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hidekisohma's review against another edition
4.0
I know this isn't saying much, but out of the three old republic books i've read so far (this one being the 3rd chronologically) this is the longest, but also by far the best. The characters were interesting, the story was original, and it traveled at a fast enough pace to keep me invested.
The story really has 6 main characters. a trooper, an imperial spy, a jedi padawan, a mandalorian, a smuggler, and a sith apprentice. Sound familiar? Yeah, basically this book takes all six classes from the old republic game and has them all work together for a common goal. and honestly...it somehow works.
The alliance actually seems organic and works well. All the characters are flushed out and interesting and I found myself even shipping the female republic trooper and the undercover imperial agent.
If i HAD to nitpick, I would say that it does run a tad long and could probably have been cut down about 50ish pages, as well as not utilizing enough characters from the game. In fact, the only prominent one was Master Satele. The rest were invented just for the novel. That's okay, but still, would have been nice to see some more game characters.
Overall, very good job working with the old republic timeline. 4 out of 5. Would definitely read another old republic book by sean.
The story really has 6 main characters. a trooper, an imperial spy, a jedi padawan, a mandalorian, a smuggler, and a sith apprentice. Sound familiar? Yeah, basically this book takes all six classes from the old republic game and has them all work together for a common goal. and honestly...it somehow works.
The alliance actually seems organic and works well. All the characters are flushed out and interesting and I found myself even shipping the female republic trooper and the undercover imperial agent.
If i HAD to nitpick, I would say that it does run a tad long and could probably have been cut down about 50ish pages, as well as not utilizing enough characters from the game. In fact, the only prominent one was Master Satele. The rest were invented just for the novel. That's okay, but still, would have been nice to see some more game characters.
Overall, very good job working with the old republic timeline. 4 out of 5. Would definitely read another old republic book by sean.
jaredkwheeler's review against another edition
3.0
Star Wars Legends Project #27
Background: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance came out in July 2010. It was written by Sean Williams. Williams also wrote the Force Heretic trilogy from the New Jedi Order series (with frequent collaborator Shane Dix) as well as the novelizations of both Force Unleashed computer games. In addition, Williams has written and co-written dozens of other science fiction novels.
The book takes place near the tail-end of the Cold War between the Republic and the Sith Empire, 3,643 years before the Battle of Yavin, a decade after the Treaty of Coruscant, and shortly before the beginning of The Old Republic computer game on which it is based. Aside from a few scenes on Coruscant and Dromund Kaas, much of the book's action is on Nal Hutta, and on and around a new planet called Sebaddon. As far as I can tell, the only recurring character with a significant presence is Jedi Grand Master Satele Shan.
Summary: Out in the depths of Wild Space, smuggler-turned-pirate Jet Nebula has stumbled across a mysterious ship carrying a cargo that sends shock waves through Republic and Empire alike. Soon, parties representing both factions, and some individuals with their own agendas, have arrived in Nal Hutta to bid for the find, or steal it outright. But they soon discover that the item they prize represents a threat to the whole galaxy so grave that even sworn enemies will be forced to unite in order to confront it.
Review: It's hard not to notice how much Fatal Alliance wants to tick of all of the appropriate tie-in boxes, starting with clumsily juggling eight major characters, one for each unique class in The Old Republic. There are the Jedi, Satele Shan and her apprentice Shigar Konshi, and the Sith, Darth Chratis and his apprentice Eldon Ax. Then there's Larin Moxla, (former) Republic trooper, and Ula Vii, an Imperial agent working within the Republic High Command. Finally, there's the aforementioned Jet Nebula and the Mandalorian Dao Stryver.
Most of them are at least interesting characters, and Williams does a pretty good job giving them enough depth to justify the significance of their individual roles. The main problem is that, rather than blending these various narrative points-of-view into a single story thread, he makes everything four or five times longer than it needs to be by describing and re-describing what's going on from the perspective of every character that's present.
So, after a scene from one character's perspective, he'll rewind several minutes and replay the exact same events and conversations as they were experienced by a different character. This would be a bit better if each character added some new layer or facet to our understanding of the story, but more often than not they're just repeatedly drawing attention to the exact same things over and over again, which is just incredibly tedious. Large portions of the book feel like an extended exercise in experiencing deja vu.
As I say, the story's video game origins are never far away, and in fact I think this would make for a much better video game than it does a novel. That said, it's still a reasonably enjoyable, albeit generic, outing in the Star Wars universe. There's a pretty decent three-act structure, with the first act building the mystery of the smuggler's find as it sets up the characters, the second act focusing on the various plots and conspiracies to acquire the find building to an absurdly massive 4-way battle in a Hutt's palace vault, and the third act giving us an exciting large-scale space and ground battle on multiple fronts as it rounds out the character arcs and ties up the dangling threads.
There's a kind of annoying fourth act, as well. Williams fails to stop writing after the explosive climax of his story and drags on for another 50 pages or so to give each character a proper send-off, lest we have any questions at all about what will happen to them next. There's nothing particularly surprising here, with the possible exception of a kind of ham-fisted attempt at a few last-second twists involving the Mandalorian character.
But, whatever. Overall, even though it's not terribly original, it is very Star Wars. So, if you like this sort of thing (and if you don't, you probably aren't reading this), then you'll probably get a kick out of it. There are much better Star Wars books out there, but this isn't actively horrible, either.
C+
Background: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance came out in July 2010. It was written by Sean Williams. Williams also wrote the Force Heretic trilogy from the New Jedi Order series (with frequent collaborator Shane Dix) as well as the novelizations of both Force Unleashed computer games. In addition, Williams has written and co-written dozens of other science fiction novels.
