reports that there is a cult that worships Prince Xizor, that the Black Sun Syndicate is re-emerging and that they could be creating a clone from Xizor himself. After the latest incident with the Jedi that almost killed Wynn Dorvan, Daala sends the Mandalorians to confront the Jedi and bring back the mad Jedi. They confront each other but are defeated by Jaina, Rayanar Thul, and Tyria Sarkin. Rayanr had already appeared in the last book, "Abyss", and we see him trying to be normal again after the time he spent being UnuThul. In Tyria's case, she is someone we met in Aaron Allston's X-Wing novels, where it is implied that she is force-sensitive, but does not have enough potential to become a Jedi. Although in Enemy Lines: Rebel Dream we are told that she is already a Jedi, which is very strange, but I liked seeing characters from the Wraith Squadron.

After rescuing Allana, Han and Leia return to Coruscant after learning of the Mandalorian raid on the Jedi Temple and do not want to leave their daughter alone. I like how Allston ignores that drama from the previous novel where Han and Leia were upset with Jag and Jaina for not telling them that Daala was planning to hire Mandalorians to use against the Jedi. I guess we could say that Han and Leia forgave them. Daala offers to the Jedi that she wants Sothais Saar (the Jedi Crazy of the beginning) but will not put him in carbonite and that she will defrost Valin and Jysella Horn, but they will be kept in Ysalamiri-covered confinement and will be allowed Jedi medical care. The Jedi accept thanks to a bit of intermediation from Han, who has been restored to his old position as a general in the army by Daala, thanks to a Law that allows him to bring retired generals out of retirement. Han gets both sides to agree to have a small truce and things calm down for the moment. The story on Coruscant ends with Treen and Lecersen attempting to have Jag killed again, this time by Kester Tolaan, who hates Jag and the Chiss upon appearing. The attack occurs during a dinner where Jag, Han, Leia, and Jaina are present. Several Yuuzhan Vong Hunter (YVH) droids begin attacking everyone, but it is only a distraction for another real attack against Jag. Both attacks are frustrated, but the impression left by the conspirators is that Daala is trying to kill Jag. All the peace that was beginning to form seems to have ended.

On Dathomir, Vestara and Halliava plan to meet with other Sith who are about to arrive, but Vestara has no real intention of keeping her word. Instead, she knocks out Halliava with the hilt of her saber, while the other Nightsisters are captured by the Sith led by a Sith Lord named Viun Gaalan, so they can be trained and turned into Sith. Luke, Ben, and Dyon arrive and fight the Sith. The Sith escape, but Vestara is captured. Halliava is expelled from the Bright Suns clan for being a Nightsister, and the fate of Vestara is left in the hands of Luke and Ben. They take Vestara with them back to the spaceport, where they use legal pressure to seize Vestara's ship previously stolen by Monarg. Dyon launches the repaired ship, now named Bright Sun, into orbit to await the Jade Shadow with its prisoner on board. Although they don't go very far. Just as they are about to leave, Sith frigates emerge from hyperspace above Dathomir, preventing their departure.

So far FOTJ is definitely turning out to be a very good novel series, which will make it that much more painful when I get to read the next books because I remember the last novels were the worst.
But at least there are still great stories here in this book.

[Mogsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't really think of much to say about this one. It's a Star Wars book, certainly not the best I've ever read but nor is it anywhere near the worst. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it, it was just so very conventional and uninspired. Mediocre.

I think one of the problems with this series is that while I'm sure there's an elaborate overarching plot line all planned out, the need to drag it out over a certain number of books ends up wreaking havoc with the characters and the pacing of these novels.

What's worse, when you have big Star Wars names and heavy hitters like Han, Leia, Luke, Ben, Jaina, etc. all doing their own thing in different parts of the galaxy, you need to find something -- anything! -- interesting for them to do while the plot moves forward elsewhere. This leads to much retreading of old ground, such as the return to familiar planets or tired and done-to-death SW plot elements involving a mysterious Sith or conspiring politicians.

You also get ridiculous things happening, like Han and Leia suddenly having a brain fart and leaving an 8-year-old unsupervised by herself on the Millennium Falcon on a dangerous planet. Hmm, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?! The whole situation was set up for Allana's own little adventure in this book, but geez, do you have to make it so obvious?

