Reviews

I enjoyed Hero’s Trial, the first half of this two-parter within the larger New Jedi Order storyline, but unlike that one I felt Jedi Eclipse was a little too busy and unfocused. The first book had a clearly defined, compelling main storyline: Han Solo going on an adventure as he worked through his grief over the loss of Chewbacca. By contrast, in this book, there are many different subplots going on, which in and of itself is not unlike most Star Wars novels, but none of them really stood out as a single driving storyline for the book. Instead, it felt like a hodgepodge of various plots that didn’t do much for me. In fact, since the first book largely ties up all its own loose ends, this feels less like a two-part series than two standalone books with a few shared elements between them.

There are some things to admire about Jedi Eclipse. For one thing, it ends with quite a bang (very literally). I also enjoyed seeing how the Hutts were worked into the Yuuzhan Vong storyline, and I much respect how Luceno (one of the better Star Wars writers, in my opinion) integrated so many elements from past Star Wars Expanded Universe stories into this book, from the Centerpoint trilogy on Corellia, to the Hapes Consortium from The Courtship of Princess Leia, to even elements of the Han Solo Adventures trilogy of the 70s and 80s. Luceno is obviously very knowledgeable and respectful of the established fictional canon and integrates it intelligently and respectfully, which is better than how authors like Michael Stackpole try to shoehorn their own characters into every story at the expense of that canon (i.e., I, Jedi). But still, I didn’t find Jedi Eclipse to be one of Lucano’s stronger efforts.

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