Survivor's Quest was written by Timothy Zahn and was published early in 2004. It was released simultaneously with the linked "prequel" e-book Fool's Bargain which was reprinted with the paperback edition later that year. There is also a "Valentine's Day Story" preceeding SQ available at the Random House site here. They are all set 21 years ABY.

More information about Fool's Bargain is available here and it is being discussed (well, briefly) in the BC&T forum here. Survivor's Quest is being discussed in this thread and more information is available here.

Fool's Bargain is based around the squad of the 501st that will subsequently appear in the main book and in particular how they came to have one of their more unusual members.

I posted my initial thoughts on Survivor's Quest here:

Finally finished it and whilst it was an excellent book, I don't have the same urge I had with most of the NJO books to go straight back to the beginning and read it all over again.

Now that I have finished the book I'll vary what I suggested about the "threat" to being whoever it is that the Vagaari may have teamed up with.

I liked the way that Mara did spend more time concerned about her past than in the HoT books, and the way that Luke was similarly concerned. I think Zahn was v ery sensible in not sticking to his earlier attitude that it was all behind her.

I still think that there was an arrogance about his writing, though, as if Zahn felt that he is the only one capable of writing a decent SW book - really only drawing on events in his own books (not to mention the whole "Chak" Fel/Chiss thing cf NJO).

At this point I should note that my last paragraph was more about my reaction to the book and what I would have preferred to see in it than about the author himself. If I were writing it now I'm sure I would express myself more clearly without judgmental language.

A little later another poster indicated that she thought it was strange that there were so many force sensitives aboard, in response to which I posted:

I thought that was a bit odd too, Lyd, but then thought that aside from "intermingling" it may simply be that anyone who showed any signs of premonition/luck/unusual empathy might have been mislabelled.

There were two separate groups: one of suspects and the other of those who were "proven".

The first group were the majority who were being watched. It seems likely that most of them weren't even force sensitive but misjudged due to the extreme prejudice of the survivors.

We weren't told how many were in that last group - but presumably their force sensitivity couldn't have been that strong or surely they'd have found a way out of their confinement (even without training)!

So IMO it is unlikely that the actual number of force sensitives would be greater than expected (especially seeing as how there was only discussion of Luke wanting to train the little girl and not anyone else - surely if there were real prospects there he would have checked them out before leaving).

And later still in response to a comment regarding the involvement of Car'das (in bold) I replied:

And I hope the next book will also clear up what the heck Car'das was doing involved with all this

I have my suspicions that TZ has another post-SQ story in mind. That was one of the loose ends that led me to that conclusion.

Even if he is a part of the prequel, there is still an issue about his links with the Chiss and Vagaari that would not be resolved.

I think that there is lkely a pre-NJO story lurking in there about the chase after the Vagaari, who exactly it is that they are linked with and what happens to "Chak", not to mention the repatriation of the OF people and any force-adepts that may have been there together with the locating of any resources buried in the wreck.

But I could be wrong ...

Then in response to a request to rate the book out of 10 I posted:

There are so many loose ends That I don't think I'll be ready to really rate it properly until the prequel book comes out.

Having recently re-read the Thrawn Trilogy and being in the middle of the Hand of Thrawn Duology my current opinion is that it is not as good as those books for a number of reasons (largely posted way earlier in this thread).

However, I plan to read it again as soon as I finish Vision of the Future and it is not uncommon for my attitude towards a book to change on a second reading.

Then after my re-reading I posted:

I just re-read SQ and I did enjoy it more this time around - I was not so annoyed by what I considered to be Zahn's arrogant style this time around and was able to just get into the story.

I still think I will be able to appreciate it more after the prequel comes out, but my overall view of it has lifted to 8/10.

Re the disproprotrionate number of jedi issue - on re-reading it became clear that in 50 years only two poeple had been declared by the survivors to be jedi and banished. Many more had been "quarantined" but these people remained suspects only - not confirmed. Given the level of paranoia that seemed to be present these numbers do not appear to be all that unusual - people with lucky streaks or unusual levels of empathy would be suspect in that environment.

It is worth noting that another thread of interest in BC&T regarding this book is the Davin "Chak" Fel and the number of Fel children.



Links to all of my reviews/overview blogs can be found in this blog.