In a testament to how good this series is, here I am, four days later with a review of the third book.

After this, I’m only going to post these weekly on Saturdays. Hopefully that will give me some editorial lead time.

And now onto the review. Written by Troy Denning, this book advances the conflict and the stakes in the preamble to what appears to a be a new Galactic Civil War. It also widens the stress fractures between the various Solos and Skywalkers working for the hope of peace but each splinter group from a different vantage point.

Luke and Mara Skywalker, sensing danger, find themselves tracking down Lumiya, a former apprentice of Darth Vader whom they suspect (and rightfully so despite a lack of proof) of influencing Jacen Solo toward the Dark side and leading their son, Ben, with him.

Han and Leia Solo are on the run from everyone and seem to be being set up from all sides to the point where they’re mistaken as terrorists by… pretty much everyone. No one is sure who’s side they’re on and who they’re really helping.

Jaina Solo has quit her command of a fighter squadron in the Galactic Alliance after refusing a direct order by her brother to fire on a retreating, defenseless starship.

And finally, Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker follow further into the footsteps of Anakin Skywalker, even going so far as to command a Star Destroyer and root out dissidents and have no hesitation to kill or detain just about anybody who gets in their way. In fact, their zealotry extended so far that Ben tried arresting his Uncle Han and Jacen ordered the long-range turbo-lasers on his Star Destroyer (the Anakin Solo, named for Jacen’s little brother who was killed ten years prior) to blast the Millennium Falcon out of the sky.

You can see how poorly a family reunion would go over after all of that.

This book really gets this story on it’s feet in a way I really didn’t expect. Jacen seems truly to be slipping toward the dark side, but unlike the movies, I don’t know what’s going to happen and the future isn’t written in stone like it was with the classic trilogy.

I think my favorite thing about this book (aside from the action sequences, which we’ll get to later) is watching Jacen’s slow and stubborn descent into the Dark Side. He’s so much like his grandfather (who is still my favorite character in the Star Wars mythos) that I almost picture him as Hayden Christensen in Revenge of the Sith. Seeing him so concerned about maintaining objectivity in order to bring peace to the galaxy is a haunting echo of his grandfather’s concerns. And if that’s a haunting echo, the fact that he too is trying to hide a secret love and a child from the Jedi Council and the rest of the galaxy. And the similarities don’t end there. The Jedi Council, led by his uncle, Luke Skywalker, distrust him and refuse to make him a master even though that simple gesture might bring him back from the brink.

The internal struggle we see Jacen going through is something that I find quite thrilling to read and I think others will to.

In classic Star Wars fashion, there were three or more major action pieces that wrapped up the third act that really took my breath away to the point where I couldn’t put the book down. I won’t go into the details about all of them, but I will say that Luke’s showdown with Lumiya was breathtaking.

As far as Denning’s prose, I was quite impressed. I’ve never read anything of his before, but it was vivid and lucid in a way that put very specific and clear images in my head. In fact, the most impressive feat he pulled was to describe Aurra Sing (oh yeah, Aurra Sing is in this book) so deliberately that even though she was traveling incognito and not using her real name I just knew it was her. And no matter how many times she gave her fake name, I felt that it must be her and I was right.

My only complaint about the book, actually, was during the climax. Two characters close to the Solos are killed during Jacen’s barrage and there was no emotion to it whatsoever. It felt like they were an afterthought to the story and they were only killed to get them out of the way. If they were going to be sacrificed in the name of the cause, they should have been at least slightly more central to the story.

Aside from that, this book comes with a high recommendation. You can order a copy from Amazon here: Tempest