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Star Wars: Dark Nest #2
The Unseen Queen
The epic Star Wars odyssey enters a new frontier as the heroes of the New Jedi Order confront a monstrous evil–insidious, unseen, and insatiable. . . .
Despite being given new worlds to populate, the insectoid Killiks have not found peace. An unknown enemy has been attacking the new nests–and the Killiks hold the Jedi responsible. Traveling back to the Unknown Regions to unravel the mystery, the Skywalkers and Solos discover an evil far more familiar than they ever expected . . . and even more terrifying. Why does the Dark Nest want to kill Mara? Will Jacen’s apocalyptic vision trigger another galactic war or prevent one? And perhaps most ominous of all, what deadly secret are the Killiks hiding?
To find out, Luke, Mara, Han, and Leia must embark on a perilous journey into the uncharted void between right and wrong. The ferocious Unknown Terrors are only the beginning of the awesome challenges that lie ahead in their quest to fathom the unfathomable. For an obscure dispute is about to explode into chaos, pitting Jedi against Jedi–and threatening the very galaxy itself.
Despite being given new worlds to populate, the insectoid Killiks have not found peace. An unknown enemy has been attacking the new nests–and the Killiks hold the Jedi responsible. Traveling back to the Unknown Regions to unravel the mystery, the Skywalkers and Solos discover an evil far more familiar than they ever expected . . . and even more terrifying. Why does the Dark Nest want to kill Mara? Will Jacen’s apocalyptic vision trigger another galactic war or prevent one? And perhaps most ominous of all, what deadly secret are the Killiks hiding?
To find out, Luke, Mara, Han, and Leia must embark on a perilous journey into the uncharted void between right and wrong. The ferocious Unknown Terrors are only the beginning of the awesome challenges that lie ahead in their quest to fathom the unfathomable. For an obscure dispute is about to explode into chaos, pitting Jedi against Jedi–and threatening the very galaxy itself.
333 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 27, 2005
About the author
Troy Denning
161 books630 followersAlso known as Richard Awlinson.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Den...
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Den...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
June 22, 2016
Everyone who is a huge fan of something, anything---The Simpsons, "Fast and the Furious" movies, U2, McDonalds cheeseburgers, Internet porn, books by Stephen King, etc.---at some point experiences it: the point at which one realizes that there truly is too much of a good thing.
Even sex can lose its luster and excitement if one engages in it too much. For the record: I have no idea what that would be like anyway, as my wife and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and two full time jobs. 'Nuff said. So, anyway, bad example…
I am a ridiculously huge Star Wars fan. I freely admit that. I love everything having to do with Star Wars. I have considered breaking down and buying a video game system (something I am adamantly opposed to on moral, spiritual, financial, and practical grounds) just to buy that stupid Battlefront game which looks friggin' awesome every time I walk by the display at Target. I have personally set a goal of reading every single Star Wars book ever written, even the ones featuring that asshole Jar Jar Binks. Yes, I am that fanatical.
So, it pains me to admit that I have reached a point in my Star Wars Expanded Universe reading challenge that I am actually getting---gasp!---sick and tired of it all.
Not that it will stop me from reading on. I don't think anything will keep me from reading Star Wars books in the future, not even a Trump presidency.
I've just reached the point where I can no longer admit that all the gibberish I've been reading is in any way good literature or makes any friggin' sense. (Seriously, what the hell is a dovin basal?) There are so many characters, as well, in the SWEU that it is almost impossible to keep track anymore. Add to that the confusing names of characters, each one sounding like a disease or the stage name for the drummer of a Korean speed-metal band. "Welcome to the stage Saba Sebatyne and the Raging Flicknacks!"
"The Unseen Queen" by Troy Denning is Book 2 in the Dark Nest trilogy, started in "The Joiner King", about a race of giant bugs called the Killik who have pissed off the Chiss because two Dark Knights thought to be dead at the Battle of Myrkyr have become "joiners" and are poisoning the unconscious hive collective of a subspecies of Killick called the Gorog and HOLY CRAP I KNOW WHAT THE HELL ALL OF THAT SHIT MEANS!!!???…
See, this is what I'm talking about. I could go on and on with a plot summary, but only a handful of other SWEU nerds will know what the hell I'm referring to. Anyone else will simply think I'm speaking nonsense. Which I am, in a sense. It's nonsense that makes sense to only a few die-hard nerds.
AAARRRGGHHH!!!!
Okay, whatever, I'm over it now. If you liked "The Joiner King", you'll like this one.
Even sex can lose its luster and excitement if one engages in it too much. For the record: I have no idea what that would be like anyway, as my wife and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and two full time jobs. 'Nuff said. So, anyway, bad example…
I am a ridiculously huge Star Wars fan. I freely admit that. I love everything having to do with Star Wars. I have considered breaking down and buying a video game system (something I am adamantly opposed to on moral, spiritual, financial, and practical grounds) just to buy that stupid Battlefront game which looks friggin' awesome every time I walk by the display at Target. I have personally set a goal of reading every single Star Wars book ever written, even the ones featuring that asshole Jar Jar Binks. Yes, I am that fanatical.
So, it pains me to admit that I have reached a point in my Star Wars Expanded Universe reading challenge that I am actually getting---gasp!---sick and tired of it all.
Not that it will stop me from reading on. I don't think anything will keep me from reading Star Wars books in the future, not even a Trump presidency.
I've just reached the point where I can no longer admit that all the gibberish I've been reading is in any way good literature or makes any friggin' sense. (Seriously, what the hell is a dovin basal?) There are so many characters, as well, in the SWEU that it is almost impossible to keep track anymore. Add to that the confusing names of characters, each one sounding like a disease or the stage name for the drummer of a Korean speed-metal band. "Welcome to the stage Saba Sebatyne and the Raging Flicknacks!"
"The Unseen Queen" by Troy Denning is Book 2 in the Dark Nest trilogy, started in "The Joiner King", about a race of giant bugs called the Killik who have pissed off the Chiss because two Dark Knights thought to be dead at the Battle of Myrkyr have become "joiners" and are poisoning the unconscious hive collective of a subspecies of Killick called the Gorog and HOLY CRAP I KNOW WHAT THE HELL ALL OF THAT SHIT MEANS!!!???…
See, this is what I'm talking about. I could go on and on with a plot summary, but only a handful of other SWEU nerds will know what the hell I'm referring to. Anyone else will simply think I'm speaking nonsense. Which I am, in a sense. It's nonsense that makes sense to only a few die-hard nerds.
AAARRRGGHHH!!!!
Okay, whatever, I'm over it now. If you liked "The Joiner King", you'll like this one.
January 29, 2022
Better then the first book. Decent story, definitely feels like it could be shorter then it is though. I'm glad they cut down on the weird Jaina/Zekk bug stuff though. That's hard to read through.
February 23, 2019
Exciting and engaging; can't wait to read the conclusion!
November 2, 2022
"How am I to know what the Jedi would or would not do?"
A year has passed since our Star Wars heroes have found the Killiks and relocated them to the planet, Woteba. But now, it seems a substance is destroying their world, and the Killiks once again are advancing into Chiss space. Han, Luke, Leia, and Mara believe that this is the work of the Dark Nest and must figure out how to destroy this Nest, led by Alema Rar and Lomi Plo, once and for all. As if that isn't enough to keep our heroes on their toes, the whole Killik situation has made the Jedi take sides on whether or not they serve the government or the Force, with President Omas stuck helplessly in the middle.
I Liked:
Last book, there was quite a bit of navel-gazing, leading to a rather dull novel with a really interesting and highly unexplored concept (Hive Minds? It does make one think!). This book is nothing like that. There is a little time spent on what the Jedi's role in the government should be and how far "to the Dark side" they should go, but it is nothing like the discussions in "The Joiner King". I love intense philisophical discussions, but I think Denning is a better action writer than a concept writer.
Characters continue to be interesting and to develop nicely. Han definitely rings true, as does Luke. In fact, their adventures on the planet Woteba and with Juun and Tarfang (the Sullustan/Ewok smugglers from last book) are some of the most fun, the best written, and the most interesting of all the scenes in the book. Saba Sebatyne is a most fascinating character (I love some of the confusions that arise from her misunderstanding of the "Basic" language), and I continue to be impressed with her inhuman personification and her Jedi acumen. In fact, I love how Denning draws a lot of the Jedi together, from Corran Horn to Kenth Hamner to Kyle Katarn to Kyp Durron. Nice to see there is more than one Jedi (Luke). But, by far, one of the most interesting character developments arises in Jacen. I love how he becomes a father (about time that these characters started having love lives and families!), and I like his subtle decline into the Dark Side. The way he memory-wiped Ben is particularly creepy, but really shows how badly he wants to protect his daughter.
I Didn't Like:
I absolutely hated how Leia was portrayed. From manipulating a Jedi Master to get her own way to whining about not being address as "Princess", Leia's characterization throughout the novel made me want to spear her with a multitude of shiny objects. I love her being a Jedi, but does she have to have such a bad case of Protagonist Centered Morality? Can't she see that if SHE were the President, how SHE would be upset if someone hid the fact that a Jedi Master was being held captive? Wouldn't she arrest someone who broke HER governmental blockade? Wouldn't SHE get her panties in a knot if someone tried to manipulate her into not divulging information?
I really hope that Jaina and Zekk are fixed because they are quickly becoming The Annoying, Doofus Twins. I hate how they answer each others' sentences, how they are still basically Joiners but EVERYONE ignores that because...well, because Jaina is a Solo and Leia's daughter, how they click and clack and rub arms and are basically ANNOYING. If I have to read much more of them, I will choke on my bookmark.
Another thing that bothered me was the Jedi Order. I couldn't believe how Luke just left the Order so disorganized...didn't he EVER plan for a second-in-command, even if he did want his Jedi to be "independent"? Shoddy planning, seems to me (though with Luke's characterization in earlier books as an idiot, it makes sense...). Not to mention, how are the Jedi so easily able to justify taking the Alliance's money withOUT being attached and aiding them in need? I understand WHY the Jedi want to be independent, but you don't go around borrowing or taking money from someone and then spout how independent you are! In my opinion, the only Jedi Masters with any sense and my sympathy were Kenth Hamner and Corran Horn.
