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Author	Topic: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers)
Mange Registered: Jan '03	Date Posted: 4/10 9:50am Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers)
	YodaKenobi posted: Actually it's 610.52/110 = 5.55 Mange added 12 instead of 6 for blackmyron's review. I actually added 6 two times. -----signature----- There is no try.
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MasterSelendile Registered: Mar '07	Date Posted: 4/10 10:10am Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers)
	The book did a good job of showing how pathetically weak Darth Caedus is. How menacing of a dark lord is Caedus when a bunch of Mando's LET him live, please, that was just ridiculous. And even Jaina saying in some way, that even Luke couldnt beat jacen, PLEASE.... And i still dont like how Invincible is being set up... Luke didn't beat caedus, and yet we are supposed to believe Jaina will, just because she trained with Boba Fett and the Mandolorians....PLEASE....that's just sad But still, the book was interesting, although i really wish LotF played up a little bit more on Lukes' power, he has been very unimpressive so far even tho he is supposed to be the strongest Jedi ever lol. 6.5/10
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GrandMasterKatarn Registered: Feb '08	Date Posted: 4/10 12:02pm Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers) - Date Edited: 4/10 12:08pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Havac
	THE GOOD: Luke/Cha scenes. Ben/Shevu scenes. PELLEAON IS BACK!!!!! DAALA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(run for your lives)!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Battle of Fondor. Luke and unnamed Jedi taking Jacen's StealthX apart. Jaina's training. The Maw Irregular Fleet. Jacen saying Tahiri was his SITH apprentice. Ben's case for Jacen killing Mara. THE bad: The Moff Council scenes. Tahiri killing Pelleaon, couldn't someone BETTER have killed him off. Personal commentary not needed. Jacen telling Shevu about him killing Mara: "IT'S A TRAP!" The Ugly: You remember that constructive, non-personal stuff we're talking about? Yeah. all in all: 7.9 out of 10 -----signature----- Revan+Bane+Exile = Kyle Katarn "Expletive: Damn it, master, I am an assassination droid... not a dictionary!" - HK-47 "My first apprentice was a female Twi'lek named Jaden Korr" - Kyle Katarn
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King_of_Red_Lions Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 4/11 5:15pm Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers)
	I believe this is Ms. Traviss' best SW novel to date. It moved swiftly and kept me interested. I enjoyed the passages in which Jacen justifies his actions to himself - and convinces me as well. I will be very disappointed if Jaina kills him in the next book as it looks like this is where the plot is going. One of the few Legacy books I'd read again. I only have minor complaints: A group of irregular-militia-farmer-soldiers taking down a Lord of the Sith and his apprentice. Boba Fett and Pelleaon's hypocritical self-righteous indignation toward Jacen. Boba Fett calls him a vile murderer and someone who deserves to die and many more things. Fett is not only a murderer himself, but a murderer for hire. He kills in exchange for money. At least Jacen believes in a cause. And Pelleaon says he doesn't want the galaxy to be run by a petty despot. Pells is the freakin' EMPIRE - a system of order developed under just such a despot. Does he remember smiling and satuting while carrying out Palpatine's orders? He should be rolling out the red carpet on Bastion for Caedus. 7/10. -----signature----- Who is John Galt?