I also liked it better when Luke and Ben were still focused on uncovering the secrets of Jacen Solo's fall to the Dark Side. The Lost Tribe and Vestara side plot could lead to interesting things, but right now it just feels like a cheap distraction.

Looking forward to the next book to see if things will pick up once more, and I'm excited to read something by Christie Golden again.

[Gabriel Vidrine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good book by Aaron Allston. I pretty much think he's the best when it comes to Star Wars books.

Anyway, it's always interesting to get yet another step towards uniting the Fate of the Jedi and the Legacy (comic) series, and eventually we'll know everything. Of course, I've fallen behind in my comic reading, but I keep up with the books pretty well.

This book involved a revisit to Dathomir, the planet that Han Solo won (in a card game, of course) much earlier on in the series. The planet is one of the more interesting ones, with its own brand of Force-users, the Witches and Nightsisters (Jedi and Sith, respectively), who use slightly different Force powers. Pretty cool. Just wish there could have been a little bit more of it.

The book moved well, and I didn't get bored at any of the parts; even the slower-moving Dathomir parts moved at a decent pace.

I have my own inklings about why the Jedi are going mad, but I'll keep that to myself!

[Cal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this one on the Nook too, I remember this boring cover.

Not a bad read, I remember not being able to totally understand Ableoth, and after looking at pictures of her on the internet, I understand why. I should take a stab at drawing her someday, because what is out there doesn't cut it for me. Still, I need to re-read this series, I think I would love it as an adult.

2024 UPDATE: This book was….okay. I actually disliked the action and liked the political stuff ha.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

My escapist reading is not suitable for review, IMO. Like a dream they take me from my imposed reality.

[mike andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Series is really good. The Imperial Reminant is in turmoil along with the New Repulic while Luke and Ben are marooned on Dathomir.

