Tempest: Star Wars Legends (Legacy of the Force)

Book was a good read. Book arrived in a very timely fashion. Book arrived in excellent condition.

This book is the third in the Legacy of the Force series, and follows immediately from the previous book - just a matter of days after the conclusion of Bloodlines. I started this book with some misgivings after having had many issues with Denning's Dark Nest Trilogy (see my review here), but I am glad to say that my misgivings were misplaced and the author is back to his Star by Star and Tatooine Ghost best. The book opens with the surprise return of Alema Rar, disabled from her final scene in The Swarm War and determined to seek vengeance against Leia for her part in what happened. Her plans include causing emotional pain by killing Leia's surviving son, but those plans change when she discovers Jacen with Lumiya and realises that Leia's pain will likely be significantly increased by leaving him alive to continue his move down the path of the dark side. We then move to a meeting between Han, Leia and Wedge Antilles where the latter is asking them to undertake a mission to Hapes - to get Hapes to switch sides. Han and Leia are reluctant at first, but eventually agree. The resultant trip to Hapes takes Han and Leia into a nasty political situation which is much more difficult than they had expected. Things become increasingly murky with the usual Hapan plotting and double crossing putting their lives at risk - in more ways than one. The Skywalker/Solo family tensions that have developed through the first two books of the series take a considerable turn for the worse in this book. This aspect of the story has been developed extremely well through all three of the opening books in the series and it will be very interesting to see how things progress through the remaining 6 books. The main point of view characters in this book are Alema, Han, Jaina, Mara, Luke and Jacen. We did not get quite as much insight into the thought processes of the characters (other than Alema) as I would have liked, but many characters (including several non- point of view characters) continued to be well developed. Even though Lumiya's role seemed at first to be considerably reduced in this book, her pride in her protoge was demonstrated very clearly and interestingly (I'm trying not to give too much away here, hence the cryptic nature of the comment). As with the previous two books, I would have liked to have seen Jaina's character taken a bit further, but the scenes involving her showed definite promise for a more substantial role in the future. There were also some additional characters who had not had a role in this series so far, including one who had not been seen in the OT era so far (in the dramatis personae under the name "Nashtah". Jagged Fel's name appears in the dramatis personae but don't be fooled - he's in it for one scene only. There's little doubt that we'll be seeing more of him in the books to come, though. This is continuing to show promise of being one of the best series the EU has on offer. As I said at the end of the last review, if only it

This book was an exciting read and was well paced. It was much more enjoyable than the author's Dark Nest Trilogy. He writes both space and land battles well and draws you into the action. The climax of the book is both gripping and heart wrenching and leaves you wanting more. Denning's characterizations were spot on and added to the believability of the situations. The best Star Wars book in the past two years.

Tempest is the third book of the nine part Legacy of the Force series. This book focuses on the attempt on the life of the Hapan Consortiums Queen Mother Tenel Ka and the implications for the war between the Galactic Alliance and the Corellian system. It takes place just a couple of days after the end of Bloodlines by Karen Traviss. This book surpassed my expectations, which were very high to begin with since Troy Denning is one of my favorite Star Wars writers and he had set up the LotF series so well in the Dark Nest Trilogy. The plot revolves around the new (but no better) Corellian Sytem Prime Minister Dur Gejjin trying to bring the Hapns into the war on his side with the help of Han and Leia Solo. This plotline is interwoven very nicely with the ongoing plot regarding Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker which continues to shock and amaze. Luke and Mara Skywalker are also involved in this plotline and in this book the pieces start to come together a bit more and they finally are forced into a frantic confrontation with the Dark Lady Lumiya. What made this book so good for me was that the action sequences were simply amazing, from begin to end they all felt compelling and full of Star Wars magic and they covered a great deal of locations and types of combat, from the Jedi Temple training vault on Coruscant to the marshy hunting retreat of a Hapan Noble family. The characters all felt spot on as usual with Troy Denning and I found that the overall GA/Corellia plotline continued to be both extremely plausable and throughly intriguing as it spread into the Hapan Cluster. I missed seeing Jedi Master Saba Sebatyne who only got a couple of mentions in the book but I certainly enjoyed the pair of Coruscant Detectives(a Bith and a Rodian) who tag along Luke and Mara Skywalker for a part story and I hope they might pop up again somewhere down the line. I think that Tempest is the best book of Legacy of the Force so far and that is saying something based on how much I enjoyed both Betrayal and Bloodlines. It has great action, cahracterisations, plot and a number of shocking surprise thrown in along the way. I could't stop reading untill I had finished it. The only downside is that it will be late february 2007 untill book four; Exile by Aaron Allston is released.

This book was extremely well written and very detailed. I would have to give it 4.5 stars out of 5. The one thing that bugged me was the inconsistent characterizations. I wish there wasn't such missed characterizations in these books.