16 February 2016

Return of the New Jedi Order, Episode XXII: Traitor by Matthew Stover

Mass market paperback, 292 pages
Published 2002

Acquired 2002(?)
Reread February 2015
Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Traitor
by Matthew Stover

Year Three, Month 2 through Year Four, Month 1 of the Invasion*
Discriminating fans know that every Star Wars novel should be by Matthew Stover and/or Troy Denning and/Greg Keyes: their work is the very definite highlights of The New Jedi Order. Traitor takes this war we've been reading and makes it about something, applies a philosophical underpinning, and then questions the very same underpinning. The cover makes this book look like it's of a pair with Dark Journey, and I guess technically it is, but Traitor outperforms Dark Journey on every possible level. Good characters, good story, good plotting, good jokes. The ending is epic. This isn't quite Star by Star or Conquest, but it's by far one of the best NJO books.

Next Week: Admiral Ackbar is back in Destiny's Way!

* Year Three of the Invasion is an odd one: four novels occur in its first four months, and then while Traitor stretches across most of the year, most of the main characters are absent from it; for them, there's a nine-month gap in appearances between Rebel Stand and Destiny's Way. Traitor gives us some glimpses of this time-- the Yuuzhan Vong have a plan to overwhelm the wider galaxy with refugees-- but it seems to be an unusual period of stasis during the Invasion, given that not much changes between Rebel Stand and Destiny's Way.

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