[Patrick W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally posted on my review blog, Stomping on Yeti, at the following link [http://yetistomper.blogspot.com/2010/... words or less: Despite some illogical character decisions, Backlash appeals to fans of both the original and prequel trilogies while continuing to build on the groundwork of the series and fix the expanded universe.[return][return]My Rating: 3.5/5[return][return]Pros: Luke and Ben feature in a worthwhile plot with memorable scenes; Crazed Jedi plotline continues to build slowly but steadily toward an unpredictable conclusion; Fate of the Jedi continues to build a strong groundwork with consistant characterization and few continuity errors; [return][return]Cons: Humor doesn't work as well as in previous Allston novels; Although necessary, the youth movement creates frustratingly illogical scenarios; [return][return]The Review: The writers and editors of the Fate of the Jedi series might not be Jedi Masters yet but they are getting closer and closer to hitting that wamp rat sized target located in the middle of nostalgia and innovation. Fate of the Jedi is supposed to be a return to the lighter, more escapist fare of the early Star Wars adventures after years of doom and gloom that robbed the galaxy far far aware of its most promising protagonists. While early installments struggled to drive forward the series plotlines and maintain individual narratives, in Backlash, Allston appears to have placed the flailing series on solid ground with the help of the Sith threat introduced in Book 3. [return][return]As young Jedi continue to inflicted by an unexplained insanity that makes their fellow Knights appear to be evil doppelgangers in their maladied minds, the Jedi Order struggles to maintain credibility with a government that has been seen Jedi become Sith one time too many. The Order must defend itself from these mentally ill Jedi, the politicians of the Galactic Alliance, and the power hungry moffs of the resurgent Empire. At the same time, Luke, convicted of endangering the galactic population by training these fallen Jedi and failing to control them and subsequently exiled from the Jedi Order, continues to explore the galaxy with his son Ben, hoping to find what caused his nephew Jacen Solo to become the Sith that killed Luke's wife, Mara. After encountering and repelling a Sith ambush in the previous installment, Luke and Ben track the sole survivor to Dathomir, where she attempts to hide herself within the innately force-sensitive, rancor-riding, indigenous population. When they do ultimately catch up to her, all is not as it appears. [return][return]Like the previous novels, the main Jedi plotline and the Skywalker plotline are for the most part separate although Han and Leia do jump between threads, providing that nostalgic feeling of reunion previously missing. However, unlike the previous novels, the Skywalker plotline is more substantive, developing the Force witches of Dathomir into a deeper culture than the wasted opportunities represented by the Baran Do Sages of Outcast and the Aing-Tii monks of Omen. As Luke and Ben attempt to capture the rogue Sith warrior, they find themselves in the middle of a clan war between a progressive clan rejecting the matriarchal traditions of the past and the secretive, darkside-wielding NightSisters. Whether it's the inclusion of the Sith element or the depth of the Dathomiri culture, there is a relevance to their actions that surpasses the "after-school special" superficiality of earlier plots. The re-emergence of the Sith as a threat, although a somewhat tamer version than Palpatine's evil incarnate, also raise the stakes of the series overall. It took awhile but Luke and Ben's actions finally matter again.[return][return]The second string concerning the political struggles of the Jedi amidst a crisis of crazies is about as strong as it has been all series but rather than being forced to carry the weight of the book, the strength of the Dathomir plotline allows it to slowly ratchet up the tension. While it's strange that major players are still being introduced into the series in the fourth book, the multi-dimensional power struggle appears to reaching a tipping point and it's difficult to predict how it will all play out, something atypical for the average Star Wars novel. After the extended break between books 3 and 4 caused by Allston's unfortunate heart attack, I'm very excited to see the series continue despite some of its flaws which admittedly may be more a result of my departure from the ranks of the targeted demographic than any flaw on Allston's part.[return][return]Through the half dozen or so Allston SW novels I've read, the single most notable aspect of his writing is his gift for humor. Despite suffering the aforementioned heart attack, Allston returns to his trademark humor here, albeit with somewhat less impact. Some of the changes that the Del Rey/Lucas Books editors have been introducing into the Fate of the Jedi are storylines that are somewhat lighter in tone. After the genocidal plots of the New Jedi Order icosikaihenilogy (21 books) and the fratricidal plots of the Legacy of the Force enneilogy (9 books), the fans were clamoring for lighter fare. Del Rey delivers this in Fate of the Jedi but unfortunately at the expense of the effectiveness of Allston's humor. In his X-Wing books and his NJO work, the dark comedy stood out in contrast to the bleak situations our characters found themselves in. Like a coping mechanism, the characters seemed to laugh because it was the only way to distract themselves from the death surrounding them. Even the humor of The Empire Strikes Back broke the tension between Imperial assaults and torture sessions. With the lighter tone of FotJ, Allston's writing comes across as almost cutesy, especially in scenes involving the pre-teen Allana Solo and the young adult Ben Skywalker.[return][return][return]This cutesy factor has been one of the largest problems of the series so far and the lack of appropriately aged characters continues in Backlash. Luke, Leia, and Han are considered to be either "too skilled" or "too old" for major action sequences and as a result an unrealistic amount of weight is placed on the shoulders of young protagonists, namely Ben and Allana. In the past the mainstream SW novels have been separated from the YA stories but Fate of the Jedi appears to be catering to both the old guard of the original trilogy and the younger fans of the prequel era. While understandable, this fanboy doesn't like watching his heroes throw their children into danger with terrible parenting decision after decision for the sake of their screen time.[return][return][return]As an example, Han and Leia leave their daughter alone for weeks where she eventually encounters a murderous junker who runs the local chop shop. Ben is given command of a tribe of older, trained warriors whose culture he doesn't understand to defend their redoubt from a rancor siege. And it's not so much the fact that they are put into dangerous situations, it's that they are portrayed as more capable than any of the adults around. It's only a matter of time before Ben is teaching the tribes strategy so basic a Gungan should know them and using his "detective skills" to suss out decades old secrets in days. Under the flimsy pretense of training, the authors marginalize Luke Skywalker to create artificial tension in scenarios where he could easily resolve conflicts with minimum bloodshed. Why would a Jedi let hundreds of people die when he has the power to save them? This illogical youth movement is frustrating at times but unfortunately necessary as the editorial staff has killed off or marginalized the majority of strong appropriately aged characters over the past few years and continually overpowered Luke and Leia. [return][return][return]Regardless of my fanboy criticisms, Backlash is still a worthwhile entry into the Star Wars canon and my favorite of the Fate of the Jedi books thus far. It ends on an enigmatic note that begs for further exploration in Troy Denning's Allies (due out in late May). Despite the younger, lighter tone of the series, Fate of the Jedi continues to present enjoyable Star Wars adventures in an episodic format that allow you to jump back to the galaxy far, far away that you explored in the imagination of your youth for a few hours. It's clear that Star Wars is in a bit of a transition period as LucasBooks attempts to rebuild the universe from catastrophic events of the past few years but I'm hopeful that once the youth movement completes, the character development will be worth it. It should be expected but character continuity has been something that hasn't always made an appearance in Star Wars fiction, so the increased attention in Fate of the Jedi is appreciated even if it creates other smaller problems. If you were a Star Wars fan that has abandoned the series because it lost the escapist elements that made it Star Wars, it might be time to take a second look.

