23 February 2016

Return of the New Jedi Order, Episode XXIII: Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams

Hardcover, 448 pages
Published 2002

Acquired December 2002
Reread May 2015
Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Destiny's Way
by Walter Jon Williams

Year Four of the Invasion (Months 1-4)
The New Jedi Order really peaks in the middle: Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Star by Star, and Traitor are all top-notch, and much of the surrounding work is solid. But Destiny's Way is basically just perfunctory. It has its occasional fun bit, like Han and Leia talking to Pellaeon, or the return of Admiral Ackbar, or Lando playing politics (they should have made him president), and the final space battle is pretty good-- but I don't care for the genocide subplot, some of the politicking is dumb/boring, and Walter Jon Williams clearly did not read Traitor, as the Vergere here is a totally different character from the one in that book. More than any other NJO hardcover, this one feels like it's just there to take up space, to bridge the gap between the New Republic being on the verge of defeat in Star by Star with the requirement that it has to be able to win the war in five books' time. There are worse NJO books, but there are more ambitious ones as well.

In Two Weeks: Discover what happened in the middle of this novel, which was snipped out and made into its own release called Ylesia!

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