Good! not as funny as his Xwing books, but this storyline is a serious one. cool ideas ( )

If you've been read all of my reviews of The New Jedi Order, you might note that I spend my time either complaining that the book is deeply dull or otherwise flawed, or praising the book for being excellent. So far there's been a real dearth of solidly competent novels. Well, that changes here with the late Aaron Allston, who was probably the definition of "solidly competent" when it comes to Star Wars. This made him not a great fit for things like Legacy of the Force, alas, but spot on for books like this-- basically the function of this book is to provide a fun adventure during the lull between hardcovers. There's plenty of great fleet tactics, starfighter battles, and intelligence skullduggery-- no one ever really did Star-Wars-as-military-sf better than Aaron Allston and Michael Stackpole, and here Allston proves himself more adept at adapting his style to the needs of the overall NJO story than Stackpole was, by eschewing the Force stuff and just focusing on the space battles. Disposable, I suppose, but enjoyable.

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Plot: A duology set in the New Jedi Order series that can just be read as a stand-alone. The plot is fairly contained, and while it ties in with what happened before, one of the two main story lines begins here and ends in the next book. The usual good pacing and nice set-ups.

Characters: A relatively contained cast, with a lot of the EU's central characters plus some of Allston's own creations. Good characterization and consistency with the previous books.

Style: A lot more humour than usual in a SW novel, although serious scenes do not suffer for it. The general impression is a certain degree of tongue-in-cheek writing, especially where the romance is concerned.

Plus: Allston takes a handful of characters and runs with them. A good, fun ride without the mysticism and deathly seriousness that other SW authors often use.

Minus: The villains do not feel particularly convincing or threatening at this point.

Summary: A pleasant read with good humour. ( )