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ezekiel22x Registered: Aug '02	Date Posted: 4/26 3:01pm Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers)
	The thing about agendas is that every writer has one. Writers of New Yorker-style literary fiction want you to know how painfully horrific (and quiet) it is to grow old, and how nice houses and fancy cars and doctorates mean nothing in the face of terminal disease. Late-night Cinimax screenwriters prefer to perpetuate the idea that any profession can be made into a more tantalizing affair as long as the word busty precedes any given job title. Aaron Allston favors the notion that mostly every character in a story is overly concerned with comedic timing. With Revelation, Karen Traviss believes that even in the realm of adventure-driven tie-in fiction death shouldn't be taken lightly, and also that legacies, regardless of cultural derivation, can heavily burden an individual's sense of self-appraisal. As per usual, Jacen Solo's characterization as a unique, self-aware brand of Sith Lord is spot on with Traviss. It rang utterly false to me in Fury when Allston had Jacen thinking back on his deceased brother as a brat, and as such it felt like glorious, logical revision when under Traviss's pen Jacen acknowledges in his inner pontifications how he still comes across passages in holozines that he knows his brother would be interested in if only Anakin hadn't died during the Vong war. Similarly, Jacen's killing of Tebut in Fury was expounded in Revelation, thus changing a potentially throw-away brand of obvious antagonism into one key marker of rational madness. I loved the moment Traviss gave us when Jacen's twisted thinking allows him to believe that he does what he does "for the Tebuts of the galaxy," a thought that adds a dose of sympathy for the Sith Lord in that he acknowledges how wrong he was to kill Tebut, and how in turn a truly righteous man should save the horrible necessity to kill for larger, worthier targets. Furthermore, depictions of Jacen continually relying on droids shows the degree to which he wants to kill all forms of human attachment, while his desperation to save Tahiri revealed a man who hasn't yet been able to sever all bonds of companionship. Once again, Traviss excels at presenting Jacen as a complex antagonist that's miles removed from the cackling cliché Allston prefers to portray. A major reason Traviss is so effective is that she constantly stresses characterization, and through her characterization comes a stronger standard of theme and atmosphere. Before going into the book I carried a bit of fear that Jaina's Mandalorian training regiment would be handled in a "leveling up" videogame manner, but mostly this wasn't the case. While I admit that Traviss's Mando preference can be a tad too obvious when she stresses things like the Mando fighters being so obviously better than X-Wings, above all I found that Jaina went to Fett not to practice fighting skills or marvel at body armor, but rather to seek the assurance over her role as Sword of the Jedi. A sword is a violent symbol, even when it's used in the name of justice. The Mandalorian culture – with its often contradictory views on the extreme necessity to protect family and the overwhelming cultural obligation to earn a living by enacting violence for others – succeeds here in helping to frame Jaina's own place in the fictional universe. The closing passages where she talks of "passing through flame" and "loving someone by killing them" are among the most interesting moments of Jaina dialogue I can recall in recent and not so recent EU history. Having the character tackle outsiders' views on her own life and culture brought into focus the realties and requirements of what should be (if handled correctly) Jaina's character-defining role as the one who most confront her fallen brother. Overall, I found Revelation to be a nice mix of larger scale space opera (as evidenced by the Fonder arc and all its players) and a strong collection of characters that exemplify the theme of legacy as it relates to both galactic war and familial placement. Traviss is often accused of a certain bias, and to that charge I point out situations in the novel where characters like Niathal or Shevu both exhibit an obvious respect for the Jedi, or an instance where Boba Fett stands in complete awe of Jaina's ability to step into a battle and parry blaster bolts while wearing not a scrap of armor. Likewise, while it's obvious that Jaina came to learn from the Mandos, to me it was just as obvious that Fett learned a great deal from her – particularly that one can never abandon family whether or not such a wish to do so is derived from joy, fear, sadness or hatred as it relates to the family or family member in question. At times Traviss has a tendency to let her writing slip into too casual a mode, and here I'm thinking certain moments of Mando joviality or Jacen's inner thoughts revealing phrases like "I don't dance that tune" or "nip it in the bud." Similarly, her descriptive prowess never really transcends the ordinary, thus any would-be exoticism to the GFFA locales or daily practices she portrays is often lost amidst brief glimpses of journalistic brevity. Overall, though, I love the manner in which she continues to challenge conventional wisdom. By the nature of SW the Jedi are portrayed as the elite, and the very plot of LotF shows that once again the Jedi/Sith war of ideology as it relates to one family has led to a galactic war that claims the lives of so many others. I think the question of why this had to happen again should be asked, both by in-universe perspectives as well as the critically-minded fans and contributors that motivate the EU. And I'm glad Traviss is there to help put both facets into play. 8/10