And who else started imagining Kyp Durron like Shaggy from Scooby Doo?
Another annoying character was Ben. It's great to see him developing and rising in Force abilities and powers, but he is a bit of a smart aleck (okay, yeah, he's a kid). Also, whenever you introduce a child in the story, you have to somehow manipulate the story so the kid can be conveniently dumped somewhere safe and out of the action--unless, like with the Solo kids, they are going to be kidnapped.
And what is it with Troy Denning scene skipping? I noticed at least twice where, instead of SHOWING how Leia escaped Place X, it was summarized. I literally checked to make sure I didn't skip pages! And I have no idea why it wasn't shown, as it would have been very exciting and even important to see!
Lastly, let's talk about curses. I don't say it much, but man, can't we have Han, Luke, and Leia just use some Earth swears instead of the ridiculous child's "Bloah" or "Rodder"? Does someone need to "Bloah" his nose?
Overall:
This book started to make me hate it when it made Leia into, once again, a b!tchy shrew, shrilling on about how her Joiner child can be trusted to go right into Joiner territory, conniving against Jedi Masters to get her own way, and having a hissy fit when an officer acts supposedly "rude" when he doesn't bow down and worship her feet and address her by her title gorrammit (when in "The Crystal Star", admittedly not the best written Star Wars book, she got huffy about being called Princess!). It wasn't made much better with sloppy transitions and a few other bumpy characters (and the crossover with Scooby Doo). However, I did like Jacen's growth, how the Jedi aren't unified (though, again, I would've loved to b!tch slap them at more than one point--what idiot Jedi Master is Luke that he doesn't leave behind a second-in-command?), and how it is faster paced with more action. Not a required reading, but if you've finished "The Joiner King", you may want to read this.
A year has passed since our Star Wars heroes have found the Killiks and relocated them to the planet, Woteba. But now, it seems a substance is destroying their world, and the Killiks once again are advancing into Chiss space. Han, Luke, Leia, and Mara believe that this is the work of the Dark Nest and must figure out how to destroy this Nest, led by Alema Rar and Lomi Plo, once and for all. As if that isn't enough to keep our heroes on their toes, the whole Killik situation has made the Jedi take sides on whether or not they serve the government or the Force, with President Omas stuck helplessly in the middle.
I Liked:
Last book, there was quite a bit of navel-gazing, leading to a rather dull novel with a really interesting and highly unexplored concept (Hive Minds? It does make one think!). This book is nothing like that. There is a little time spent on what the Jedi's role in the government should be and how far "to the Dark side" they should go, but it is nothing like the discussions in "The Joiner King". I love intense philisophical discussions, but I think Denning is a better action writer than a concept writer.
Characters continue to be interesting and to develop nicely. Han definitely rings true, as does Luke. In fact, their adventures on the planet Woteba and with Juun and Tarfang (the Sullustan/Ewok smugglers from last book) are some of the most fun, the best written, and the most interesting of all the scenes in the book. Saba Sebatyne is a most fascinating character (I love some of the confusions that arise from her misunderstanding of the "Basic" language), and I continue to be impressed with her inhuman personification and her Jedi acumen. In fact, I love how Denning draws a lot of the Jedi together, from Corran Horn to Kenth Hamner to Kyle Katarn to Kyp Durron. Nice to see there is more than one Jedi (Luke). But, by far, one of the most interesting character developments arises in Jacen. I love how he becomes a father (about time that these characters started having love lives and families!), and I like his subtle decline into the Dark Side. The way he memory-wiped Ben is particularly creepy, but really shows how badly he wants to protect his daughter.
I Didn't Like:
I absolutely hated how Leia was portrayed. From manipulating a Jedi Master to get her own way to whining about not being address as "Princess", Leia's characterization throughout the novel made me want to spear her with a multitude of shiny objects. I love her being a Jedi, but does she have to have such a bad case of Protagonist Centered Morality? Can't she see that if SHE were the President, how SHE would be upset if someone hid the fact that a Jedi Master was being held captive? Wouldn't she arrest someone who broke HER governmental blockade? Wouldn't SHE get her panties in a knot if someone tried to manipulate her into not divulging information?
I really hope that Jaina and Zekk are fixed because they are quickly becoming The Annoying, Doofus Twins. I hate how they answer each others' sentences, how they are still basically Joiners but EVERYONE ignores that because...well, because Jaina is a Solo and Leia's daughter, how they click and clack and rub arms and are basically ANNOYING. If I have to read much more of them, I will choke on my bookmark.
Another thing that bothered me was the Jedi Order. I couldn't believe how Luke just left the Order so disorganized...didn't he EVER plan for a second-in-command, even if he did want his Jedi to be "independent"? Shoddy planning, seems to me (though with Luke's characterization in earlier books as an idiot, it makes sense...). Not to mention, how are the Jedi so easily able to justify taking the Alliance's money withOUT being attached and aiding them in need? I understand WHY the Jedi want to be independent, but you don't go around borrowing or taking money from someone and then spout how independent you are! In my opinion, the only Jedi Masters with any sense and my sympathy were Kenth Hamner and Corran Horn.
And who else started imagining Kyp Durron like Shaggy from Scooby Doo?
Another annoying character was Ben. It's great to see him developing and rising in Force abilities and powers, but he is a bit of a smart aleck (okay, yeah, he's a kid). Also, whenever you introduce a child in the story, you have to somehow manipulate the story so the kid can be conveniently dumped somewhere safe and out of the action--unless, like with the Solo kids, they are going to be kidnapped.
And what is it with Troy Denning scene skipping? I noticed at least twice where, instead of SHOWING how Leia escaped Place X, it was summarized. I literally checked to make sure I didn't skip pages! And I have no idea why it wasn't shown, as it would have been very exciting and even important to see!
Lastly, let's talk about curses. I don't say it much, but man, can't we have Han, Luke, and Leia just use some Earth swears instead of the ridiculous child's "Bloah" or "Rodder"? Does someone need to "Bloah" his nose?
Overall:
This book started to make me hate it when it made Leia into, once again, a b!tchy shrew, shrilling on about how her Joiner child can be trusted to go right into Joiner territory, conniving against Jedi Masters to get her own way, and having a hissy fit when an officer acts supposedly "rude" when he doesn't bow down and worship her feet and address her by her title gorrammit (when in "The Crystal Star", admittedly not the best written Star Wars book, she got huffy about being called Princess!). It wasn't made much better with sloppy transitions and a few other bumpy characters (and the crossover with Scooby Doo). However, I did like Jacen's growth, how the Jedi aren't unified (though, again, I would've loved to b!tch slap them at more than one point--what idiot Jedi Master is Luke that he doesn't leave behind a second-in-command?), and how it is faster paced with more action. Not a required reading, but if you've finished "The Joiner King", you may want to read this.
November 2, 2022
For 2022, I decided to go back in time and reread all the Prequels Era novels published between 1999 and 2005, plus a smidgen of other novels (like Survivor's Quest and the Dark Nest trilogy) released during that time frame. This shakes out to 21 novels, four eBook novellas, and at least thirteen short stories.
This week’s focus: the second book in the Dark Nest trilogy, The Unseen Queen by Troy Denning.
SOME HISTORY:
When Lomi Plo and Welk were introduced in the New Jedi Order novel Star by Star, they were given a backstory that makes them part of the Shadow Academy, the initial arc of the Young Jedi Knights books. I didn’t remember all the details from the YJK, so I assumed they were minor characters from that series. But it wasn’t until I started rereading the Dark Nest trilogy that I realized Troy Denning completely made them up! (The things you learn on Wookieepedia.)
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
As with The Joiner King, I didn't remember much of The Unseen Queen beyond the continuing presence of too many bugs, and the worsening situation in the Unknown Regions.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
One year after the events of The Joiner King, the insectoid Killik have still not found peace. While Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are left behind as hostages on one of the Killik home worlds to guarantee that the Jedi will find a solution to this problem, Jacen Solo has a vision of the future in which the Killik cause unending war in the galaxy—and Jacen will do anything to prevent that from happening…
ANOTHER TIME JUMP:
If The Joiner King was loads and loads of setup and over 40 chapters long, The Unseen Queen’s lack of extensive setup means it’s a fair bit shorter than the previous book with just 22 chapters. I did question Denning’s choice to jump forward one year after book one, though, because there were some interesting developments that were sidestepped by that time jump. Ben Skywalker is now open to using the Force, thanks to the training of his cousin Jacen, but we don’t see any of that beyond Ben accompanying Jacen to Hapes. Likewise, we hear that Leia has been training with Saba Sebatyne for the past year, and while they do interact here, we don’t see any parts of her training. I wish we could have actually seen Leia struggle with skills and attitudes rather than just being told about it.
There is also a HUGE development with Tenel Ka. I found Tenel Ka and Jacen’s interactions in The Joiner King surprising, because while I got the sense from the NJO that Tenel Ka had unrequited feelings for Jacen, Jacen was too involved in his philosophy and possibly pursuing Danni Quee to pick up on her feelings. We jump ahead five years, and Tenel Ka nudges Jacen into sleeping with her. (Can you call it blackmail, when Jacen goes along so readily?) I’m not opposed to Tenel Ka and Jacen as a romantic pairing, but there was no buildup here. When we pick up one year later in The Unseen Queen, Tenel Ka has a baby and Jacen is…surprisingly cool with this? I don’t think he would have been upset about a Secret Baby, but I also saw later NJO-era Jacen as the best candidate for a future Jedi Hermit so what do I know.
THE PLOT:
The Killik on Woteba are facing some weird Fizz problem, and they summon the Jedi for an explanation/solution. The Skywalkers and the Solos and Saba Sebatyne come to Woteba, and offer to solve the Fizz problem. The former Raynar Thul/current UnuThul requires them to leave behind hostages, and they’re cool with it (??), so Han and Luke stay behind. While Leia and Mara and Saba return to Coruscant to figure out the Fizz problem, Chief of State Cal Omas has taken an abrupt turn towards “typical sucky manipulative politician” and takes advantage of Luke’s unexplained absence to try and tear the Jedi Order apart.
