Star Wars: The New Jedi Order : Agents of Chaos II [Library Binding]

James Luceno (Author)

Product Details

• Library Binding: 348 pages
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439563535
• ISBN-13: 978-1439563533
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars A fitting finale, June 3, 2011

By 

Enjolras (Springfield, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force (Library Binding)

New Jedi Order was probably the hardest Star Wars series ever to conclude. There were a lot of characters and plots that needed resolution, as well as the war. Moreover, it needed to be convincing. Fortunately, James Luceno proved up to the task and made Unifying Force not only an epic conclusion to the series, but one of the best novels in the series. He manages to keep the suspense and drama of the war whilst providing a believable resolution to the conflict. I thought everything fit together well in retrospect, but not in ways I'd predicted!

The best parts of the novel are the character dialogues. Unlike some books in the series (I'm looking at Star by Star), Unifying Force provides ample time for dialogue. All of our favorite Star Wars characters really sound like themselves, but with the added toll of years and constant fighting. I love Han's reaction to the proposal that somebody should erect a statue in his honor. The best bits come after the war's conclusion, a 60 or so page denouement that really evoked war weariness and hope for the future (sadly, spoiled by my knowledge that there were more Star Wars books published after NJO destroying that illusory sense of peace).

My only complaint - if I have one - is that Luceno spends a lot of time early in the book with relatively minor characters like Pash Cracken, Judder Page, and even Yuuzhan Vong commander Malik Carr, but all these are forced to take a back seat midway through. The grande finale of the NJO series just isn't the time to introduce too many new characters. It's almost like Luceno started writing another NJO book, then realized he needed to focus on the main characters for the grand finale. Overall, this doesn't hurt the book much at all, and in times helps, but I worry that time spent with some of those characters would have been better spent with Nom Anor or Lando Calrissian (who, incidentally, seemed almost absent throughout the whole NJO series).

Overall, I'm glad NJO ended with such a bang. Unifying Force captures the best in character development and action, as well as drama, in the Star Wars Expanded Universe.