Customer Reviews

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Conviction

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

*Warning Spoilers*
I usually enjoy Allston's entries in the Star Wars universe, but since the legacy series I've been having trouble finding ways not to complain about them. Not that I didn't enjoy this book, but I was a bit annoyed by certain continuing themes, the price, and the story isn't anywhere as interesting as NJO and pre-NJO books.

The Jedi insanity plot was annoying from the beginning and now has gotten even worse. At least in the beginning the cause was mysterious, but now we know it is caused by a villain straight out of a made-for-tv horror movie. Seriously wtf is up with the Abeloth. When I first read the description of her I didn't know whether to laugh at the ridiculousness of it or weep for the lack of creativity in finding a new enemy for the jedi. She now has more than one body and is a cannibalistic doppelganger with mega force powers?

This book continues the new tradition of post NJO EU books by ignoring common sense for the sake of trying to push towards the goal of the author. So many of the decisions characters make in the book go against common sense and the characters' personalities. for example: there is one part in Conviction where Corran Horn makes a statement about not going after his kids when they run off because when he was in CorSec they taught him not to get too involved in cases where family was involved or something and that he would let others handle it.... now correct me if I'm wrong but...wasn't there a whole, very awesome, book called I, Jedi where he began his Jedi training and went through a huge ordeal to save Mirax when she was captured... seemed a bit personal and dealt with family then....

They did finally overthrow Daala.... I still can't figure out how they would come to the decision to put her in charge. what with the whole trying to destroy the Alliance every year of her life, trying to use giant super weapons to kill everything that went against the empire, still expressing support for the Palpatine way of rule, and the whole trying to commit genocide against all force users thingy. But yeah she seems a bit impartial and level headed. Put her in charge.

There is just so much uselessness to this book and the other books in this series. Less than half the books advance the plot. This whole series should have been finished after a few books. I wish they'd just go back to writing trilogies and short series. They can't all be a success like the NJO. There was more content in the Thrawn trilogy than all of the Fate of the Jedi books combined.

Positive notes: They do developed Ben's character a bit more, and seem to maintain some consistencies in his personality between authors. Vestara's character is also being developed pretty well throughout the book(the rest of the sith seem to be getting less intimidating though). There was a funny scene when Daala was being led into her cell where Tahiri got to wave at her from across the hall and laugh. Leia gets a good fight scene. oh and Artoo makes a few good puns at C3PO's expense.

Let me say that I like Aaron Alston's previous work in SW, but this book felt like a waste of time. I honestly don't know what's going on with SW books since the end of New Jedi Order. Legacy had some really good reads, but the whole "Jacen turns dark" idea just struck me as out of character and poorly explained. Fate of the Jedi seems to have other characters doing things that don't quite feel natural, and some of the story lines, particularly in this installment, feel forced. And every time you tell me more about Boba Fett, you make him less interesting.

There's some good stuff here. The Leia/Han interaction is top notch, and I like the ambiguity of Vestara's character. But the Abeloth story arc just isn't executed well. We follow the villain from planet to planet, learning far more about the planets than the villain! I could handle that formula for a book or two, but it's tired now. And I didn't think it was possible to make Sith boring, but this book really pulls it off, with the exception of Vestara. The Sith are so static in this novel, you won't need the Force to see them coming.

The last two books in Legacy where strong, and made some of the earlier subpar entries worth it. Hopefully they can pull it off in Fate too.

First off, there are lots of spoilers, so beware.

This book is just a continuation of everything that's wrong with the entire Fate of the Jedi series. They have so many plots going on throughout, that everything is random and disjointed. For the most part common sense has been thrown out of the window, and characters make decisions not based on their sound logic, but instead to propel the proposterous plots. The "crazed Jedi" was a dead give away that this series was going to be crummy. These Jedi who are being mentally affected by an ancient and purely evil being known as Abeloth, conveniently think that everyone else in the world is an impostor. They don't know how they know, but they do. Of course, by the time Conviction comes around, they can somehow differentiate between real people and "impostors", based solely off of which is convenient to keep the story going. But what's that? The Sith are back? Oh boy. Of course, that's not enough for a story line of it's own (sarcasm), so we'll just toss it into the many themes of the FOTJ series. On top of that, since Ben Skywalker is now a teenager who needs a love interest, let's make one of the Sith a teenage girl who happens to get stuck with him and his father on their quest to rid the galaxy of Abeloth. Hmmm, what else can we throw in to this whole pot of "WTF Stew"? Oooh, I know. How about two separate coups against Chief of State Daala (one by the Jedi, and one by pro-Imperial conspirators) and things will surely be fun. Also, the annoying ramblings of Tenel Ka's daughter, an incredibly in depth trial of Tahiri Veila (complete with prison antics), Mandalorian war crimes, the life and times of HoloNews journalists, the love and drama of Jaina and Jag plus Zekk and his new girl, and dozens of other obscure and random themes from the Star Wars galaxy can all be found, crammed into this one series. In all, it is all used to fill up the pages of the books so that by the end of every one, you've really made very little progress and are left scratching your head, wondering how on Earth you got so far off course, and accomplished so very little.

