I'm happy to say that Dark Nest is way better than it's bug-centric premise.

Yup -- I was a wee bit concerned when I realized that the entire Dark Nest trilogy is about giant bugs which slowly take control of your mind by smelling bad. It's not exactly normal Star Wars territory, you know.

And yet, as Troy Denning undoubtably realized, it's an important book, because it's the first after the mind-numbingly long New Jedi Order series, which as I said here, I haven't come close to finishing.

It's good. Quite good. I say..."Above Average." Not excellent, not "oh my god it's the best book ever," but "better than I would have expected from a sci-fi novel about bugs."

And the best part of The Joiner King is that, well, it's got Jacen in it, and Jacen is now awesome. For five years he's been searching for the true nature of the Force, studying with the Dathomiri, Akanah, and others, and he's grown more powerful by the day. He's got a load of new tricks up his sleeve -- he can even fix people's destiny's and talk across time.

Jacen describes the new Jedi philosophy in a conversation with Tenel Ka:

"The Force isn't a deity. It's not self-conscious, and it isn't capable of caring what happens to us. It's a flow. Its only will is to remove that which blocks it. When we facilitate that flow, when we allow it to run through us to others, we're in harmony. We're using the light side. And the dark side is when we block that flow and turn it to our own ends. We keep it from others. And when we release it too quickly, we turn it from a nurturing stream into a destructive flood."

This, of course, means the Jedi can now use Force-lightning to torture their enemies without even a twinge of conscience. And that...is really strange. And needs adjusted in the next two books. Luckily, book two comes out next month, so we don't have long to wait.

:-D