Meanwhile, the Chiss are agitating against the Killik again; Jaina and Zekk are still Joiners; the Dark Nest through Alema Rar digs up some of Mara’s imperial past; Jacen learns about the existence of his daughter, and has a vision of the future that the Killik will take over the galaxy. He is now on a Dark Path. It all culminates in a Killik attack on the Galactic Alliance blockade, and Luke faces off against Lomi Plo only for her to escape. Again.
THE CHARACTERS:
Let's talk about Jacen! I'd forgotten that Jacen's fall to the dark side didn't start in the Legacy of the Force series, but actually began here in the Dark Nest trilogy. To protect his daughter with Tenel Ka, he wipes his young cousin’s memory multiple times and feels no remorse. He destroys Ta’a Chume’s mind—and look, Ta’a Chume is a murderous schemer, but that doesn’t justify Jacen destroying her brain and leaving her in a vegetative state. Then he has a vision of the Killik overrunning everything, and he decides that he needs to jumpstart the Chiss war against the Killik. So he manipulates his sister and the other young Jedi Knights into attacking the Chiss, he repeatedly lies to them, and he definitely uses the Force to manipulate Jaina/Zekk. It seems that Jacen is headed down a similar path like his grandfather, where he will do anything to protect his family. (This is one bit where I can see the influence of the prequels, as after Episodes II and III this feels a wee bit like retread.)
I did enjoy Luke and Han's time together on Woteba, because despite the dire situation their interactions were fun. While Han is worried that he’s going to turn into a Joiner, he mostly keeps a good attitude about things. I did question Luke’s ease with being a hostage—he seems to believe that he can escape at any time, but his absence seriously screws up the Jedi Order. You would think that Luke would realize the perilous situation he was putting the rest of the Jedi Order in, since he's the head of the Council, but he vanishes without any thoughts for the political implications.
And that tied into some of my annoyance with Leia’s portrayal. Leia is very strong-willed, and I appreciate that about her—she knows what she wants, and she tends to tackle situations head-on. But I felt like she approached this political situation in a weirdly non-politically-adept way. She knows that Luke has been left behind as a hostage, and Corran (playing the role of the Law and Order/Galactic Alliance advocate) thinks they should tell Cal Omas about it. But she overrules Corran. Look: what Cal Omas does to divide the Jedi Order is Not Cool, but he’s still the Chief of State. I think he deserved to know about the hostage situation, and I would have expected Leia to grasp the nuances of this. Apparently, in giving up on the political side to become a Jedi, she’s chosen to disregard all her prior political knowledge.
I was also surprised that the Jedi Order so easily fell into division during Luke’s absence. This has been a common issue, from The Joiner King all the way back to the beginning of the New Jedi Order, that the Jedi don’t like taking orders and they constantly splinter into different factions. But it doesn’t take very much prodding on Omas’s part for them to split into two bickering sides. You have a Jedi Council! I assume there’s twelve Masters, yet you don’t have any control of the Order? Luke wasn’t gone that long!
Jaina and Zekk are still Joiners; they're still two people sharing one hive mind. And no one seems to have made any attempt to disentangle them?? (As previously stated, I find the concept of hive minds creepy, because I would prefer to keep my thoughts to myself.)
The Dark Nest stirs up some drama between Luke and Mara, as Alema alleges that Mara killed a droid programmer who knew the codes for R2-D2’s memory and that she’s concealing things from Luke. Luke both believes in Mara yet also doubts her, which I found frustrating. I don’t understand why this subplot was brought up at all, other than to continue the plot thread of R2’s hidden memories. Why dig up Mara’s past again? We know that she was the Emperor’s Hand and she carried out tasks like assassination, but she’s atoned for that. To bring up her past for drama felt like a low blow.
The Galactic Alliance blockades the Killik colony, and we’re introduced to a new military leader: the Bothan Admiral Bwua’tu. He’s never been involved in any battles before, he has beaten the “Thrawn simulation” multiple times, and I wasn’t crazy about him. He was initially so hostile to Leia and Saba that I found it off putting, and even though he changed his mind about the Jedi I still didn’t like him. I suspect he will be a recurring character going forward.
Of the bad guys, Raynar/UnuThul pops back up, and while it initially seems that he’s not aware of the Dark Nest, it later becomes obvious that he’s one of their minions. During the final battle, he was headed toward the Admiral Ackbar to commandeer it, but then I lost track of him. I guess he got control, since Leia and B’wuatu escaped? Luke faces off against Lomi Plo again, and he sees her briefly. She seems to be part insect now. (Yuck!) But all we really know is that she wants to stay hidden while at the same time taking over everything, and like Raynar she will be dealt with in book three.
Alema goes further downhill. She’s a survivor, but each time she encounters our heroes she ends up a little worse off than she started. When she fought Luke, he cut through her shoulder and her arm is now shriveled and useless. When she faces off against Leia in The Unseen Queen, Leia mutilates her by cutting off part of her lekku (a terrible fate for a Twi’lek). And even though she's crippled, she still wears revealing clothing, so I guess she’s just perpetually the "sexy Twi’lek" despite her disfigurements.
ISSUES:
One thing I did appreciate compared to The Joiner King was that The Unseen Queen had significantly less gore, at least until the final battle. There was still plenty to creep me out, but at least the violence level was toned down somewhat.
The Squibs are back… The Squibs first appeared in Tatooine Ghost, and while we don't see them here, they are running a scam. So presumably they will show up in book three. I know that they are Denning's original characters, but I don't care about the Squibs. I want them to go!
This definitely felt like the second book in a trilogy, in that I didn’t feel like a lot happened here, and a fair bit was filler. I suspect that the Dark Nest trilogy didn’t need to be a trilogy, although I’ll know better once I finish book three. If book one was loads of setup, then book two felt like nothing was resolved because book three is meant to be the climax and the conclusion. If Denning had eliminated some of that setup, especially the new characters like Jae Juun and Admiral Bwua’tu, maybe this story could have been condensed to a duology. As it stands, this book was rife with middle book syndrome—full of non-essential events that we have to work through for book three’s wrap-up.
My final issue was that I found the final battle confusing and hard to follow, especially when it cut to different characters and locations. (After all, I did completely lose track of Raynar in all this.) I’ve had the same issue with Denning’s other works, where I find the way he writes action scenes confusing and disorientating. It worked in Star by Star, because the young Jedi are lost and bewildered, but in Recovery I couldn’t grasp the layout of the room and the players and the geometry during the assassination attempt on Leia. Here, I understood the basics of Luke and co’s attack on the Dark Nest ship, but not the specifics.
IN CONCLUSION:
Not a lot happens here until the end, so The Unseen Queen feels like mere connective tissue between the setup of The Joiner King and the conclusion of The Swarm War. I liked Han and Luke's scenes together, yet Luke's absence directly led to the mayhem within the Jedi Order! (Also, can they please fix the Jaina/Zekk Joiner situation, it continues to creep me out.)
Next up: wrapping up Troy Denning’s Dark Nest trilogy with The Swarm War.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/VCmZdj755F8
This week’s focus: the second book in the Dark Nest trilogy, The Unseen Queen by Troy Denning.
SOME HISTORY:
When Lomi Plo and Welk were introduced in the New Jedi Order novel Star by Star, they were given a backstory that makes them part of the Shadow Academy, the initial arc of the Young Jedi Knights books. I didn’t remember all the details from the YJK, so I assumed they were minor characters from that series. But it wasn’t until I started rereading the Dark Nest trilogy that I realized Troy Denning completely made them up! (The things you learn on Wookieepedia.)
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
As with The Joiner King, I didn't remember much of The Unseen Queen beyond the continuing presence of too many bugs, and the worsening situation in the Unknown Regions.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
One year after the events of The Joiner King, the insectoid Killik have still not found peace. While Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are left behind as hostages on one of the Killik home worlds to guarantee that the Jedi will find a solution to this problem, Jacen Solo has a vision of the future in which the Killik cause unending war in the galaxy—and Jacen will do anything to prevent that from happening…
ANOTHER TIME JUMP:
If The Joiner King was loads and loads of setup and over 40 chapters long, The Unseen Queen’s lack of extensive setup means it’s a fair bit shorter than the previous book with just 22 chapters. I did question Denning’s choice to jump forward one year after book one, though, because there were some interesting developments that were sidestepped by that time jump. Ben Skywalker is now open to using the Force, thanks to the training of his cousin Jacen, but we don’t see any of that beyond Ben accompanying Jacen to Hapes. Likewise, we hear that Leia has been training with Saba Sebatyne for the past year, and while they do interact here, we don’t see any parts of her training. I wish we could have actually seen Leia struggle with skills and attitudes rather than just being told about it.
There is also a HUGE development with Tenel Ka. I found Tenel Ka and Jacen’s interactions in The Joiner King surprising, because while I got the sense from the NJO that Tenel Ka had unrequited feelings for Jacen, Jacen was too involved in his philosophy and possibly pursuing Danni Quee to pick up on her feelings. We jump ahead five years, and Tenel Ka nudges Jacen into sleeping with her. (Can you call it blackmail, when Jacen goes along so readily?) I’m not opposed to Tenel Ka and Jacen as a romantic pairing, but there was no buildup here. When we pick up one year later in The Unseen Queen, Tenel Ka has a baby and Jacen is…surprisingly cool with this? I don’t think he would have been upset about a Secret Baby, but I also saw later NJO-era Jacen as the best candidate for a future Jedi Hermit so what do I know.
THE PLOT:
The Killik on Woteba are facing some weird Fizz problem, and they summon the Jedi for an explanation/solution. The Skywalkers and the Solos and Saba Sebatyne come to Woteba, and offer to solve the Fizz problem. The former Raynar Thul/current UnuThul requires them to leave behind hostages, and they’re cool with it (??), so Han and Luke stay behind. While Leia and Mara and Saba return to Coruscant to figure out the Fizz problem, Chief of State Cal Omas has taken an abrupt turn towards “typical sucky manipulative politician” and takes advantage of Luke’s unexplained absence to try and tear the Jedi Order apart.