[Kasc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Backlash, the fourth installment of the Fate of the Jedi series, takes a slightly different direction from its predecessors, it marks the return to Dathomir, and – unfortunately – despite an auspicious premise, it did not turn out to be as exciting as I thought it could be.

Having already visited multiple settlements of obscure Force-users across the galaxy in the hopes of figuring out where exactly Jacen went wrong, Luke and Ben are now in pursuit of Vestara, the sole remaining member of a delegation from the Lost Tribe of the Sith they first encountered in the previous novel. Believing that the Sith could become a considerable threat for the Galactic Alliance and the Jedi, finding Vestara is a pivotal task to Luke and a legitimate reason for him to sidetrack his main objective. Her trail leads the Skywalkers to Dathomir, where they face not only the planet’s unruly environment but also get tangled up in an altercation between the local clans and a new generation of Nightsisters. Luke is still pretty worn out from all the Mind Walking and his encounter with the Sith in Abyss, so the situation is toiling for him. Luckily, the Solos are currently not far off and, hailed by a distress call from Ben, they set course for Dathomir as well. There, the Skywalker-Solo family unites for the first time since the onset of Luke’s exile and deals with the Dathomiri issues and the mystery surrounding Vestara and her relationship with the Nightsisters together. However, Han and Leia do not stick around for the conclusion of the Dathomir arc such that it is up to Luke and Ben to wrap up the situation. Eventually they manage to capture Vestara and, so, can post a small victory. Yet, more danger looms for the two Skywalkers as the novel concludes with the Jade Shadow surrounded by a Sith fleet.
The reason Han and Leia do not stick it out on Dathomir is that they feel the need to
head back to Coruscant, which at this point has become a powder keg: the feud between the Galactic Alliance and the Jedi Order has reached a new level of escalation and Chief of State Daala has resorted to hiring Mandalorians to keep the Jedi in check. Meanwhile the Imperial Moffs are busy plotting against Jagged Fel, an action that culminates in a clumsy attempt on his life. In the end none of the issues on Coruscant are resolved and it is a safe bet that how the situation unfolds will form a central part of the subsequent novels’ plot.

For me, it was clear early on that Backlash has great potential as it is based on promising, varied elements: there is a refreshing change of pace compared to the last two installments as the majority of the main cast convenes in one place for a change, Dathomir with its diverse environment and interesting social web of different matriarchal clans always makes for a great setting, and the standoff on Coruscant offers loads of material to spin the overarching conflict further. However, somehow the spark never really caught, and I found my mind wandering as the story never became very enthralling. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what made it so difficult to stay on top of this novel. I guess a central factor is that with all the tumultuous situations unfolding at the same time, Backlash never really manages to portray the sense that there is any real urgency to them or that the stakes are particularly high. While many small conflicts are simmering, there is no universal one spanning over everything. Yes, all the different story arcs are substantial, each with possible far-reaching consequences (e.g., the Jedi succumbing to the political pressure would eliminate a corrective force in the galaxy) but a nine-book series needs something bigger than a few medium-sized threats to bind its plot together – like the Yuuzhan Vong do for the New Jedi Order Series or Jacen/Darth Caedus for the Legacy of the Force series. Currently, and very slowly, Abeloth is being set up to be this game-changing threat but so far, she does not seem to pose that momentous of an issue and has appeared as more of a scary sidenote. Hopefully Allies will manage to change that impression and make things a bit more interesting.