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Randy1012 Registered: Jan '07	Date Posted: 4/27 12:46am Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers) - Date Edited: 4/27 12:57am (1 edits total) Edited By: Randy1012
	Revelation, pg. 334 posted: Mirta shouldn't have been able to beat a Jedi's reaction time. But she did. That just about sums up everything that was wrong with this book. I appreciate Ms. Traviss' writing from a technical standpoint; she has a very good command of her craft. But every single one of her novels has just felt...wrong. I didn't feel like I was reading Star Wars when I read her three additions to this series. That, combined with her seeming need to take the focus of the story away from the key players and focus about a third of each of her books--that's one whole novel, right there--on something we really don't need to read about, left me kind of cold as I read through this book. The idea that Jaina needed help from Boba Fett to defeat her brother was laughable. Jaina's a smart woman; the Mandalorians taught her nothing that she shouldn't have been able to figure out on her own. I'm not a fan of Darth Caedus--at all--but it was ridiculous how he'd nearly been brought down by a couple of foot soldiers with antiquated gear. He's the Dark Lord of the Sith...that used to mean something, but apparently it doesn't anymore. However, I do think Traviss did a pretty good job with Ben in this one. He's grown from an irritating little prat to a pretty good character, and now that he's entering manhood and close to coming into his own, I'm looking forward to seeing him develop into a heroic figure. I enjoyed following his investigation of Jacen--which should have happened about, oh, two books ago--and I liked Shevu, too. Cha Niathal has become more interesting, and I enjoyed Pellaeon and his storyline. I also liked seeing Luke take Jacen down another peg, but while the incident in this book and the one a couple books back demonstrate Luke's superior power, it makes him come off as a weakling because he won't close the deal, and there's no good reason from a storyline/character standpoint for that. If Luke could outclass Jacen so easily, he would have brought him down a lot sooner in order to spare the galaxy from any further bloodshed. It just reeks of "the series isn't finished yet!" If Darth Caedus can be beaten so easily, then he shouldn't have such a huge series focusing on him. 6/10 -----signature----- What can I say? I'm a talented individual.
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The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Registered: Mar '05	Date Posted: 6/3 4:55pm Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers)
	Oh dear. I've liked LOTF, really I have. I didn't take to Tempest or Exile, but I felt the series returned to form with Sacrifice. And that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed Bloodlines as well. But this is a mess. I didn't mind the Mando stuff in the two earlier books, and they really did feel like they were a sub-plot. Here, they're the plot. And that serves as a huge disconnect from the installments we've had since Sacrifice. What's even more concerning is that the Mando plot is actually more interesting than the Civil War one. It's as though Traviss just didn't really give a stuff about the actual plot of LOTF, and just thought to abandon all pretense of fair play. I appreciate the wholesale expansion and fleshing out of Outbid But Never Outgunned, though. And Traviss never fails to make some really neat references, even if they are, I suspect, Holocron-inspired. But this entire book, it seems...is Fondor or Mandalore. The rest of the series has been fairly jetsetting, with the exception of the Hapes-centric Tempest. The Battle at Fondor is occasionally exciting, but often not. I didn't mind Pelly's death, on the other hand: I loved the character, but I'm starting to think that "Death is senseless" is the theme of LOTF here. In the past, Star Wars characters have always died for a reason, with the exception of maybe...Madine. Kudos to Del Rey or whoever for being a bit more...realistic about the nature of death. Oh, and there was one moment that was really, really good, which was the scene after the cease-fire...but it soon fell away after that. Interesting new character, by the way. At first, when Pelly mentions Daala, I thought they might be bringing back the idiot from the JAT. Turns out it's a totally different redheaded Imperial lover of Tarkin spouse of Vorn admiral who was at the Maw Installation. At first I thought this was quite confusing, but as soon as she started talking, I knew that there'd be no problem. No one's going to confuse this Natasi Daala with Admiral Daala, that's for sure. 4/10. -----signature----- Ohhh, don't give us none of your aggravation, We'll hide away your Death Star plans...