Meanwhile, the Chiss are agitating against the Killik again; Jaina and Zekk are still Joiners; the Dark Nest through Alema Rar digs up some of Mara’s imperial past; Jacen learns about the existence of his daughter, and has a vision of the future that the Killik will take over the galaxy. He is now on a Dark Path. It all culminates in a Killik attack on the Galactic Alliance blockade, and Luke faces off against Lomi Plo only for her to escape. Again.
THE CHARACTERS:
Let's talk about Jacen! I'd forgotten that Jacen's fall to the dark side didn't start in the Legacy of the Force series, but actually began here in the Dark Nest trilogy. To protect his daughter with Tenel Ka, he wipes his young cousin’s memory multiple times and feels no remorse. He destroys Ta’a Chume’s mind—and look, Ta’a Chume is a murderous schemer, but that doesn’t justify Jacen destroying her brain and leaving her in a vegetative state. Then he has a vision of the Killik overrunning everything, and he decides that he needs to jumpstart the Chiss war against the Killik. So he manipulates his sister and the other young Jedi Knights into attacking the Chiss, he repeatedly lies to them, and he definitely uses the Force to manipulate Jaina/Zekk. It seems that Jacen is headed down a similar path like his grandfather, where he will do anything to protect his family. (This is one bit where I can see the influence of the prequels, as after Episodes II and III this feels a wee bit like retread.)
I did enjoy Luke and Han's time together on Woteba, because despite the dire situation their interactions were fun. While Han is worried that he’s going to turn into a Joiner, he mostly keeps a good attitude about things. I did question Luke’s ease with being a hostage—he seems to believe that he can escape at any time, but his absence seriously screws up the Jedi Order. You would think that Luke would realize the perilous situation he was putting the rest of the Jedi Order in, since he's the head of the Council, but he vanishes without any thoughts for the political implications.
And that tied into some of my annoyance with Leia’s portrayal. Leia is very strong-willed, and I appreciate that about her—she knows what she wants, and she tends to tackle situations head-on. But I felt like she approached this political situation in a weirdly non-politically-adept way. She knows that Luke has been left behind as a hostage, and Corran (playing the role of the Law and Order/Galactic Alliance advocate) thinks they should tell Cal Omas about it. But she overrules Corran. Look: what Cal Omas does to divide the Jedi Order is Not Cool, but he’s still the Chief of State. I think he deserved to know about the hostage situation, and I would have expected Leia to grasp the nuances of this. Apparently, in giving up on the political side to become a Jedi, she’s chosen to disregard all her prior political knowledge.
I was also surprised that the Jedi Order so easily fell into division during Luke’s absence. This has been a common issue, from The Joiner King all the way back to the beginning of the New Jedi Order, that the Jedi don’t like taking orders and they constantly splinter into different factions. But it doesn’t take very much prodding on Omas’s part for them to split into two bickering sides. You have a Jedi Council! I assume there’s twelve Masters, yet you don’t have any control of the Order? Luke wasn’t gone that long!
Jaina and Zekk are still Joiners; they're still two people sharing one hive mind. And no one seems to have made any attempt to disentangle them?? (As previously stated, I find the concept of hive minds creepy, because I would prefer to keep my thoughts to myself.)
The Dark Nest stirs up some drama between Luke and Mara, as Alema alleges that Mara killed a droid programmer who knew the codes for R2-D2’s memory and that she’s concealing things from Luke. Luke both believes in Mara yet also doubts her, which I found frustrating. I don’t understand why this subplot was brought up at all, other than to continue the plot thread of R2’s hidden memories. Why dig up Mara’s past again? We know that she was the Emperor’s Hand and she carried out tasks like assassination, but she’s atoned for that. To bring up her past for drama felt like a low blow.
The Galactic Alliance blockades the Killik colony, and we’re introduced to a new military leader: the Bothan Admiral Bwua’tu. He’s never been involved in any battles before, he has beaten the “Thrawn simulation” multiple times, and I wasn’t crazy about him. He was initially so hostile to Leia and Saba that I found it off putting, and even though he changed his mind about the Jedi I still didn’t like him. I suspect he will be a recurring character going forward.
Of the bad guys, Raynar/UnuThul pops back up, and while it initially seems that he’s not aware of the Dark Nest, it later becomes obvious that he’s one of their minions. During the final battle, he was headed toward the Admiral Ackbar to commandeer it, but then I lost track of him. I guess he got control, since Leia and B’wuatu escaped? Luke faces off against Lomi Plo again, and he sees her briefly. She seems to be part insect now. (Yuck!) But all we really know is that she wants to stay hidden while at the same time taking over everything, and like Raynar she will be dealt with in book three.
Alema goes further downhill. She’s a survivor, but each time she encounters our heroes she ends up a little worse off than she started. When she fought Luke, he cut through her shoulder and her arm is now shriveled and useless. When she faces off against Leia in The Unseen Queen, Leia mutilates her by cutting off part of her lekku (a terrible fate for a Twi’lek). And even though she's crippled, she still wears revealing clothing, so I guess she’s just perpetually the "sexy Twi’lek" despite her disfigurements.
ISSUES:
One thing I did appreciate compared to The Joiner King was that The Unseen Queen had significantly less gore, at least until the final battle. There was still plenty to creep me out, but at least the violence level was toned down somewhat.
The Squibs are back… The Squibs first appeared in Tatooine Ghost, and while we don't see them here, they are running a scam. So presumably they will show up in book three. I know that they are Denning's original characters, but I don't care about the Squibs. I want them to go!
This definitely felt like the second book in a trilogy, in that I didn’t feel like a lot happened here, and a fair bit was filler. I suspect that the Dark Nest trilogy didn’t need to be a trilogy, although I’ll know better once I finish book three. If book one was loads of setup, then book two felt like nothing was resolved because book three is meant to be the climax and the conclusion. If Denning had eliminated some of that setup, especially the new characters like Jae Juun and Admiral Bwua’tu, maybe this story could have been condensed to a duology. As it stands, this book was rife with middle book syndrome—full of non-essential events that we have to work through for book three’s wrap-up.
My final issue was that I found the final battle confusing and hard to follow, especially when it cut to different characters and locations. (After all, I did completely lose track of Raynar in all this.) I’ve had the same issue with Denning’s other works, where I find the way he writes action scenes confusing and disorientating. It worked in Star by Star, because the young Jedi are lost and bewildered, but in Recovery I couldn’t grasp the layout of the room and the players and the geometry during the assassination attempt on Leia. Here, I understood the basics of Luke and co’s attack on the Dark Nest ship, but not the specifics.
IN CONCLUSION:
Not a lot happens here until the end, so The Unseen Queen feels like mere connective tissue between the setup of The Joiner King and the conclusion of The Swarm War. I liked Han and Luke's scenes together, yet Luke's absence directly led to the mayhem within the Jedi Order! (Also, can they please fix the Jaina/Zekk Joiner situation, it continues to creep me out.)
Next up: wrapping up Troy Denning’s Dark Nest trilogy with The Swarm War.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/VCmZdj755F8
May 9, 2015
Better than the first book in the series, but still nothing special.
May 8, 2022
I would probably rate this closer to 3.5 stars, as once again I find there is far too much plot being shoved into these later Legends novels. However, on this occasion, the characters manage to hold it all together, and it's wonderful to read about Han & Luke having an adventure together...just like the old days.
July 22, 2022
This isn't quite as good as The Joiner King, if only because the mind-control aspect of the first book isn't as prominent here. There's still some of it, but it's not the central part of the plot like it was in TJK. Denning's prose is still more effective than some of the other authors in the EU, though, so I enjoyed it well enough. It just didn't quite rise above the other books like TJK did.
July 28, 2023
Rather mediocre from start to finish. I'm just here for Saba Sebatyne.
April 17, 2021
This book was better than I expected it to be. This series has sat on my shelf for quite some time, but it was some comments made by classmates about the book that got me interested in reading it after all. It has a lot more humor in it than I expected, which can be a good thing and a nice surprise. It has action, adventure, a nice space battle at the end of the book. Two characters introduced in the first book play a prominent part in the second half of this book. I thought the author did a nice job with describing the primary characters as well as the secondary characters, how they each would think and act .
The Killiks are an interesting choice for a race, and I thought the author pulled it off in introducing a race of "space ants" into the Star Wars U and making them seem believable. I would never have expected such a thing to be possible. This story takes place a short time after the events in the first book, so there are "new events" involving the Killik that are causing problems (and which leads into the final book of this trilogy; the first book is almost a standalone novel with its ending, which is also interesting because I was not really expecting that to be the case). This race already has some kind of hive mind.
Regarding the humor so far, I felt it was natural and not forced. Some of it might not have been intentional, but I still have enjoyed the humorous moments in this book and the first book. It reminded me of the humor in the original trilogy (well, Jedi's humor seemed forced at times, too, but still not as bad as the humor in the prequels or the "sequels").
I would say that Leia had the most/greatest character development in this book.
As I said, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I have been enjoying this series so far. I hope it finishes strong in the third book, considering how I think it has improved, in some respects, from the first book to the second. I am looking forward to finishing this series. On to the final book!
The Killiks are an interesting choice for a race, and I thought the author pulled it off in introducing a race of "space ants" into the Star Wars U and making them seem believable. I would never have expected such a thing to be possible. This story takes place a short time after the events in the first book, so there are "new events" involving the Killik that are causing problems (and which leads into the final book of this trilogy; the first book is almost a standalone novel with its ending, which is also interesting because I was not really expecting that to be the case). This race already has some kind of hive mind.
Regarding the humor so far, I felt it was natural and not forced. Some of it might not have been intentional, but I still have enjoyed the humorous moments in this book and the first book. It reminded me of the humor in the original trilogy (well, Jedi's humor seemed forced at times, too, but still not as bad as the humor in the prequels or the "sequels").
I would say that Leia had the most/greatest character development in this book.
