Here they are:

BETRAYAL by Aaron Allston

This book is the first in the Legacy of the Force series set 10 years after the end of the NJO, 40 years ABY. It opens with Luke Skywalker awakening from a recurring dream of a nebulous enemy, one he says doesn't exist.

We then see Jacen Solo and his informal apprentice, Ben Skywalker, on a mission on Adumar. We see them work together very well, and we see Jacen using his strong force abilities to get some important information from the mind of another.

The opening chapters drag a little, but once things get going (with Allston's trademark humour at its best in a conversation between Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo about how to deal with a coming home invasion) it never stops. I was actually concerned, briefly about half way through, that the action had peaked too early. I was wrong - it just kept going and going.

In this book tensions are building between Coruscant and Corellia with concern coming to a head due to rumours of Centerpoint Station being close to being brought back online (again). Luke and the Jedi are part of the Galactic Alliance response to this situation, with Han and Leia being concerned that the GA is not acting properly - and taking action to try to assist Corellia. This is not the only family split by the GA/Corellia tensions.

Wedge Antilles is living in retirement on Corellia but is brought back into action in a rather surprising way. Allston wrote this ageing character very well indeed, with Wedge using his past experience to match and better those around him on a number of occasions.

There's Allston's usual great aerial action along with several ground-based skirmishes of varying sizes in a number of locations. To try to describe these in any detail would give far too much away.

The main point of view characters in Betrayal are Luke, Jacen, Leia, Wedge and, for their limited involvement in the book, Jaina, Admiral Matric Klauskin and Dr Toval Seyah and a Jedi I don't recall having seen before - Nelani Dinn. And then there's Lysa Dunter - a young GA pilot giving us a look at the GA military through new eyes.

Lysa is one of a number of next generation characters developed in this book. There are several new young Jedi and, of course, Ben Skywalker is given a much more significant role than he has had as a young child in previous books. It is obvious that he has a big future.

We are introduced to Admiral Cha Niathal, an ambitious Mon Calamari who obviously also has a considerable future ahead. Then we are re-introduced to Brisha Syo - a character from the past with a new identity. She seems to have a much greater involvement in what is going on with Corellia and the GA than is initially apparent, and wants to continue Jacen's education in the force in a way that has not previously been available to him.

It must be quite difficult to write the first book in a shared series like this, having to start a story that can't be finished, leaving many loose ends, but having a storyline that works on its own. Allston has managed to do this very well.

This book hasn't displaced the Enemy Lines duology as my all time favourites (being my favourites notwithstanding the "Lord Nyax" storyline in the second of those books) but maybe by the end of Legacy of the Force the whole series will take their place. It is certainly off to a great start with this book.

TOS has an interview about the book with Aaron Allston here.

BLOODLINES by Karen Traviss

This book is the second in the Legacy of the Force series set 10 years after the end of the NJO, 40 years ABY, and follows immediately from the first in the series Betrayal by Aaron Allston. This is Karen Traviss's first venture into this era (along with the slightly interconnected e-book, A Practical Man, to be reviewed later).

In a similar style to other books by this author, Bloodlines starts with one of the characters in the first person: this time Boba Fett. I am not one of those who is a big Fett (or Mandalorian) fan, but I found that his opening to this book got things started very nicely, even if it was not immediately apparent how it linked in with the storyline of the series.

We then return to Coruscant and see Ben Skywlker sitting with Jacen Solo outside Cal Omas's office in the Senate building, with Ben as the point of view character, giving us an interesting insight into this young developing character.

In this book things start getting very nasty with some of the Corellian population on Coruscant, to the point where Cal Omas decides that something needs to be done. He tries to recruit Mara Jade to assist, but when she declines he engages Jacen Solo, with Ben along as his continuing informal apprentice. Jacen heads the "Galactic Alliance Guard" and starts taking some increasingly un-Jedilike action against Corellian dissenters (and others).

In the meantime things continue to go downhill on Corellia, with Han and Leia declared to be enemies of the state, and Thracken Sal-Solo putting out a bounty on Han and his whole family. In a roundabout way, not entirely as one might expect, this ultimately brings Boba Fett and Han Solo together.

Along the way we see not only the points of view of Boba and Ben but also of Han, Luke and, to an increasingly disturbing degree, Jacen.

I don't like real-life parallels, but reading Jacen's point of view reminded me very much of times I have represented paedophiles - they have themselves totally convinced (and can make their point calmly and almost convincingly) that not only is what they are doing the right thing, but that they are doing it for all the right reasons. While many see Star Wars as being about Pure Good vs Pure Evil, this is a demonstration of the reality that there are shades of good and evil and it can sometimes be far from easy to tell exactly when the line is crossed. Creepy stuff.

We also see the advancement of one of the EU's newest characters, Admiral Niathal (introduced to us in Allston's Betrayal) and we are introduced to a brand new character -Mirta Gev, a young Mandalorian woman with a secret. Mirta also has information that might (in later books) link us back with Traviss's Republic Commando books. There are a couple of nice hints about the future of that series tucked into Bloodlines. There's also a nice cameo by a descendant of another minor character from Traviss's Vader short stories.

I admit that whilst I am a big fan of this author's work, I was apprehensive about how well she would handle the characters we have come to know so well from the OT through to the NJO and beyond. I was thrilled to discover that not only were the characters handled very well, but they were developed nicely given that some of them are being taken on twists outside their comfort zones by the general story arc of this series. It was particularly good to see Ben being given more than a background role, and being developed in a way that is consistent with him really taking on the (light) Skywalker legacy.

I'm very much looking forward to reading the next in the series, Troy Denning's Tempest, as well as the continuing instalments by Allston and Traviss.

This is gearing up to be one of the best series the EU has on offer. If only it would bring Jaina and Jag back together it would be near perfect...

TOS has an excerpt from the book at this link and an interview about the book with Karen Traviss here.



I'll get around to A Practical Man soon (I hope).