Seeing as how I've got a limited amount of space for this Blog, and a TON of stories to review, I figured I'd start grouping them together. With that in mind, today I'll be reviewing the Tales of the Jedi series that lumps together the sagas of Ulic Qel-Droma and Nomi Sunrider. This includes Tales of the Jedi, The Freedon Nadd Uprising, Dark Lords of the Sith, The Sith War, and most of Redemption.

Tales of the Jedi introduces us to two of the three major characters we'll be following for the bulk of this series. I've said before and I'll repeat here that Ulic Qel-Droma and Nomi Sunrider are two of my favorite names in all of Star Wars. I think Tom Veitch hit upon something special with both names - who knew the first time we heard Ulic Qel-Droma that we'd be getting a stylistic preview for Qui-Gon Jinn? The fact that the characters are both memorable, if a bit stereotypical. Ulic is clearly the basic "fall from grace" hero, and Nomi the basic "woman who overcomes her fears/past/scorned love." But, then, no one ever said Star Wars didn't hit all the classic literature/storytelling themes, and both Ulic and Nomi are done well.

The Freedon Nadd Uprising is an odd little bird, in that it's just two issues long and could've easily been tacked on to either the first Tales of the Jedi collection, or into the follow-up series, Dark Lords of the Sith. And while brief and to-the-point, the series introduces us to a lot of supporting characters that prove important later on, most of them Jedi. It also features some of the WORST comic art I've ever seen allowed published. Normally, I'm not too bothered by stylized or "rushed" artwork, but Freedon Nadd features some so bad, it's hard to follow the story properly because you're so distracted by the poor art.

Dark Lords of the Sith introduces Exar Kun, the third main character to this whole series, and unfortunately introduces us to the influence of Kevin J. Anderson, who once again comes in and begins to degrade something that was well done already. Right away, the spoken dialogue drops in quality, and Exar, who is clearly Anderson's creation, becomes more important than either Ulic or Nomi. As this leads into Anderson's Jedi Academy series, this was to be expected, but it's still sad to see.

The Sith War sees the decrease in Veitch's original idea and the upswell of Andersonism, especially with the all-but-predictable ending that features just about EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER being in the same place at the same time for at best questionable reasoning. Perhaps most jarring is the needless assault on Onderon by the Mandalorians. Why they attacked there is unclear, and what they thought they'd gain is even more of a mystery. They get trounced pretty quickly, and all for nothing. How much better to have Mandalore and his warriors just fade into the background to become the menace they actually do in later EU elements of the time (Knight of the Old Republic, both video game and comic).

Finally, there's Redemption. Now, I don't own all of Redemption. I'm missing the first and third issues, so I don't have the full story. It is, as most Anderson fiction is, predictable, but noticeably better than many of his other works. I attribute this to the fact that it's a simple story that I think was written for a simpler audience - children. This seems to be one of Anderson's few good traits, and what I have of the series works well here. I'm holding out judgement until I can find a copy of the whole series, or maybe Dark Horse will release a grand set with the entire Tales of the Jedi series in one large paperback. Man, that would rock.

Anyway, here goes some general ratings:

Tales of the Jedi: Story: A; Art: B+; Impact: A-; Overall: A-
The Freedon Nadd Uprising: Story: B; Art: F; Impact: A; Overall: C+
The Dark Lords of the Sith: Story: A-; Art: B+; Impact: A-; Overall: B+
The Sith War: Story: B-; Art: B; Impact: A-; Overall: B\
Redeption: Incomplete, No score. General opinion: B+

So, that puts the page count up to 790 pages down on January 5th, which puts me roughly at 158 pages a day. And a little ahead of schedule (though not a whole lot.) However, this all gets shafted a bit by the fact that I finally managed to get a hold of a copy of the Twilight TPB, adding an additional 88 pages to my grand total. Oh, well, it's all comics, so those go by rather quickly.

Up next in the first TPB for the Knights of the Old Republic comic series. Should finish that up on Saturday and have something for everyone on Sunday.