As I said, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I have been enjoying this series so far. I hope it finishes strong in the third book, considering how I think it has improved, in some respects, from the first book to the second. I am looking forward to finishing this series. On to the final book!
December 13, 2023
The galaxy was about to erupt into a war unlike anything it had ever seen before--a war that would never end, that would spread from world to world to world until it had consumed the entire galaxy.
2.5 stars, really
The Dark Nest story arc continues with The Unseen Queen, once more written by Troy Denning. I praised the previous novel for being refreshingly well-paced and plotted, but sadly this book falls into a lot of the same traps The Joiner King avoided: Too many plot points picked up but not resolved, no real through-line, and a general feeling of being rushed. Far from a dismal read, but certainly the author's weakest work so far.
So what happened? What I find fairly telling is the rate at which these books were published: Joiner King hit store shelves in late July, 2005; Unseen Queen, late September of the same year. Two months between novels. Now, I do not wish to imply that Mr. Denning approached this project in a wholly linear way, plotting out and writing this book immediately after finishing the previous. That is not how publishing works and I respect Troy Denning too much to insinuate as much. Still, the fact that TUQ did come out so soon after book 1 at least means there was the possibility of a shorter writing period, and this, I think, is mirrored in the novel itself: There is a distinct lack of polish exuding from the pages. Plot threads previously at the core of the storyline are arbitrarily diminished in their importance, or even wholly ignored; new subplots suffer similarly. Take Jaina & Zekk: They're reintroduced in a prologue, then sit out a good 100 pages - one third of the novel - and come back in the second third, their subplot diverging with Jacen's, only for the three of them to sit out the final hundred pages once more. Even ignoring how much of a missed opportunity an immediate return to Luke, Han & Leia as the protagonists is, I just don't think handling plot lines like this is a good approach. Huge parts of this book strike me as being nothing more than plot development, the adhesive glue that keeps the first novel's exposition and book three's resolution together. Nothing illustrates this better than the way the Chiss - one of the two main warring factions in this trilogy - are handled, or rather, the way they aren't. Because book 1 came up with a temporary truce to the conflict and book 3 is quite literally named after its core conflict, The Swarm War, there is nothing for them to do except be agitated into aggression again (leading to the only Chiss appearance being in a single chapter, incidentally also the culmination of both Solo twins' plot). In that sense The Unseen Queen is much like the weaker New Jedi Order entries, advancing the story without forming its own identity.
I also think that some of my pet peeves with Denning's writing style manifest in this novel again. Most notably, a decent few passages are simply hard to visualize: the climax in which the Unseen Queen is revealed stood out in that regard, feeling claustrophobic yet also muddled, not too dissimilar to the Myrkr World Ship from Star by Star, except this time the resulting confusion on the reader's part is unintentional... I think. Many of the other scenes are forgettable, lacking any defining turn of phrases or descriptors to make them stand out the same way The Joiner King's finale did. Furthermore, the sexual dimension to some of the descriptions and dialogue seem to have moved from the cast in general to mainly just Alema Rar, which, more than anything, makes that character seem one-note. There's something compelling here, a victim of the war "fated" to fall to the Dark, taken in by a benevolent interest group which gradually erodes her individuality - really, it's one of the more fascinating concepts for a Star Wars character. But the narrator seems more interested in describing just how tight her flightsuit is. For shame. Some of the characters also seem... off, as if boiled down to merely their core personality traits. The Jedi being split in two camps, lead by Corran and Kyp, is a tired concept to begin with (we spent 19 books dealing with practically exactly that), but it could have at least been interesting if the writing had taken their development during and since the Yuuzhan Vong War into account. As is, Kyp is presented as simply a juvenile trouble maker while Corran comes off as a dull law and order-type guy. The most distinct secondary character turn is Cal Omas, though, who now truly becomes "Calpatine", a Machiavellian figure not too dissimilar to Borsk Failure himself. To think, we could have had a non-self centered Chief of State for once... it makes for good drama, at least.
Though Troy Denning's weakest, there are still some things to commend here, mainly when it comes to the new additions to the story. Mara Jade Skywalker's character has been in a weird situation for some time now, fading into the background for most of the New Jedi Order post-Enemy Lines and having her past be whitewashed, yes, soft-retconned by Timothy Zahn's Survivor's Quest novel. Apparently the Emperor's personal assassin never fell to the Dark Side or did anything even approaching it. Uh-huh. This novel, meanwhile, brings up the possibility that Mara's operations might have had some consequences: One of her victims had a wife and a daughter who were forced to give up their life for fear of being assassinated, too. Now Luke and Mara have to live with that knowledge. While I have some problems with most of Mara's storylines being tied to her past - I mean, it applies to The Thrawn Trilogy, Hand of Thrawn, Survivor's Quest, and now this! - I like that it isn't swept under the rug for once. That was always one thing I found regrettable about the way the character was handled. Technically speaking, this subplot also lacks the focus it ought to have been given, but at least here I can be sure that Denning will pick up on it later on. Another addition I wish to commend is the character of Nek Bwua'tu, a Bothan Galactic Alliance admiral who butts heads with Leia. There's some wonky exposition about his past (oh no! he beat the Thrawn Simulator!!!! ), more tell than show, but once he confronts Leia his hyper-procedural and -paranoid way of digesting information is quite hilarious. Indeed, just like Thrawn, he immediately rationalizes what the enemy is doing down to the name of the maneuver, except unlike with Thrawn, Bwua'tu's interpretations do not actually reflect reality. Whoops.
One more thing I wish to mention: Jacen Solo's story. Now, as with book 1, the way he - or rather the entire cast, as well their interpretation of the Force - is portrayed does not comply with what was established in New Jedi Order, yada yada, that's just part of the premise from now on. What is interesting about him specifically, though, is that his portrayal here is quite different from TJK Jacen, as well: no longer the enigmatic but ultimately still "good" Mystery Man but rather a well-meaning but ultimately cynical war veteran who wishes to achieve galactic peace and harmony through any means necessary. This leads to two interesting scenes (of which we only get to see one...) in which Jacen does something that is morally reprehensible in itself, but serves the greater good as he sees it. The chapters involving Jacen are chilling, but he is more often than not juxtaposed by someone worse than him, making it still possible to root for the guy. I know for a fact that this characterization will pay off in early Legacy of the Force, and though terrible in terms of being true to his character - as in, completely and utterly missing the point to where it's almost comedic - I cannot deny that this interpretation of Jacen, taken on its own, is quite compelling.
The Unseen Queen is a middling Star Wars adventure. The positive elements - the introduction of Nek Bwua'tu as a new cast member, and an interesting character turn here and there - cannot help this novel from feeling like mere glue which holds the (ostensibly) more interesting first and third acts together. It's the Refugee, the Shield of Lies, the Assault at Selonia of this trilogy. Still, decent enough reading and probably better than at least two of the three aforementioned second acts (the Black Fleet Crisis is good, you guys). Onto the third book.
2.5 stars, really
The Dark Nest story arc continues with The Unseen Queen, once more written by Troy Denning. I praised the previous novel for being refreshingly well-paced and plotted, but sadly this book falls into a lot of the same traps The Joiner King avoided: Too many plot points picked up but not resolved, no real through-line, and a general feeling of being rushed. Far from a dismal read, but certainly the author's weakest work so far.
So what happened? What I find fairly telling is the rate at which these books were published: Joiner King hit store shelves in late July, 2005; Unseen Queen, late September of the same year. Two months between novels. Now, I do not wish to imply that Mr. Denning approached this project in a wholly linear way, plotting out and writing this book immediately after finishing the previous. That is not how publishing works and I respect Troy Denning too much to insinuate as much. Still, the fact that TUQ did come out so soon after book 1 at least means there was the possibility of a shorter writing period, and this, I think, is mirrored in the novel itself: There is a distinct lack of polish exuding from the pages. Plot threads previously at the core of the storyline are arbitrarily diminished in their importance, or even wholly ignored; new subplots suffer similarly. Take Jaina & Zekk: They're reintroduced in a prologue, then sit out a good 100 pages - one third of the novel - and come back in the second third, their subplot diverging with Jacen's, only for the three of them to sit out the final hundred pages once more. Even ignoring how much of a missed opportunity an immediate return to Luke, Han & Leia as the protagonists is, I just don't think handling plot lines like this is a good approach. Huge parts of this book strike me as being nothing more than plot development, the adhesive glue that keeps the first novel's exposition and book three's resolution together. Nothing illustrates this better than the way the Chiss - one of the two main warring factions in this trilogy - are handled, or rather, the way they aren't. Because book 1 came up with a temporary truce to the conflict and book 3 is quite literally named after its core conflict, The Swarm War, there is nothing for them to do except be agitated into aggression again (leading to the only Chiss appearance being in a single chapter, incidentally also the culmination of both Solo twins' plot). In that sense The Unseen Queen is much like the weaker New Jedi Order entries, advancing the story without forming its own identity.
I also think that some of my pet peeves with Denning's writing style manifest in this novel again. Most notably, a decent few passages are simply hard to visualize: the climax in which the Unseen Queen is revealed stood out in that regard, feeling claustrophobic yet also muddled, not too dissimilar to the Myrkr World Ship from Star by Star, except this time the resulting confusion on the reader's part is unintentional... I think. Many of the other scenes are forgettable, lacking any defining turn of phrases or descriptors to make them stand out the same way The Joiner King's finale did. Furthermore, the sexual dimension to some of the descriptions and dialogue seem to have moved from the cast in general to mainly just Alema Rar, which, more than anything, makes that character seem one-note. There's something compelling here, a victim of the war "fated" to fall to the Dark, taken in by a benevolent interest group which gradually erodes her individuality - really, it's one of the more fascinating concepts for a Star Wars character. But the narrator seems more interested in describing just how tight her flightsuit is. For shame. Some of the characters also seem... off, as if boiled down to merely their core personality traits. The Jedi being split in two camps, lead by Corran and Kyp, is a tired concept to begin with (we spent 19 books dealing with practically exactly that), but it could have at least been interesting if the writing had taken their development during and since the Yuuzhan Vong War into account. As is, Kyp is presented as simply a juvenile trouble maker while Corran comes off as a dull law and order-type guy. The most distinct secondary character turn is Cal Omas, though, who now truly becomes "Calpatine", a Machiavellian figure not too dissimilar to Borsk Failure himself. To think, we could have had a non-self centered Chief of State for once... it makes for good drama, at least.