I don't really blame Allston for this being such a disappointment. He put in fair effort for what he was given. But the round robin nature of this series doesn't showcase any author's strengths. What we have is a 9 book arc that could have or should have been cut by at least 3 books. Unlike The New Jedi Order or even the lackluster, Legacy of the Force, Fate of the Jedi suffers from too many subplots that don't advance much coupled with the fact that this series feels the need to include each and every subplot in every novel. Each subplot is fairly interesting in and of itself (even if common sense does seem to elude some of these plots) but it's too much with too little advancement. What we end up with is a disjointed soap opera that doesn't zero in on any one thing. Or any one theme. It's trying to be everything in each book and the repetition of this problem is where it's lost me.

Not to mention that the inside flap actually spoils a good part of the first half of the book for you.

*MINOR SPOILER*
If you've been following the series so far ask yourself, just how many times does Luke have to defeat Abeloth? Exactly. At $25 a pop? Exactly.

**I will avoid spoilers for Conviction however there may be spoilers for earlier series, especially the Legacy of the Force series**

The end is coming into sight in this 9 book series and here in Conviction, book seven in the Fate of Jedi series, events seem to be occurring with both a great amount of energy, and yet just enough mystery to justify two more books. Conviction comes hot off the heels of Vortex, which I thought was the strongest book of the series so far.

Luke Skywalker, exiled in Outcast started the series searching for clues regarding his nephew Jacen's descent to the Dark Side but turned to investing a creature called Abeloth, a being who is strong in the dark side of the force. Luke is accompanied by his son, Ben, a Sith apprentice. Oh, and he's trying to simultaneously evade being killed by a planet full of Sith. Meanwhile, the Jedi on Coruscant are dealing with Daala, who is trying to limit the power of the Jedi, if not disband them completely.

In pursuit of Abeloth, Luke visits Nam Chorios, a planet featured in Planet of Twilight. Use of the force on this planet is extremely dangerous, as it causes fierce storms to rage elsewhere on the planet. On Coruscant the Jedi put into place motions that they hope will remove Daala from a position of leadership. A court case, involving former Jedi Tahiri continues as well and though I won't tell you how it turns out, an end to her case finally arrives.

Being part of a 9 book series, it's hard to review this book as an individual, as many of its weaknesses are weaknesses of the whole series, and its strengths are also in the other books, but I'll try my best.

Being such a large series, there are many plots weaving back and forth. Each book does something to progress them, some better than others. I'll start with Tahiri. For many of the past books I found the progression of the court case intriguing. Though not as tense and taught as a court room drama, I though the authors had handled it well. Conviction is the first book it which I was truly disappointed with the presentation of it. I didn't sense the same intrigue or urgency, and this plot thread took a back seat to the threads on slavery, which have also been present throughout the series. So far, I have found the slavery thread to be the weakest thread in the series, and it didn't get any better here. The Solos end up on a planet in which droids are trying gain freedom from their `slavery.' At first I thought the slavery thread was present to mirror the actualities of human trafficking in today's world, but with the inclusion of droids trying to gain independence, I felt the thread lost any seriousness it tried to have.

Luke's adventures were also less than exciting in this novel. There is very little actual progression in his story line, yet it dominates a large portion of the story. Much of what happened didn't seem to add anything considerable, and a lot of it seemed like an excuse to visit Nam Chorios (actually I've felt like several locations/events in the series didn't have much of a purpose beyond "Let's try to find the most underused planets/characters in the Star Wars history and display them as much as possible for no reason other than to use them." **MINOR SPOILER for Fate of the Jedi** -- I do realize they chose this planet because Abeloth had absorbed much of Callista into her, and Callista was on Nam Chorios in Planet of Twilight, but I also found the inclusion of Callista to be a bit overdone, though it was extremely interesting when she first appeared. **END SPOILDER**

The most interesting thread in this novel was the attempt to overthrow Daala. The fragmentation that the GA and the Jedi experience feels, at times, reminiscent of the Clone Wars. Lines in the sand are drawn, and neither side wants to back down. However, unlike the stiff cooperation in The Clone Wars, there is open hostility here, and on the whole, I felt it played out well.