The book takes place near the tail-end of the Cold War between the Republic and the Sith Empire, 3,643 years before the Battle of Yavin, a decade after the Treaty of Coruscant, and shortly before the beginning of The Old Republic computer game on which it is based. Aside from a few scenes on Coruscant and Dromund Kaas, much of the book's action is on Nal Hutta, and on and around a new planet called Sebaddon. As far as I can tell, the only recurring character with a significant presence is Jedi Grand Master Satele Shan.
Summary: Out in the depths of Wild Space, smuggler-turned-pirate Jet Nebula has stumbled across a mysterious ship carrying a cargo that sends shock waves through Republic and Empire alike. Soon, parties representing both factions, and some individuals with their own agendas, have arrived in Nal Hutta to bid for the find, or steal it outright. But they soon discover that the item they prize represents a threat to the whole galaxy so grave that even sworn enemies will be forced to unite in order to confront it.
Review: It's hard not to notice how much Fatal Alliance wants to tick of all of the appropriate tie-in boxes, starting with clumsily juggling eight major characters, one for each unique class in The Old Republic. There are the Jedi, Satele Shan and her apprentice Shigar Konshi, and the Sith, Darth Chratis and his apprentice Eldon Ax. Then there's Larin Moxla, (former) Republic trooper, and Ula Vii, an Imperial agent working within the Republic High Command. Finally, there's the aforementioned Jet Nebula and the Mandalorian Dao Stryver.
Most of them are at least interesting characters, and Williams does a pretty good job giving them enough depth to justify the significance of their individual roles. The main problem is that, rather than blending these various narrative points-of-view into a single story thread, he makes everything four or five times longer than it needs to be by describing and re-describing what's going on from the perspective of every character that's present.
So, after a scene from one character's perspective, he'll rewind several minutes and replay the exact same events and conversations as they were experienced by a different character. This would be a bit better if each character added some new layer or facet to our understanding of the story, but more often than not they're just repeatedly drawing attention to the exact same things over and over again, which is just incredibly tedious. Large portions of the book feel like an extended exercise in experiencing deja vu.
As I say, the story's video game origins are never far away, and in fact I think this would make for a much better video game than it does a novel. That said, it's still a reasonably enjoyable, albeit generic, outing in the Star Wars universe. There's a pretty decent three-act structure, with the first act building the mystery of the smuggler's find as it sets up the characters, the second act focusing on the various plots and conspiracies to acquire the find building to an absurdly massive 4-way battle in a Hutt's palace vault, and the third act giving us an exciting large-scale space and ground battle on multiple fronts as it rounds out the character arcs and ties up the dangling threads.
There's a kind of annoying fourth act, as well. Williams fails to stop writing after the explosive climax of his story and drags on for another 50 pages or so to give each character a proper send-off, lest we have any questions at all about what will happen to them next. There's nothing particularly surprising here, with the possible exception of a kind of ham-fisted attempt at a few last-second twists involving the Mandalorian character.
But, whatever. Overall, even though it's not terribly original, it is very Star Wars. So, if you like this sort of thing (and if you don't, you probably aren't reading this), then you'll probably get a kick out of it. There are much better Star Wars books out there, but this isn't actively horrible, either.
C+
d_kotamilburn's review against another edition
2.75
The twist of the Sith and the Jedi working together to fight off the enemy was intriguing; I just don't think the ideas and plot were executed very well
lebanon's review against another edition
4.0
Fatal Alliance (Star Wars: The Old Republic, #3) takes place about 3700 years before A New Hope and focuses on the temporary peace between the Jedi and Sith. It is about Shigar, a Jedi padawan; Larin, a former soldier for the Republic; Eldon Ax, a Sith apprentice to Darth Chratis; and Ula, an imperial informant inside the Republic. The plot centers on all of them trying to win an auction for a valuable metal cylinder from an unknown planet, which causes much conflict. In many parts, the plot kind of drags along and gets very busy, with many things happening at the same time. Nevertheless, it is an interesting book and gets 4 stars.
graff_fuller's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
I really didn't connect with any of the characters...which made is difficult to care about the inner workings of what was going on.
There were Sith, Jedi, Mandalorian, etc. and I wasn't caring...which was frustrating to me. I pick these books up to be entertained and learn a new part of the Star Wars: Legends era...and it was just meh.
Honestly, all three of the these books were tonally different, and had all different casts, and I don't see any crossover (in a near level), obviously the higher ups are the same, but none of the characters that represent the progression of the plot...are the same from book to book...which I think is WEIRD.
Now, the last book in this series is written by Drew Karpyshyn...who wrote the first book, so maybe he will pull it all together. Let's hope.
There were Sith, Jedi, Mandalorian, etc. and I wasn't caring...which was frustrating to me. I pick these books up to be entertained and learn a new part of the Star Wars: Legends era...and it was just meh.
Honestly, all three of the these books were tonally different, and had all different casts, and I don't see any crossover (in a near level), obviously the higher ups are the same, but none of the characters that represent the progression of the plot...are the same from book to book...which I think is WEIRD.
Now, the last book in this series is written by Drew Karpyshyn...who wrote the first book, so maybe he will pull it all together. Let's hope.
camsullivan's review against another edition
2.0
This was a pretty vanilla and forgettable Star Wars novel that felt paint by numbers. It was a reasonably fun read, but one I won’t return to.
ravenmocker's review
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
penne_adela's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
hstapp's review against another edition
4.0
This is by far the best of the old republic books that I've read so far. The plotline is super interesting and the characters are quite well done. Also there are a lot of important women characters in the book. Which is fantastic. It's something that is very lacking in the Star Wars galaxy and it breathes some fresh life into the series.
divyareadssister's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
0.25
Some cool stuff here and there but overall this is the least interesting Old Republic novel I’ve ever read.