Though Troy Denning's weakest, there are still some things to commend here, mainly when it comes to the new additions to the story. Mara Jade Skywalker's character has been in a weird situation for some time now, fading into the background for most of the New Jedi Order post-Enemy Lines and having her past be whitewashed, yes, soft-retconned by Timothy Zahn's Survivor's Quest novel. Apparently the Emperor's personal assassin never fell to the Dark Side or did anything even approaching it. Uh-huh. This novel, meanwhile, brings up the possibility that Mara's operations might have had some consequences: One of her victims had a wife and a daughter who were forced to give up their life for fear of being assassinated, too. Now Luke and Mara have to live with that knowledge. While I have some problems with most of Mara's storylines being tied to her past - I mean, it applies to The Thrawn Trilogy, Hand of Thrawn, Survivor's Quest, and now this! - I like that it isn't swept under the rug for once. That was always one thing I found regrettable about the way the character was handled. Technically speaking, this subplot also lacks the focus it ought to have been given, but at least here I can be sure that Denning will pick up on it later on. Another addition I wish to commend is the character of Nek Bwua'tu, a Bothan Galactic Alliance admiral who butts heads with Leia. There's some wonky exposition about his past (oh no! he beat the Thrawn Simulator!!!! ), more tell than show, but once he confronts Leia his hyper-procedural and -paranoid way of digesting information is quite hilarious. Indeed, just like Thrawn, he immediately rationalizes what the enemy is doing down to the name of the maneuver, except unlike with Thrawn, Bwua'tu's interpretations do not actually reflect reality. Whoops.
One more thing I wish to mention: Jacen Solo's story. Now, as with book 1, the way he - or rather the entire cast, as well their interpretation of the Force - is portrayed does not comply with what was established in New Jedi Order, yada yada, that's just part of the premise from now on. What is interesting about him specifically, though, is that his portrayal here is quite different from TJK Jacen, as well: no longer the enigmatic but ultimately still "good" Mystery Man but rather a well-meaning but ultimately cynical war veteran who wishes to achieve galactic peace and harmony through any means necessary. This leads to two interesting scenes (of which we only get to see one...) in which Jacen does something that is morally reprehensible in itself, but serves the greater good as he sees it. The chapters involving Jacen are chilling, but he is more often than not juxtaposed by someone worse than him, making it still possible to root for the guy. I know for a fact that this characterization will pay off in early Legacy of the Force, and though terrible in terms of being true to his character - as in, completely and utterly missing the point to where it's almost comedic - I cannot deny that this interpretation of Jacen, taken on its own, is quite compelling.
The Unseen Queen is a middling Star Wars adventure. The positive elements - the introduction of Nek Bwua'tu as a new cast member, and an interesting character turn here and there - cannot help this novel from feeling like mere glue which holds the (ostensibly) more interesting first and third acts together. It's the Refugee, the Shield of Lies, the Assault at Selonia of this trilogy. Still, decent enough reading and probably better than at least two of the three aforementioned second acts (the Black Fleet Crisis is good, you guys). Onto the third book.
January 22, 2011
Okay, I'm gonna have to defend this one. I attempted to read The Joiner King, part 1 of the Dark Nest Trilogy, and had to put it down. I never finished it. The Joiner King didn't "feel" like Star Wars. There were no steady action beats, it tried to put focus on too many characters, and it was generally very dull and confusing. This book, however, was a good step in the right direction! As I read it, I felt like I didn't even need to read The Joiner King; The Unseen Queen basically summarizes the events of the first book as it goes along. The story moves at a good pace, while incorporating good tidbits of info from Book 1, so I never really felt lost. The action sequences are spaced closer together, and the character interaction between the classic Star Wars characters is spot-on (particularly the Luke and Han parts). I will admit that some of the Expanded Universe characters, like Corran Horn, are a bit out-of-character, but it's not so bad that it takes away from the enjoyment of this book.Overall, if you're looking for a 'complete' run-through of the Dark Nest books, I would recommend listening to the audio versions of Book 1 and 3 (where the audio abridgment worked in their favor). This one, however, is a little better-written, and definitely worth reading on it's own.
December 4, 2007
If you liked The Joiner King, you'll like The Unseen Queen. Similar in quality to The Joiner King (see my review), it continues to have some of the same benefits (ie. good sense of mystery/intrigue) and some of the same problems (ie. less than satisfying treatment of the "foundation" characters).
On plot points, the development of Leia as a Jedi is an "about-time" for many Star Wars fans. And the interaction between Jacen Solo and Queen Mother Tenel Ka is compelling.
This trilogy is a must read for Star Wars fans, who are getting the first opportunities to see Luke & Leia reactions (and their friends and family) to new information on the fate of their parents, which we discovered in the recent Episode 3 movie, and is only now being revealed to the OT characters by R2-D2.
On plot points, the development of Leia as a Jedi is an "about-time" for many Star Wars fans. And the interaction between Jacen Solo and Queen Mother Tenel Ka is compelling.
This trilogy is a must read for Star Wars fans, who are getting the first opportunities to see Luke & Leia reactions (and their friends and family) to new information on the fate of their parents, which we discovered in the recent Episode 3 movie, and is only now being revealed to the OT characters by R2-D2.
May 9, 2020
Lepšie ako jednotka. Viac akcie, bitiek a galaktických prúserov. Troy Denning Star wars cíti a píše ho tak, ako to mám najradšej.
March 18, 2024
Better then the 1st book, that's for sure.
Decent story, definitely feels like it could be shorter then it is though. A lot of foreshadowing for Jacen. Action is better. And of course the introduction of Allana Djo Solo :)
Decent story, definitely feels like it could be shorter then it is though. A lot of foreshadowing for Jacen. Action is better. And of course the introduction of Allana Djo Solo :)
June 2, 2022
This is the second installment of the Dark Nest trilogy and given how much I enjoyed The Joiner King, my expectations were somewhat high. While saying I ended up being disappointed would be a bit of an overstatement, The Unseen Queen – in my opinion – cannot really live up to its predecessor.
In the final resolution of The Joiner King, the threat for the Galactic Alliance represented by the growing Killik population and their run-in with the Chiss has supposedly been resolved by relocating the entire Killik species to a set of only recently discovered inhabitable planets on the edge of the known galaxy. Flashing forward one year from these events, The Unseen Queen tells a relatively simple plot. It turns out that the apparent solution for the Killik issue is not as viable as it seemed. In their new habitat more and more Killik die from the Fizz, a mysterious substance that is somehow linked to the planets. The Killik blame the Jedi claiming they must have known about this issue beforehand consciously relocating them to planets that would eventually kill them. Meanwhile, the Dark Nest’s proximity to the Galactic Alliance is causing trouble, for instance by bolstering piracy in the sector and aiding in the smuggling of black membrosia (a dangerous narcotic substance). As usual, it is up to the Jedi to come up with a solution to these issues. Feeling responsible Luke, Mara, Han, and Leia take this task up themselves. They eventually split up and – in an unusual pairing – Han and Luke stay behind with the Killik while Leia and Mara return to the Jedi Academy. In the end it all boils down to a dangerous rescue mission/showdown in Killik space that involves potentially very threatening and previously undiscovered Killik vessels as well as the re-emergence of dark Jedi Lomi Plo.
Like The Joiner King, The Unseen Queen has many good qualities. It is a fast paced, relatively quick read and has a cohesive plot that is easy to follow. As any good Legends novel should, it focuses on the main cast and uses less important characters only in minor supporting roles. I, personally, really liked the cousin dynamic introduced between Ben and Jacen, although Ben’s willingness to open himself to the Force comes somewhat out of the blue. Also, we get to see Leia becoming more and more adept in her use of the Force, which is kind of nice after her having spent 30+ as an amateur.
However, despite it having its strong points, I cannot help but feel that the only purpose of The Unseen Queen in this series is to act as a filler that wraps up loose ends from The Joiner King and sets the scene for The Swarm War and as such it is not really necessary. Really, all of the information it adds (whereabouts of Lomi Plo, revelation of the Killik capital ships, introduction of Tenel Ka’s daughter) could have easily been included in either of the other two novels of the series.
Since it is an enjoyable read overall, the fact that The Unseen Queen is all filler did not really bother me all that much, though. However, there are some elements to it that I found kind of off-putting. Primarily that goes for the Jaina-Zekk-dynamic, which is becoming weirder and weirder as the series progresses and is making me really uncomfortable. I really hope that with the conclusion of the final novel they will have reverted to a normal relationship, of whichever kind, again. On top of that, introducing Tenel Ka’s daughter by throwing this never before seen or heard of baby into a threatening situation feels kind of clumsy. I think that Jacen having a child should be a big enough deal to warrant a proper story line that introduces the child. Relating to Jacen’s behavior protecting his child, it is disturbing to see how he has gone over the edge (seriously, he annihilates Ta’a Chume and plans specicide? If that doesn’t scream dark side, I don’t know what does).
Overall, The Unseen Queen is no peak Star Wars novel. With the novelty of the Killik species having worn off, it is no match for its predecessor. Regardless, it is a solid book, so perhaps a three-star rating is a bit rough and I guess my actual rating is closer to 3.5 stars. Plus, it gets bonus points for its title, which I think is kind of clever (“The Unseen Queen”, Lomi Plo, uses doubt to make herself invisible).