Although Backlash comprises some interesting ideas it can best be described as mediocre. There are a few suspenseful, action-filled scenes but other than that its plot drones on and is not all that memorable. Being a part of a series, it cannot really be skipped. However, for me it was a relatively bland read to sit through to get on with the series.

[Rob Whaley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understand that Aaron Allston was recovering from a heart attack while writing this book, which is why I was generous and gave it 3 stars. Nevertheless, there were still plenty of issues with the writing, which have been extensively covered. The most damning, imo, being that apparently Zekk is alive after being presumed dead back in Invincible, but doesn't speak at all. In fact, he doesn't even factor into the story. He's basically inserted as a "oh by the way, this guy is still alive just so you know. And he's not into Jaina anymore. But we won't tell you anything else" type of moment. We got more information about how Luke's lightsaber got into Maza's posession in TFA than we did about how Zekk survived and what he was doing on Dathomir.

Luke and Ben take a detour from the Caedus Odyssey to track Vestara Khai down to Dathomir (of course). While there, all three end up embroiled in a tribal conflict. The Dathmorians want to continue the modernization Luke started when he visited back in The Courtship of Princess Leia, but the Nightsisters want to stop it and keep men in the slave class (honestly not a bad idea looking at the current landscape of the US). Han, Leia, and Allana also come by briefly to help Luke recover from his time in the Maw and lend some aid. While they are there, yet ANOTHER jedi falls ill and is taken by the jedi before the GA can arrest them. In response, Daala sends a mando squad to attack the temple. No one dies (except the mandos, of course), but the incident causes Daala to cut off all services to the temple and issue warrents of arrest for the jedi. Han and Leia return and end up making a deal with Daala to act as intermediaries between the government and the jedi.

Meanwhile, one of the moffs and a turncoat senator plot to kill Jagged Fel (who surprisingly is back on good terms with the Solos) and remove Daala from power by assassinating him and blaming her. After two failed attempts, Jagged begins his own investigation, although the Solos are starting to think Daala's behind everything.

Luke and Ben manage to save the Dathomir tribes and expose Vestara's manipulation of them (and killing a few more sith). The book ends with them coming face to face with a sith armada.

Honestly, this series is progressing better than LOTF was. At least there aren't nearly as much pacing issues. Plus no mando glazing. Quite the contrary, with this book especially. Aaron and Troy Denning must not have liked Karen Traviss to write the mandos like this. lol

[Mark Oppenlander · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Fate of the Jedi series lumbers on.

Luke and Ben track Vestara Khai, the lone Sith survivor of the battle at Sinkhole Station, to Dathomir. Han, Leia, and Allana fly to Dathomir to assist Luke in the search. Vestara hides out with a tribe of Force-sensitive witches, but when Luke and Ben make contact, she behaves as if she has no animosity to them, and simply hopes to be left in peace. The tribe of witches has gathered to meet with a group of freed male slaves for a series of friendly athletic contests that will end in a tribal merger of the male and female tribes. But a band of Nightsisters attacks the combined tribes, and the latter half of the narrative involves a series of assaults, feints, and skirmishes, as the members of the Galactic Alliance come to the aid of the Dathomiri in their civil war.

Two subplots are present. One follows the action back on Coruscant, where Chief of State Natasi Daala continues to try to find a solution to the problem of mad Jedi, without sacrificing even more of her dwindling popularity. There are several political maneuvers, a suicide, and an assassination attempt, but much of this feels like filler.

More interesting is a subplot involving Allana who has been left on the landing field at Dathomir, supposedly safe in the Millennium Falcon. But when R2-D2 disappears, Allana takes it on herself to sneak out of the ship, against C-3P0's wishes, and find the missing droid. Her misadventures actually prove to be quite engaging and finally give the two robots something to do as well; these characters are so often ignored in the Legends novels.

