The Short Review:

Extremely good. The story works and its characters work even better. However, the Boba Fett plotline brings the book down.

The Long Review:

I didn't like Karen Traviss' last book "Triple Zero." It was plotless and had way too much to do with the Mandalorians when that wasn't important to the plot (what little there was). On the other hand I really enjoyed "Hard Contact." I thought the characters worked well and that the plot, slight it may be, worked well for the story.

Therefore I came to this book having no idea whether or not I'd enjoy it.

Suffice to say I did. That's not to say I didn't have some problems with it because I did.

First, the things that worked. Jacen Solo's character was not just pushed around making us wonder "Oh, will he go dark or not." Instead Karen Traviss pretty much tells us that Jacen isn't going to be one of the good guys any more. In a brutally effective scene Jacen uses the Force to smash a prisoner's head into a table again and again and eventually kills her. This would have been enough but we are then given a beautifully tragic scene where Leia and Han confront Jacen about his actions. Then results are not pretty and what I can only guess is permanent, a schism in the Solo family is formed.

What makes all of this work is that we are brought inside Jacen's head and shown what he is thinking. We see how he rationalizes his actions and its quite scary.

Luke Skywalker and Ben Skywalker are also used well in this story. I loved seeing Luke trying to decide whether or not Ben should stay with Jacen or if Luke needs to get him a new master. Luke eventually decides that Jacen needs to go. However, I don't think he's going to need to drag Ben away from Jacen as Ben kills two people before the novel's end. In another great scene Ben tries to decide whether or not he should talk to his father about what happened. I won't tell you how that plays out because it's best experienced.

What really made this novel work was how well Karen Traviss treated the characters and what she put them through. There were scenes where I was desperatly hoping Jacen would take another course of action even though I knew he wouldn't. At other times I cheered Luke on in my head, hoping he would confront Jacen.

That's not to say that there was no plot becaue the plot also moved in this book. Traviss lets us see the growing tension between Corellia and the Alliance wonderfully and shows us some truly evocative terrorist scenes (both sides resort to it, I certainly consider some of Jacen's actions to be those of a terrorist). By the end of the book the whole situation has changed for the worse.

Without saying his or her name I was also surprised at the character that was killed off.

There are a number of action scenes in this book, some work while some just feel intrusive. As a matter of fact this whole book could've gone with little to no action as the tension held the book. Nevertheless this didn't bother me too much.

The Boba Fett plotline did. There was no reason at all for it except to satisfy Ms. Traviss' love of Mandalorians. This plotline stopped all momentum when I was reading as it could have been taken out and very little would have to have been changed. At the least it could have been cut down a heck of a lot. Maybe the writers plan to go somewhere with this but I can't see how any of this was at all relevant. It was well written but totally out of place and it seemed very much like the author put Fett in just so she could write them. A bad move.

Another problem was the constant reference to Mandalorians in the book. Ben seems to often think about them and the references seem very out of place. No more of this please.

However, don't think I didn't enjoy the book because I most certainly did. I'd love to give it a perfect score even becauses there were many moving scenes and I couldn't stop reading. But the Fett plotline and out of place references bring it down.

9