In the final resolution of The Joiner King, the threat for the Galactic Alliance represented by the growing Killik population and their run-in with the Chiss has supposedly been resolved by relocating the entire Killik species to a set of only recently discovered inhabitable planets on the edge of the known galaxy. Flashing forward one year from these events, The Unseen Queen tells a relatively simple plot. It turns out that the apparent solution for the Killik issue is not as viable as it seemed. In their new habitat more and more Killik die from the Fizz, a mysterious substance that is somehow linked to the planets. The Killik blame the Jedi claiming they must have known about this issue beforehand consciously relocating them to planets that would eventually kill them. Meanwhile, the Dark Nest’s proximity to the Galactic Alliance is causing trouble, for instance by bolstering piracy in the sector and aiding in the smuggling of black membrosia (a dangerous narcotic substance). As usual, it is up to the Jedi to come up with a solution to these issues. Feeling responsible Luke, Mara, Han, and Leia take this task up themselves. They eventually split up and – in an unusual pairing – Han and Luke stay behind with the Killik while Leia and Mara return to the Jedi Academy. In the end it all boils down to a dangerous rescue mission/showdown in Killik space that involves potentially very threatening and previously undiscovered Killik vessels as well as the re-emergence of dark Jedi Lomi Plo.
Like The Joiner King, The Unseen Queen has many good qualities. It is a fast paced, relatively quick read and has a cohesive plot that is easy to follow. As any good Legends novel should, it focuses on the main cast and uses less important characters only in minor supporting roles. I, personally, really liked the cousin dynamic introduced between Ben and Jacen, although Ben’s willingness to open himself to the Force comes somewhat out of the blue. Also, we get to see Leia becoming more and more adept in her use of the Force, which is kind of nice after her having spent 30+ as an amateur.
However, despite it having its strong points, I cannot help but feel that the only purpose of The Unseen Queen in this series is to act as a filler that wraps up loose ends from The Joiner King and sets the scene for The Swarm War and as such it is not really necessary. Really, all of the information it adds (whereabouts of Lomi Plo, revelation of the Killik capital ships, introduction of Tenel Ka’s daughter) could have easily been included in either of the other two novels of the series.
Since it is an enjoyable read overall, the fact that The Unseen Queen is all filler did not really bother me all that much, though. However, there are some elements to it that I found kind of off-putting. Primarily that goes for the Jaina-Zekk-dynamic, which is becoming weirder and weirder as the series progresses and is making me really uncomfortable. I really hope that with the conclusion of the final novel they will have reverted to a normal relationship, of whichever kind, again. On top of that, introducing Tenel Ka’s daughter by throwing this never before seen or heard of baby into a threatening situation feels kind of clumsy. I think that Jacen having a child should be a big enough deal to warrant a proper story line that introduces the child. Relating to Jacen’s behavior protecting his child, it is disturbing to see how he has gone over the edge (seriously, he annihilates Ta’a Chume and plans specicide? If that doesn’t scream dark side, I don’t know what does).
Overall, The Unseen Queen is no peak Star Wars novel. With the novelty of the Killik species having worn off, it is no match for its predecessor. Regardless, it is a solid book, so perhaps a three-star rating is a bit rough and I guess my actual rating is closer to 3.5 stars. Plus, it gets bonus points for its title, which I think is kind of clever (“The Unseen Queen”, Lomi Plo, uses doubt to make herself invisible).
December 8, 2019
While an improvement over the first book in the Dark Nest trilogy, this installment still manages to underwhelm.
We move forward in time almost a year. The Killik are settling into their new home worlds in the Utegetu Nebula, but there are challenges. For one, a strange biological agent called "The Fizz" is threatening their settlements, and for another, dark membrosia is illegally flooding the spaceways. The latter appears to be a result of a resurgent Dark Nest, a group that was believed destroyed at the end of The Joiner King. Luke, Leia, Han, Mara, along with a few others, come to check things out. The team gets split up, with Luke and Han tracking down a group of smugglers that they think might lead them to the Gorog. Leia and Mara take samples of the biological agent back to the Galactic Alliance to research it.
Through a long and weird series of events, Leia and others wind up captive on a Galactic Alliance ship, Mara and her team are stuck in Jedi meditative sleep in their X-wings, and Han and Luke are sneaking aboard a Killik ship in order to track down the leader of the Dark Nest, whom they suspect to be Lomi Plo, one of the Dark Jedi from the New Jedi Order series. It's all very involved and complicated, but the characters wind up in one massive space battle at the end, which is mildly satisfying. And their reasons for being there seem clearer and better motivated than the final conflict in the earlier book.
I think my problem with this series is two-fold. First, the plot devices seem really far-fetched to me. The story lines don't strike me as particularly clever - just odd and random, as if Denning was pulling ideas out of a grab-bag of science fiction storylines. Killik assassins masquerading as artwork à la the Trojan Horse? Sure. Blackmail involving old videos of Anakin and R2D2? Why not? The haphazard nature of the plot leads to a lack of smoothness, continuity, and wholeness.
My other issue is that I don't like bugs. And at the heart of this series, it's still a tale about smashing and blasting bugs. Ewww. And while this novel doesn't have quite as much chitin-crunching, bug-gut splattering action as the previous installment, it's still plenty messy. And that's not really what I come to a Star Wars novel for. If I wanted to watch Starship Troopers again, I would have rented it.
As always, YMMV.
We move forward in time almost a year. The Killik are settling into their new home worlds in the Utegetu Nebula, but there are challenges. For one, a strange biological agent called "The Fizz" is threatening their settlements, and for another, dark membrosia is illegally flooding the spaceways. The latter appears to be a result of a resurgent Dark Nest, a group that was believed destroyed at the end of The Joiner King. Luke, Leia, Han, Mara, along with a few others, come to check things out. The team gets split up, with Luke and Han tracking down a group of smugglers that they think might lead them to the Gorog. Leia and Mara take samples of the biological agent back to the Galactic Alliance to research it.
Through a long and weird series of events, Leia and others wind up captive on a Galactic Alliance ship, Mara and her team are stuck in Jedi meditative sleep in their X-wings, and Han and Luke are sneaking aboard a Killik ship in order to track down the leader of the Dark Nest, whom they suspect to be Lomi Plo, one of the Dark Jedi from the New Jedi Order series. It's all very involved and complicated, but the characters wind up in one massive space battle at the end, which is mildly satisfying. And their reasons for being there seem clearer and better motivated than the final conflict in the earlier book.
I think my problem with this series is two-fold. First, the plot devices seem really far-fetched to me. The story lines don't strike me as particularly clever - just odd and random, as if Denning was pulling ideas out of a grab-bag of science fiction storylines. Killik assassins masquerading as artwork à la the Trojan Horse? Sure. Blackmail involving old videos of Anakin and R2D2? Why not? The haphazard nature of the plot leads to a lack of smoothness, continuity, and wholeness.
My other issue is that I don't like bugs. And at the heart of this series, it's still a tale about smashing and blasting bugs. Ewww. And while this novel doesn't have quite as much chitin-crunching, bug-gut splattering action as the previous installment, it's still plenty messy. And that's not really what I come to a Star Wars novel for. If I wanted to watch Starship Troopers again, I would have rented it.
As always, YMMV.
December 4, 2017
This takes place one year after the first Dark Nest book, and everything is darker and weirder.
And there is a lot less direction.
There is a Killik epidemic on all grounds.
- Black membrosia is making its way throughout the galaxy in pockets. Turns out there are pirates bringing it everywhere.
- The Dark Nest has devised a devious way to overcome the galaxy.
- There is "Fizz" on the planets the Killiks were given, which is killing them.
- We get a real reason Gorog wants Mara dead.
That last subplot just hangs there and there's almost no push for a resolution. It was probably the more interesting stories within the book, especially because we get more of her past.
I like that Zekk is annoyed that he and Jaina are Joiners. Yet he's all creepy and stands with her while talking to Jag.
It has taken Luke long enough to rebuild a sense of Jedi principle, that is so much more better than an "anything goes" philosophy.
Yet there is still animosity within the Jedi Order. Kyp and Corran are still at each others' throats. It's quite immature and has become ridiculous. Kyp wants to do what he wants; Corran wants the Jedi to be for the Republic. That they argue in front of politicians is sickening.
Ben and Jacen begin on Hapes, and we all learn about Tenel Ka's child. Jacen then turns and memory rubs everyone, Force flashes coms, destroys the minds of his cousin and Ta'Chume. I mean, I hate the woman, but she shouldn't have been turned into a vegetable. He takes all he learned on his five-year hiatus and becomes this ball of darkness, an inky spot on the galaxy, a person who believes the means justifies the ends. He's pure dark and vengeful.
(And I find it frustrating that HE is the one who sees the galaxy on edge with a devastating war at hand. Though, Leia sees it too, I think).
I find it adorable that Ben believes a baby outside of marriage means trouble for the couple.
Saba is absolutely a perfect master for Leia. I love their dynamic.
"Watching" Anakin Skywalker's slaughter of the younglings and Padawans was devastating. It was very difficult to read.
The "Jedi mystique" and "Jedi sorcery" lines got old quickly.
And there is a lot less direction.
There is a Killik epidemic on all grounds.
- Black membrosia is making its way throughout the galaxy in pockets. Turns out there are pirates bringing it everywhere.
- The Dark Nest has devised a devious way to overcome the galaxy.
- There is "Fizz" on the planets the Killiks were given, which is killing them.
- We get a real reason Gorog wants Mara dead.
That last subplot just hangs there and there's almost no push for a resolution. It was probably the more interesting stories within the book, especially because we get more of her past.
I like that Zekk is annoyed that he and Jaina are Joiners. Yet he's all creepy and stands with her while talking to Jag.
It has taken Luke long enough to rebuild a sense of Jedi principle, that is so much more better than an "anything goes" philosophy.
Yet there is still animosity within the Jedi Order. Kyp and Corran are still at each others' throats. It's quite immature and has become ridiculous. Kyp wants to do what he wants; Corran wants the Jedi to be for the Republic. That they argue in front of politicians is sickening.
Ben and Jacen begin on Hapes, and we all learn about Tenel Ka's child. Jacen then turns and memory rubs everyone, Force flashes coms, destroys the minds of his cousin and Ta'Chume. I mean, I hate the woman, but she shouldn't have been turned into a vegetable. He takes all he learned on his five-year hiatus and becomes this ball of darkness, an inky spot on the galaxy, a person who believes the means justifies the ends. He's pure dark and vengeful.