This book was relatively entertaining as a standalone, but it doesn't progress the story very much. It feels like a side quest in a video game; little of what happens on Dathomir will have much impact on the larger story arc of the series. Instead, this self-contained tale allows Allston to play around with the Dathomir location and tropes, including expanding on the powers of the Nightsisters and throwing in some rampaging rancors. I long for the days when these books felt more cinematic - or when someone wasn't just trying to crank out more "product" to keep the Star Wars pipeline fed.

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another solid entry into the series, but yet another that fails to match the quality of the dazzling opening, it flickers between entertaining and boring, and sadly drags as if there was a requirement to reach the two hundred page mark!

Allston did a superb job as usual of keeping up the comedy, writing the action very well, and characterising everyone perfectly, even invoking a little bit of original trilogy nostalgia by giving Threepio and Artoo more of a focus again.

Past characters and plot points from older novels are returned to in very satisfying ways, and the political drama with Daala is continued in a very good manner, whenever Jedi get into some action, it’s mostly really good, and it’s generally just another good entry.

The Dathomir plot with Luke and Ben flickered for me, it started really awesome, and I like that they blended Han and Leia into it, avoiding the dreaded boring Han and Leia subplot, but a consequence of this was instead of just keeping Allana away, she took their place and got her own boring subplot.

Whilst Allana’s subplot allowed for some great humour from C3P0 and R2D2, it was largely unentertaining and detracted from the pacing and story rather than adding anything, and was definitely an area I skimmed through to avoid losing my patience with the series.

It started really fun seeing Jedi and Dathomiri witches and men fighting Rancors and Nightsisters, but I’m not kidding, there must’ve been five or six of these fights, and the middle ones were especially boring, and were described in unnecessary detail.

Luckily, they begin to change a little as Luke and Vestara battle Nightsisters, Luke blocking their lightning while Vestara fights alongside him, and Vestara in general had a good mysterious plot as she tried to deceive Luke, Ben, and the Dathomiri people and their Nightsisters.

I also really liked the Dathomiri people, how they’ve developed, and one of the women highlights that Luke simply arriving to Dathomir many years ago has led to so much change and growth and development, even if it takes a lot of hardship to get there, was really inspiring and a sign of the influential figure he has been developed into.

One of the best bits of the entire series occurred when Vestara tricked the Nightsisters, and a group of Sith arrived to help her, arrogantly assuming Luke and Ben are no match for them, only for Luke and Ben to win the battle.

It’s a really exciting and gripping battle, including a character called Dyon who was a failed Jedi student, where he got to use blasters and his small Force power to really cleverly fight the Sith in ways they’re not used to, throwing dirt in one’s eye while she is sliced in half by Ben.

I love how cocky they are, but how useless they are against the Grand Master that they keep underestimating, and the fight in general is just really well written and almost makes me consider bumping up my rating of the book purely from how excellent these fight scenes were, but unfortunately, I need to be fair!

This leads to the Dathomiri people and Ben agreeing to build another Jedi school on Dathomir for more progress, and it’s just great to see Luke’s Jedi expand and become more and more indestructible! The Jedi are truly indomitable.

The Coruscant subplot with Daala and the Jedi reached its peak early on, with a magnificent fight between Mandalorians and Jedi, where the Mandos, hired by Daala, try invade the temple, and without Traviss’ bias, leads to some really great fighting.

Raynar Thul, finally returning to these books, gets to properly shine and save an apprentice, fighting a few Mandalorians at once.

As well as this great scene, Jaina fights off a whole group of Mandalorians at once, and beats them all, which is just so badass. This is an amazing female character, one who has struggled and earned her power, and now can embody it and be the kickass character she is, flaws and all.

Niathal made a return, only to kill herself so her family wouldn’t be punished for her not seeing that Jacen would turn, and this causes great displeasure to Daala. This was an interesting little part of the Daala side plot that added a bit more depth to Daala, but is doing little for her likability.

“All it takes to do evil is to stand aside while others do it - when a single word from you could have stopped it.” - Luke Skywalker.

Overall, it’s a good book, but suffers from feeling a little bloated, and not knowing what to do with some characters, therefore enforcing an uninteresting plot on them, and taking away from the better parts of the book.

