The Short Review: An interesting first half with some important questions leads to a second half that fails on almost every concievable level.

The Long Review: I like Zahn's books quite a bit. They're fast but they usually have something intersting to say about our universe and the Star Wars universe. Personally, I think his last two books, Outbound Flight and Survivor's Quest, have been his best so far. Needless to say, I was expecting something really good out of this one.

It starts off well with Zahn showing how great he knows the big three and Chewie. Mara's plot starts off a little bit slow but becomes more interesting throughout the first half and we can see how she became the person we saw in Heir to the Empire. The other plot, the one that takes up most of the book, concerns La Rone and his stormtroopers. I have to say that they were well drawn out characters who I liked reading about quite a bit. The moral struggles that they are going through are just as relevant in the real world as they are in the Star Wars universe.

The book has a fast pace as we head towards the halfway point.

That's when the problems start.

The story appears to be about nothing more than pirates and turns out to be... about nothing more than pirates and not even particularly interesting ones. I figured that there had to be some sort of interesting twist close to the end but nope, just more pirates.

From the man who gave us the tragic Outbound Flight, the mysterious Survivor's Quest and the labyrinth Thrawn Trilogy, I was shocked to see that this plot was not only simple but boring. Good characterization can only bring the story so far. We need to see some new ideas but what we get is a story by the numbers. By page 150 I'd already guessed how it would end. The only thing I got wrong was that none of the five stormtroopers died and that fact certainly broke through my suspension of disbelief.

Not to mention that the plot with Han and Luke has little to do with anything else. That could have been taken out of the book and only a few things would have to have been changed.

However, I did like the last chapter set on Coruscant and as I read it I wished that the entire book had been set there. Boy, what a great novel we would have had if Zahn wrote a book about political intrigue on Coruscant. Too bad we got this instead. It's not bad, but it's awfully unfulfilling.

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