I'm not quite sure where I think this book stands in the series. It is one of the weakest so far, as there is very little substantial progression of the plot, but there were also some great moments that I enjoyed for a short time.

3/5 stars

I have been a Star Wars fan for decades, thought the Fate of the Jedi books were not altogether bad compared to the Legacy of the Force and Dark Nest series, and usually enjoy reading Aaron Allston's novels.

Conviction has to be the worst Allston novel I've read, and the worst of the Fate of the Jedi so far. Like others have already written, many characters either do not follow common sense, or are out of character, or both. I actually like Daala, so I found the part where she was deposed interesting. I could have done without the entire Leia and Han--and Allana/Amelia--on Klatooine thing.

The Sith don't seem so evil or intimidating and as a consequence seem stale; I find the Jaina and Jagged relationship boring; and the whole Vestara-writing-about-her-father thing: that was a little weird, and it was already stated that her father does love her, in his own, Sithy way.

I don't know if something happened to Allston after his heart attack--remember the Acknowledgments in Backlash?--but he seems to be bitter about something/someone, and that's bleeding into the story, and greatly detracts from it.

I've liked what Christie Golden has written so far, and have enjoyed Troy Denning's novels, so I will read this series to completion. However, this one piece of the story fell far short.

I've been a Stars Wars fan since I was 9 and saw the first Star Wars movie at a drive in and the very next week I went to see Empire Strikes Back in a theater; so I been a lifelong Star Wars enthusiast and I've followed many Star Wars tales including Fate of the Jedi. So I could go on about Star Wars and this series. I won't thou; I'll keep it short. This book delivers some of what I've been looking for in this series (mainly Daala ousted and Vestara starts to see being a Sith isn't all she thought is was cracked up to be) and it helps build to the inevitable conclusion. I'm sure there'll be some twists along the way that will keep it interesting. My recommendation is read this book and read this series.

I have enjoyed Allston's contributions to SW in the past. Considering how this is his last effort in the series, I was expecting a lot more than we got. I expected wrapped-up loose-ends and more importantly the entry point into the finale.

Instead what we got is a book where very little changes from page 1 to page 400. Except for moments of fan service throughout, the plot hardly moves at all. In fact, you could skip this book entirely and infer what happened in this book by reading the next.

Don't get me wrong, I like fan service. But I like entire chapters of it, not a-page-here-a-page-there. Every character was treated with hit-and-run tactics. Just enough to let you know that they were still alive and part of the galaxy, which isn't nearly enough. And when one of my favorite characters returns to the series (finally) and hardly has any dialog whatsoever I begin to wonder if there's anyone at the helm of this project at all.

Oh, and seriously -- if you're gonna put Fett in a novel, you can't do it in drive-by fashion like that! I know some authors just have to write about their favorite characters even if it's for three pages, but you CAN'T do that with a character like Fett. Do right by him or don't put him in the book, man! And I don't even like Fett!

In all, another twenty-something dollars down the drain. I cringe when I think about how awful the final book will be, and who Troy the Destroyer will kill off....

1. Wait for the paperback or you might be wishing you had spent your money somewhere else. It is a good little read, but eternally boring at times. It is as though the author finished the book and realized it was too short. Then he went back, added tons of scenery, mundane descriptions of useless unimportant details and tried to add enough filler to make it a book. I found myself simply glancing over pages and pages of description just to get back to the story.

2. If you have not read the fatally flawed third book of the Callista series: Planet of Twilight, you will be lost for awhile whenever the author discusses events from that book. This occurs pretty much whenever he talks about Luke and Ben. Why he would choose to bring back that horrible story I don't know, but before you go out and buy the Callista trilogy, know that it is one of the poorer star wars trilogies.

3. The characters in this book make decisions that most decent human beings would never make, but of course if they made rational decisions I suppose the story would be over.

aaron allston is one of my favorite authors this book series is on par with lord of the rings and the harry potter book series star wars books = the best of the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!