Revelation (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force, Book 8) by Karen Traviss Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Revelation (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force, Book 8)
Book Review: horrible series with the dumbest jedi ever
Summary: 1 Stars
Alright I had to say something because this entire series has been one stupid plot twists and blunders after another. The jedi are suppose to be awesome and the bad**ses of the galaxy but yet it takes them six books to finally decide to do something about jacen. What happened to all the smart jedi or at least the righteous ones? The great revelation at the end of this book is laughable not to mention it's idiotic that they never thought of it. During the whole series jedi go from being practically omnipotent to being dumb to the point that a five year old could pull the wool over their eyes. Not to mention that book to book the characters change and don't act how they did in the last one. Also the selfishness of the jedi goes against everything they should stand for. I mean come on luke keeps going on and on about being a jedi and during this series he puts his own selfish desires over the greater good. So what if their kid doesn't use the force I would think they wouldn't care. Not to mention jaina, I though she was 30 year old not a teenager with a lot of angst. Out of all the characters in this series the only characters that stay cool are han and leia they actually stick to their beliefs during the entire thing. Finally the whole tracker business I don't understand why they sacrificed all those jedi just to put a tracker on him instead of capturing him. Okay maybe that team couldn't have done it but something like this they could have sent like 10 masters I'm sure they could get him. This series gets me so mad I'm going to finish it because I already read so much but then I'm done with star wars books the NJO killed it for me.
Edit: Spoiler alert***
I got to say this last thing I disagree with what the dude said at the end. Quoting the friendly neighborhood spiderman "With great power comes great responsibility" to have the ability to change something for the better and not doing it is worse than committing the act. I mean that whole speech the x-jedi gave to jaina sounded like someone justifying their lifestyle. For the last quote "Evil wins when good men do nothing".
Book Review: Good setup for "Invicible" but too much filler
Summary: 3 Stars
"Revelation", the 8th and penultimate entry in the "Legacy of the Force" series is a much better entry than the last, Fury, and is superior to Karen Traviss' previous novel "Sacrifice" in almost every way. It successfully sets up the final novel by moving the players into their places with efficiency and style, and pays off the Mandalorian/Boba Fett story arc that Traviss spent far too much time developing in her previous efforts. It's no surprise that the weakest parts of the book center on Fett and his dysfunctional family.
There are three main story arcs, with only one being developed and completeed in a truly interesting manner. The first deals with Ben Skywalkers attempts to prove Jacen Solo, now the Sith Lord Darth Cadeus, killed his mother, Mara Jade Skywalker. He takes this task on himself, and returns to Coruscant to enlist the help of his old friend Lon Shevu of the Galactic Alliance Guard(GAG). Shevu is an old local cop who was drafted into the GAG in the second book of the series and has been a mentor to Ben on correct police procedure. With Shevu's help, Ben begins to build an air-tight case against Jacen to present to his father and the Jedi Council.
The second arc involves the political manuverings of Jacen, the Old Empire, and Admiral Cha Niathal, Jacen's co-chief of state who has decided that Jacen's ambition and tyranny are too much for her to bear. Represnting the Empire is fan favorite Admiral Palleaon, former Commander of the Galactic Alliance Navy and now essentially the head of state for the Empire. This story arc is the most well-defined and Traviss demonstrates some skill in writing political intrigue. Palleon, Jacen and Niathal all have tricks up their sleaves, and Traviss does a superb job of unleashing the surprises on both the galaxy and the reader, and there are some very interesting cameo's in this section of the book.
Finally, there is the Jaina Solo/Boba Fett arc. Jaina believes that she alone can stop Jacen, but that since they know each other so well, she needs to learn things he doesn't. So she enlists Fett to train her in Mandalorain techniques to take down Jacen. Here is the real weekness in the story. Traviss seems intent on shoehorning her characters and threads from her "Republic Commando" series into the Madalorian scenes, and so the time spent on Mandalore focuses too little on who Jaina is learning and far too much on psychoanalyzing Fett and essentially holding up the Mandalorians as some sort of glorious ideal. Her writing shows a lot of contempt for the Jedi and while they certainly deserve some criticism, Traviss tries way too hard to point out how much better, morally and physically, the Mandalorians are, which gets tiresome fast. I think Fett's history is interesting, but it has not place in this series of novels. So these scenes drag down the pace of the book and push the Ben Skywalker angle to far out of the picture that he only makes one appearence in the last third of the book, though it's a very important moment and she writes it well.
Other problems with the story are that no one seems to know anything about the Sith in this novel. Considering everyone knows that Palpatine was a Sith and that Sith are supposed to be evil, most of the non-Jedi characters have a lot of convienient lapses in memory of what, exactly, the Sith represent. This is annoying to a long-time reader of the Star Wars series because the threat of the Sith came up a lot in previous novels. Not all of their history is well known in the Star Wars universe, you would think a galaxy that spent 20 years under the rule of one Sith, Palpatine, would retain some memory of them, especially Fett, who worked with and seemingly respected Vader.
Anyway, I think this stands in the way of making this a great book and brings the score down. The only positive is that Traviss successfuly sets up the final novel and also gives Fett some resoultion. She should ask LucasBooks to let her write a stand-alone novel on the Madalorians. She obviously loves the bloodthirsty mercenaries, and it would at least be addressed in the correct place. You can't skip this book if you want to enjoy the final book of the series, but it's not too great either.
Book Review: Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Karen Traviss has a style that sets her apart from the other authors. She did an great job with this one. The only shame is that she has to share the load with the other authors. Instant Classic!Book Review: Not one of the better books in series
Summary: 3 Stars
I've read every star wars book in existance. This is probably one of my least favorites, especially from this series.
The writing just wasn't very good, especially in the beginning. It seemed to take Karen about half-way through the book before she hit her stride. If you can get through the first half you'll probably enjoy the second-half much more.
The Fett part of the story is excellent. She does a lot of excellent character development and really fleshes him out.
The Jacen Solo part is laughable. His character has no development and actually becomes more cliche as the story progresses. He is character is weak that I was tempted to skip forward to the next chapter each time he was the focus. Once again everyone "tries" to kill him and they (surprise) fail. Nobody tries very hard in this book and the only real plot advancement is with Jainia and Fett.
I'm hopeful the final book will be one of the better ones because this was very much a disappointment.
Book Review: A good set up......
Summary: 4 Stars
A good set up for what promises to be a great conclusion. Missed the lghtsabre battles but then again Karen has not been great on depicting these fights anyway. This is the final betrayal and journey down the dark path for Mr. Jacen. This is twin sister stop playing the whining little girl as displayed in the series thus far. this is the Fett rubbing his hands together to get revenge for his daughter's death. This is the lull in the eye of the hurricane. you know that the tail-end of that storm is going to smack you upside the head. Methinks Jacen and his allies should be uttering the now famous "I have a bad feeling about this....". and hey, no super Luke in this round.