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A review by jaredkwheeler
Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams
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+