The following blog is long. As is my custom (recently), I put all my thoughts to paper (err, internet) and hope someone else gets something out of it.

Balance Point Stinks

Last time I blogged, I was still reading Balance Point. It was taking me a while. Well, I got past it, and read Edge of Victory: Conquest. That's when I realized that I wasn't being lazy when it took me a long time to read Balance Point, it just wasn't a good book. Conquest was amazing. I tore through that sucker.

Edge of Victory Rules!
I've never been a huge fan of the Solo children, as I've mentioned before, and Anakin was no exception, but Conquest completely turned my view around on his character. Suddenly, he was more than a brash youth with lots of potential, he was a maturing Jedi who learned from his experiences and developed a clear, true perception of the world around him. He's a great character, a great guy, and a great Jedi.

I really liked how much was revealed about the Yuuzhan Vong and their society. I know that there are probably plenty of people who disagree with me, but I find them to be fascinating, and the YV perspective parts of the books in the NJO have been a good portion of what's kept me going. But this time, it wasn't just the audience that was learning about the enemy, it was Anakin, too. He was learning, and he was eager to learn.

I was also delighted with Anakin's epiphany that morality exists outside the Force. I applaud you, Anakin. You put your ostensibly philosophical brother to shame.

My one complaint with Conquest was that it made me become attached to Anakin, when I was only a few books away from Star by Star.

I read Edge of Victory: Rebirth, too, and thoroughly enjoyed it. But I don't have much to say about it. Apparently I'm a fan of Greg Keyes.

Star by Star

Then came Star By Star. I'd heard the spoilers, I knew long beforehand about the Big 2, but I didn't know the circumstanced. (By the way, spoilers in the coming paragraphs, assuming there's someone out there who hasn't read NJO and is still avoiding spoilers)

I've been waiting for Feyl'ya to die since the X-Wing series, but honestly, he seems to have become less and less of a jerk as time traveled by it the GFFA. Throughout the whole NJO, he wasn't nearly as bad as I remember him, and he only got better. Then he went out with a bang. He earned a salute from me.

But Anakin died, too. That one doesn't sit well with me, not because of what or how, but why. The whole strike mission (a third of the book) was an illogical idea.
--begin rant--
First of all, they sent a bunch of kids and just one token adult. They went with the silly Young Jedi X-Men team instead of a more experienced group for no adequately explained reason. Jaina, Jacen, Tahiri, had logical reasons to go, and Anakin got to go because it was his idea (but that's not a good reason). But the rest of the strike team has no justifiable reason to go in place of older, more experienced Jedi.

More importantly, even if it succeeded, it logically should have been an ineffectual plan. They would have had to destroy all instances of voxyn DNA, which should have been impossible, or at least totally unrealistic. And even then, the Yuuzhan Vong could just reshape the voxyn in a matter of months. It was a stupid mission that logically would have been pointless even if it went off without a hitch.
--end rant--

That kind of soiled Anakin's death for me, but that's not my only complaint.The physical descriptions of things were terrible, too. I couldn't craft a good image of any of the environments on the worldship, and way too often, I didn't even know where characters were. It made it difficult to follow the action, which often drove the next big plot turn. Also, it was a little too long and drawn out for my tastes. Still, I enjoyed it.

Dark Journey (No Kidding)

Now I'm a few chapters into Dark Journey, and it's the first Star Wars book I've ever decided to read that I've considered giving up on. First, I can guess what's going to happen. Jaina struggles with the Dark side and Jacen chats it up with Vergere in captivity. How close am I? But nothing interesting happened in Balance Point either, and I got through that, so why do I want to set aside this one?

It feels like it's written by someone who knew absolutely nothing about Star Wars, and hadn't read any of the NJO.
--begin rant--
It feels like she was given a good lesson about each of the important characters, then an inaccurate mess of notes about how everything else in Star Wars generally works. Examples of things that trouble me so far:
-Kyp Durron's X-Wing firing concussion missiles.
-The Jedi strike team making it from Myrkr to Coruscant so fast. The falcon was ready to jump at the end of Star by Star, and the strike team's outbound travel time was described as especially long, but somehow, they made it all the way back to the core in the time it takes Han to pull a lever.
-The trouble identifying the stolen YV craft as the one the strike team hijacked. Just one Jedi should have no difficulty telling that a Yuuzhan Vong spacecraft has any non-Vong people on it. It should be pathetically easy for a Jedi to detect nine Jedi on a ship that's supposed to be devoid of the Force. Jaina's mentor, her mother, and her Jedi Master uncle should be able to muster more than an uncertain feeling that she or any other friendlies are on board. Seriously, what The Force are we using here? Because it's certainly new to me.
--end rant--

With nothing to look forward to except frustration, I'm tempted to walk away, and skip to Enemy Lines, which I've been highly anticipating, since I've loved Aaron Allston since Wraith Squadron.


Enough Rambling!
Both for this blog and the next. I swear I should get back to actually thinking out my blogs once in a while instead of vomiting on my keyboard like this.