Vortex (Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi - Book Six)

Title: Vortex
Author: Troy Denning
Superseries Star Wars
Series: Fate of the Jedi
Preceded By: Allies (Christie Golden)
Succeeded By: Conviction (Aaron Allston)

Ratings

Score: 8/10
Chart Movement: 22 -> 21
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Definite.

Review

I had no idea where this book was going to start. The last book, Allies, pretty much finished off every storyline except for the Trial of Tahiri Veila. With four more books to go, I began this one a little apprehensively. But that problem is quickly resolved. We found out pretty much straight away that Abeloth has a little trick up her sleeve that means that she could indeed be the main antagonist for the rest of the series, and we also see that the conflict between the Jedi and Admiral Daala is still going strong.

In short, there's plenty to read about in this book. But there was another reason that I was apprehensive. For me, Denning's contributions to the Legacy era books have been going downhill since his spectacular first entry in the legacy of the force series. But fortunately, while not matching the level of writing he had with Tempest, was considerably more engaging than in Abyss. He still used one or two awkward metaphors every now and again, but overall the writing was smooth, enjoyable, and most importantly, easy to read.

Abyss (Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi - Book Three)

Title: Abyss
Author: Troy Denning
Superseries: Star Wars
Series: Fate of the Jedi
Preceeded By: Omen (Christie Golden)
Succeeded By: Backlash (Aaron Allston)

Ratings

Score: 5/10
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: I will read the series, but only out of stubbornness. Still, things are looking up.

Review

Finally this series has something beginning to resemble a storyline. I thought it would never happen. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the writing as much as I did with the previous two books, or even Denning's own books in the previous series. So I'm not sure whether to be elated that something is finally happening, or disappointed in the writing. It didn't stop me from reading until I'd finished though.


While I enjoyed the previous books, they didn't really have a driving force behind them. But now we're finally starting to see groups have objectives. And some questions with a bit more substance than "What's Going On?". There are two women and a force presence, who seem to be important, but for what? What's going to happen with the lost tribe of the sith? What's going to happen between Daala and the Jedi now that (Sarcastic Spoiler) something has happened.

Invincible (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force - Book Nine)

Title: Invincible
Author: Troy Denning
Superseries: Star Wars
Series: Legacy of the Force
Preceeded By: Revelation by Karen Traviss


Ratings

Score: 7/10
Overall Series Rating: 9/10

Review

This book had a lot to live up to. The series as a whole has been incredible thus far, and the previous book particularly so. If this book was to even match my expectations it had a lot to do. Quite frankly: it didn't.

This was the book that everything had been centering on. The loose storylines, the tension, the emotion... All of them really suggested that this was going to be something big. But it actually seemed like the author wasn't really that into it anymore. I felt that scenes were cut short, characters were fairly two dimensional - except Jaina and Ben - and that the conclusion happened too fast.

Inferno (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force - Book Six)

Title: Inferno
Author: Troy Denning
Superseries: Star Wars
Series: Legacy of the Force
Preceeded By: Sacrifice (by Karen Traviss)
Succeeded By: Fury (by Aaron Allston)

Ratings

Score: 9/10
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Definite :-)

Review

I bought this book on amazon. When deciding which version of the book to purchase (I eventually went with paperback) I looked at a couple of the reviews. One or two said that it was the worst in the series. I find myself having to disagree with them. It's not the best, both the previous book in the series (Sacrifice - Karen Traviss) and the previous book written by Denning (Tempest) exceeded it. But It wasn't the worst either. I really enjoyed reading more about Luke, who has been pretty much absent from previous books, and also of Han and Leia, who seem to come and go in previous books.

Tempest (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force - Book Three)

Title: Tempest
Author: Troy Denning
Superseries: Star Wars
Series: Legacy of the Force
Preceeded By: Bloodlines (By Karen Traviss)
Succeeded By: Exile (By Aaron Allston)

Ratings

Score: 10/10
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Definite!

Review

When I picked this book up at midnight last night, it was with the intention of reading for ten or twenty minutes before going to bed. Three hours later, I put the finished book down. From the prologue to the end, I found no point in the book where I didn't want to read "just the next few pages..."

As with the previous book, Bloodlines, I started reading with some trepidation that the third (and final) author in the series would not meet the quality that I had found in the first two. I'm happy to be able to say I needn't have worried. Denning is at least as good as Aalston and Traviss, and once more I'm glad that I started reading this series.