I think this series could’ve been improved by almost completely wiping out some plots, for example, not having a corrupt government, and perhaps having it be a time of peace for the galaxy, and to focus purely on the Jedi, the Sith, and Abeloth, as it seems to be what everyone is most interested in writing.

Not to say the other plots don’t have their moments, but they’re up and down enough for me to lose interest as time goes on, but I have hope they can be improved as the book goes on, they usually do with these books!

I can only read so many Rancor fights before I get sick of them, so sadly, some of this stuff lowers my rating a little, but I cannot deny that it is still a good book, and I can see why many may love it, but I’m personally more excited for what’s to come, and the next looks great!

7/10

[Balkron · Rating 3 out of 5]

1 Star - Horrible book, It was so bad I stopped reading it. I have not read the whole book and wont
2 Star - Bad book, I forced myself to finish it and do NOT recommend. I can't believe I read it once
3 Star - Average book, Was entertaining but nothing special. No plans to ever re-read
4 Star - Good Book, Was a really good book and I would recommend. I am Likely to re-read this book
5 Star - GREAT book, A great story and well written. I can't wait for the next book. I Will Re-Read this one or more times.

Number of times read: 1

The story of the new Jedi Order. This is around 40 years after the battle of the Death Star. I am reading this before I have read most of the books between the battle of the Death Star and when this book starts. This has caused me to not understand all of the references. I feel I should have waited on this.

Characters - The characters classic Star Wars (Luke, Leia, Han, etc) and some new Jedi. The character development was not as detailed as I would have liked but it was adequate.

Story - This is a continuation of Star Wars, if you like Star Wars then this story helps expand the story with a focus on the new Jedi Order.

Overall - This is an average book. Nothing real special, but it is a Star Wars story and I am a Star Wars fan. So this is a have to read along with the other 100+ books.

[Darryl Dobbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Luke's tracking of the Sith girl Vestara leads he and Ben to Dathomir where he is led to a tribe of Force-using women. This particular tribe is advanced enough to accept men as equals. Vestara has infiltrated the tribe and become one of them, which garners their protection.
Meanwhile, Han and Leia go to Dathomir to join up with Luke, leaving their grandchild Allana behind in the Falcon with the droids and, secretly, a couple of Jedi watching over her from afar. Allana gets herself into trouble, of course, bringing this otherwise great and interesting series back into the domain of the ludicrous. It's another arc that could be deleted and I will reiterate that these nine books should just be a trilogy totaling 1800 pages. Do that, and you'd have one of the best trilogies in the history of the fantasy genre. But instead, we have this filler where the author tries to stretch 200 pages into 300.
All that being said, the Luke - Ben - Vestara relationship is riveting, and the continuing Jedi-sickness saga is also good. Although, why the Jedi haven't rounded up all the young Jedi who were near the Maw during the Vong war and take them to a far away and secluded planet is beyond me. Even if they don't want to protect their own, they should at least be interested in protecting citizens. Anyway, let's not let logic get in the way of a good book an an entertaining read.

[Lina Contreras · Rating 3 out of 5]

My greatest complain with this series is that I'm sure there's an elaborate plot line that will eventually tie everything together, but, while that happens, the need to have a certain number of books ends up breaking several story lines. There are big problems going on in the galaxy (new Sith tribe, Daala is turning the public against the Jedi, who already have their hands full trying to find out why their knights are going insane), but we've had this same problems for about four books and the progress that has been made to solve them has been minimal. Sure, everything moves forward a bit, but not as much as I would have liked. The pacing is terrible, and the characters end up doing either boring things or making horrible choices (Han, Leia, you are smart enough to understand that leaving a 8-year-old Skywalker unsupervised on the Millennium Falcon on a dangerous planet is a terrible idea, like, you guys are supposed to be masterminds so...prove it? Be decent grandparents?).

Having said that, I'm loving this dynamic between Luke, Ben and Vestara. She seems resourceful and devious, but we know how much the Jedi love a good redemption, and I can't wait to see more of her. Jaina is always a joy to have around, and it was great to go back to Dathomir, even for a little while. This was not the worst story, it was not the best, but it was entertaining enough.