(And I find it frustrating that HE is the one who sees the galaxy on edge with a devastating war at hand. Though, Leia sees it too, I think).
I find it adorable that Ben believes a baby outside of marriage means trouble for the couple.
Saba is absolutely a perfect master for Leia. I love their dynamic.
"Watching" Anakin Skywalker's slaughter of the younglings and Padawans was devastating. It was very difficult to read.
The "Jedi mystique" and "Jedi sorcery" lines got old quickly.
May 31, 2023
Old grudges, new conflicts!
This a “Star Wars” prose novel which is the second part of the “Dark Nest Trilogy” book series.
This trilogy is no longer canon of the “Star Wars” expanded universe but now considered as “Legends”.
NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED
This second part is set 1 year after of the first book.
While it was revealed that not all Killik race should be considered as enemies but in fact the secret faction known as “The Dark Nest”, soon enough it’s discovered that the said faction is still operational and not defeated as thought, moreover, it’s not lead by the ones was supposed but an unseen queen (the hence the book’s title) but even more dangerous, this queen contains an old grudge against Mara Jade from her dark days as The Emperor’s Hand. A merciful decision in the past can turn to be a deadly aftermath nowadays.
Luke Skywalker learns more and more, but in limited fractions, from the past of his father through unlocked memories from R2-D2, realizing the love that Anakin had for his mother, Padmé, but also having shocking proof of his father’s darker moments during the execution of Order 66 at the Jedi Temple.
Jacen Solo is dealing with terrible Force visions alerting about an endless war between the Killiks and the Chiss, but also about the existence of a baby that it’s a possible threat to the status quo of the Hapes Consortium, therefore deciding to take impulsive actions putting him in problems with his sister, Jaina.
Leia is dealing with the Fizz, what it’s supposed initially as an illness afecting the Killiks, but soon enough she will find out that it’s a lot more, with terrible planetary repercusions.
Each separate event is unavoidable leading to…
…the Swarm War!
This a “Star Wars” prose novel which is the second part of the “Dark Nest Trilogy” book series.
This trilogy is no longer canon of the “Star Wars” expanded universe but now considered as “Legends”.
NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED
This second part is set 1 year after of the first book.
While it was revealed that not all Killik race should be considered as enemies but in fact the secret faction known as “The Dark Nest”, soon enough it’s discovered that the said faction is still operational and not defeated as thought, moreover, it’s not lead by the ones was supposed but an unseen queen (the hence the book’s title) but even more dangerous, this queen contains an old grudge against Mara Jade from her dark days as The Emperor’s Hand. A merciful decision in the past can turn to be a deadly aftermath nowadays.
Luke Skywalker learns more and more, but in limited fractions, from the past of his father through unlocked memories from R2-D2, realizing the love that Anakin had for his mother, Padmé, but also having shocking proof of his father’s darker moments during the execution of Order 66 at the Jedi Temple.
Jacen Solo is dealing with terrible Force visions alerting about an endless war between the Killiks and the Chiss, but also about the existence of a baby that it’s a possible threat to the status quo of the Hapes Consortium, therefore deciding to take impulsive actions putting him in problems with his sister, Jaina.
Leia is dealing with the Fizz, what it’s supposed initially as an illness afecting the Killiks, but soon enough she will find out that it’s a lot more, with terrible planetary repercusions.
Each separate event is unavoidable leading to…
…the Swarm War!
May 10, 2019
This book was better in my opinion than the first one. The pacing was faster and the slow parts worked just as they should. The first one felt really long, partly because its 100 pages longer, but also because it had to set up the field of storytelling, this one was almost pure action, whether it was physical or political.
I really don't like the reccuring storyline of "Soldier distruts Jedi, Jedi tries to convince, Soldier ignore Jedi, Jedi was right, Soldier appologizes, etc". It happens so often throughout the EU that it kind of get grating. However, I was very invested in the Leia portion of the storyline, so I was fine with it on the whole.
I wish there was more with Jacen and Jaina since they're supposed to be more of the main characters after the NJO books. The surprise(spoiler warning) that Jacen and Tenel Ka concieved a baby in their "encounter" in the previous book came totally out of left field, and I even knew that eventually they would have a child. I would have preferred it to be more telegraphed ahead of time.
The battle scene at the end did not disappoint and I don't even like space battle scenes(or battle scenes in general in books).
Overall, Troy Denning is a fantastic author when it comes to pacing, suspense, and dialague. He is also great at making connections to the greater universe. Great book. 8.4 out of 10.
I really don't like the reccuring storyline of "Soldier distruts Jedi, Jedi tries to convince, Soldier ignore Jedi, Jedi was right, Soldier appologizes, etc". It happens so often throughout the EU that it kind of get grating. However, I was very invested in the Leia portion of the storyline, so I was fine with it on the whole.
I wish there was more with Jacen and Jaina since they're supposed to be more of the main characters after the NJO books. The surprise(spoiler warning) that Jacen and Tenel Ka concieved a baby in their "encounter" in the previous book came totally out of left field, and I even knew that eventually they would have a child. I would have preferred it to be more telegraphed ahead of time.
The battle scene at the end did not disappoint and I don't even like space battle scenes(or battle scenes in general in books).
Overall, Troy Denning is a fantastic author when it comes to pacing, suspense, and dialague. He is also great at making connections to the greater universe. Great book. 8.4 out of 10.
December 14, 2017
Book II returns to edge of the galaxy and the skirmishes between the Chiss (i.e. the blue guys) and the Killiks (i.e. the giant bug-aliens).
I'm impressed that the planners of the SWU (as well as the author Troy Denning) can continue to come up with original scenarios and plot points with over 200 books already done. This story was at times engrossing and other times had me shaking my head. I still don't like the influence of the "Joiner" mind over Jedi. And the way that the Joiner Jedi finish each other's sentences and do little throat-clicks bothered me too. Is the Force powerful, or not? Anyway, some of the battle scenes were exciting (though most of the space battles were confusing). And I do like how knowledgeable and masterful Jacen Solo is becoming.
I'm impressed that the planners of the SWU (as well as the author Troy Denning) can continue to come up with original scenarios and plot points with over 200 books already done. This story was at times engrossing and other times had me shaking my head. I still don't like the influence of the "Joiner" mind over Jedi. And the way that the Joiner Jedi finish each other's sentences and do little throat-clicks bothered me too. Is the Force powerful, or not? Anyway, some of the battle scenes were exciting (though most of the space battles were confusing). And I do like how knowledgeable and masterful Jacen Solo is becoming.
May 16, 2023
Wow. This book had everything. Jedi, pilots, dangerous and impossible situations. It was hard to put down.
We have Leia and Saba on the Akbar being held for trying to run a blockade to get to Han and Luke. Han and Luke leave Wotobe to chase the Dark Nest’s ship that will try to escape the blockade. It can’t get out. The dark nest has unknowingly sabotaged the Akbar.
Jacen does what he thinks is needed to protect his daughter by convincing Jaina to assist in a preemptive assault on the Chiss.
So much intrigue.
We have Leia and Saba on the Akbar being held for trying to run a blockade to get to Han and Luke. Han and Luke leave Wotobe to chase the Dark Nest’s ship that will try to escape the blockade. It can’t get out. The dark nest has unknowingly sabotaged the Akbar.
Jacen does what he thinks is needed to protect his daughter by convincing Jaina to assist in a preemptive assault on the Chiss.
So much intrigue.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 24, 2023
Might be 3.5 maybe.
This was one of the better Star Wars books I've read in a while. I found Jacen's story very compelling and I wished there was more of that in the book. I have to admit I don't like Leia's story arc of becoming a Jedi. She's a great character and I find it more interesting when she's a major player in the galactic government.
This book does drag on, especially near the end, but overall it was entertaining. I'm looking forward to see where the final book in the trilogy goes.
This was one of the better Star Wars books I've read in a while. I found Jacen's story very compelling and I wished there was more of that in the book. I have to admit I don't like Leia's story arc of becoming a Jedi. She's a great character and I find it more interesting when she's a major player in the galactic government.
This book does drag on, especially near the end, but overall it was entertaining. I'm looking forward to see where the final book in the trilogy goes.
February 1, 2021
I thought it was good. Entertaining crisis in the Jedi order. The bugs now trying to spread out more. Jacen and his big revelation.
I wish they had Ben solo (still don’t get why Han would name his only child after a man he knew for 10 minutes and mocked the old dinosaur) more like Jacen and his motives and his character. Coulda been awesome.
I wish they had Ben solo (still don’t get why Han would name his only child after a man he knew for 10 minutes and mocked the old dinosaur) more like Jacen and his motives and his character. Coulda been awesome.
August 3, 2023
The second installment of this trilogy and we perhaps have the most controversal decision in the Expanded Universe: in order to move the plot forward into the third book, Denning decides to character assassinate a major character. This decision completely invalidates the character's arc from about 20+ novels ago and it makes little to no sense.
July 18, 2024
When people talk about the Star Wars EU being terrible, this series comes to mind. This is my reread and I still hate it. There’s absurdity, villains that are way too strong, ridiculous plot points, the fact that insects can affect every single species. No I just can’t. I literally hate this series.
July 29, 2021
Not loving the series so far. Weird parts where friends turn into enemies and then quickly turn back into friends. Galactic alliance vs Jedi was not a good storyline. New ridiculous force powers existing like invisibility. Jacen takes another step toward dark side.
June 10, 2023
fine but a thin story line with half baked plot lines that serve as little more than macguffins
Story lines are spun up to move the story along with only half baked resolution. Purely intended to catalyze the next point.
Story lines are spun up to move the story along with only half baked resolution. Purely intended to catalyze the next point.
March 22, 2018
Ok the Insect comment on the first book may have been a bit premature, this series is getting good and kind of grows on you, I can't wait till I get the third book. This was a good read.
September 22, 2019
3:58:10
333 pages
100 pages- 1:11:23
200 pages- 2:17:56
300 pages- 3:33:30
333 pages
100 pages- 1:11:23
200 pages- 2:17:56
300 pages- 3:33:30
Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews