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A review by twilliamson
Assault at Selonia by Roger MacBride Allen
2.0
If Ambush at Corellia was a surprise hit, Assault at Selonia may well be a surprise dud. Here, Allen returns to the Corellian sector to continue his adventure trilogy, this time with oddly less action, far less character development, and a whole lot more convoluted plotting.
The problem of the book ultimately collapses around its overly ambitious plotting. We're not given any kind of legitimate antagonist through the novel, even though Thrackan Sal-Solo, Han's estranged cousin, should be the main antagonist; instead, the threat looming over the whole of the trilogy goes completely unnamed and undeveloped as the heroes all stumble around in the dark trying to figure out what's what. It's one huge mess of a book, and actually manages in some ways to undo all that worked really well in the first entry to the trilogy.
That's not to say everything in here is entirely bad; Leia and Mara get some interesting moments together, and Luke's visit with Gaeriel Captison from Bakura is a really fun way to revisit the stories of EU past. Nevertheless, no single strain of the story really works to advance the story any further than the previous novel, and while all of the many characters seem to be doing something, their actions in this middle sequel amount to a bunch of water-treading.
This seems to be a common problem for these Star Wars novels: the impulse to improve sales by releasing a story in a trilogy doesn't really help serve the overall plot of the story, and the result is a novel that is in turns terribly boring and unimportant.
Maybe the final book in the trilogy will help bolster this one's story, but it feels more and more like anything good Allen began in the first book of the trilogy will wither out by the time the trilogy concludes.
The problem of the book ultimately collapses around its overly ambitious plotting. We're not given any kind of legitimate antagonist through the novel, even though Thrackan Sal-Solo, Han's estranged cousin, should be the main antagonist; instead, the threat looming over the whole of the trilogy goes completely unnamed and undeveloped as the heroes all stumble around in the dark trying to figure out what's what. It's one huge mess of a book, and actually manages in some ways to undo all that worked really well in the first entry to the trilogy.
That's not to say everything in here is entirely bad; Leia and Mara get some interesting moments together, and Luke's visit with Gaeriel Captison from Bakura is a really fun way to revisit the stories of EU past. Nevertheless, no single strain of the story really works to advance the story any further than the previous novel, and while all of the many characters seem to be doing something, their actions in this middle sequel amount to a bunch of water-treading.
This seems to be a common problem for these Star Wars novels: the impulse to improve sales by releasing a story in a trilogy doesn't really help serve the overall plot of the story, and the result is a novel that is in turns terribly boring and unimportant.
Maybe the final book in the trilogy will help bolster this one's story, but it feels more and more like anything good Allen began in the first book of the trilogy will wither out by the time the trilogy concludes.