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A review by wyrmbergmalcolm
In the Empire's Service by John Nadeau, Michael A. Stackpole, Jordi Ensign
3.0
This story features a lot of political infighting and almost generic space battles as a result. I'm not entirely convinced the two story-lines merged all that well. The way the story was told meant that this was to be revalationary towards the end of the book, but it was pretty obvious early on.
There's some new pilots, some of which are non-human making them easier to identify, which was nice. The characterisation of the pilots was a little skewed, with some getting much more coverage than others. In one pivotal battle one of the Rogues is killed and their name is called out. I had no idea who that was so flipped back through the pages to find out. After being introduced they're just 'there,' and get one spoken line. So there was no emotional weight behind that death.
Because I'd read one of the later books before, I already knew about the big twist at the end, which was a shame but I can't blame this book for that. As a twist, it's quite a good one and in keeping with the Star Wars style twist.
The artwork was okay with it being pretty good for the aliens, locations and vehicles but the human's faces were a little off.
There's some new pilots, some of which are non-human making them easier to identify, which was nice. The characterisation of the pilots was a little skewed, with some getting much more coverage than others. In one pivotal battle one of the Rogues is killed and their name is called out. I had no idea who that was so flipped back through the pages to find out. After being introduced they're just 'there,' and get one spoken line. So there was no emotional weight behind that death.
Because I'd read one of the later books before, I already knew about the big twist at the end, which was a shame but I can't blame this book for that. As a twist, it's quite a good one and in keeping with the Star Wars style twist.
The artwork was okay with it being pretty good for the aliens, locations and vehicles but the human's faces were a little off.