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Whizkid Registered: Sep '03	Date Posted: 6/17 11:50am Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers)
	I feel that you need to look past authorial biases when reviewing a book. KT makes it hard, because certain characters feel like a mouthpiece for her own views. Still, I tried my hardest to refrain from getting mad at the anti-jedi/pro-mandalorian bias. I really enjoyed the plotlines. It felt like a natural transition from Fury. The Battle of Fonder was epic and well written. KT has become very proficient at weaving older EU aspects into her novels. I loved Daala, the Remnant, and Pellaeon. I don't like writing long reviews, so I'll just say I enjoyed the meant and potatoes of this novel. The plots and characterizations were MOSTLY great. The apparent biases do bring down the score somewhat, although they hardly ruined the novel for me. Minus 1 for biases and minus .5 for Tahiri's confusing decisions. 8.5/10 -----signature----- "Only a Sith deals in Absolutes" "Do, or do not. There is no try"
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MistrX Registered: Jun '06	Date Posted: 9/2 3:32pm Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers) - Date Edited: 9/2 3:34pm (1 edits total) Edited By: MistrX
	I kind of wish that I hadn't read YodaKenobi's rather entertaining review of this book before I read the book itself. I think that probably colored much of my perception and expectations going into it. That said, the book isn't as bad or ire-inducing as I had expected. It has its fair share of flaws, and looking back I would say that it's probably my least favorite of the eight I've read. Still, Traviss is adept at making that tight narrative and giving the subjective views of her characters' perceptions. The Niathal and Jacen scenes were probably m favorite. I also enjoyed the Ben/Shevu scenes quite a bit, but it's not without its problems. It just boggles my mind that after Jacen has burned Kashyyyk, tortured Ben, nearly destroyed the Millennium Falcon, and killed an officer on his bridge in front of the crew, they won't accept that it was Jacen that killed Mara. As YodaKenobi pointed out, Han even asks Jaina if Jacen would hurt his family. Is Han losing his memory in his old age? Speaking of Jaina, her scenes with the Mandalorians really weren't as bad as I had expected. Things do seem to linger on Mandalore a little long sometimes, especially in all that time after the effective climax at the book, but overall it doesn't usually make me want to hurl the book across room. It does, however, have a big problem with Jaina's characterization. I understand that she would feel the need to be humble for the Fett man's help and that means holding back on the usual hard-headed, stubborn, and sometimes acid-tongued Jaina we're used to. Still, seeing her inner thoughts agree with the Mandalorians on so many flaws about herself don't make that much sense. She's apparently learning lessons for things she should already know, especially after that little regional conflict that galaxy knows as the Yuuzhan Vong War. In spite of what Karen may believe, Jaina is not some isolated monk who knows nothing of the common being in the galaxy at large. She's a little more experienced in life than she gets credit for in this one. And at the end, when she really doesn't need to be playing the bright-eyed student anymore, she can't think of any argument to counter Jusik's complaints? At that point, I couldn't help but wonder if Traviss was taking advantage of the series' apparent need to be nine books long, therefore giving Jacen plenty of time to survive his past attacks so he could be taken out in that final ninth volume. If she did think of that, very crafty Karen, if a somewhat cheap shot as well. Then there are the things that I just personally dislike, object to, or roll my eyes that I don't think are necessarily Traviss' fault. Daala's return for one, the fact that she had the Chimaera, Jacen's logic for not looking at Hoth or Endor (how convenient), the fact that Sal-Solo is not Jaina's uncle, the Solos doing "more damage to Fett" (only because they come out of their conflicts better than he does), or the fact that I probably wouldn't consider the Galactic Civil War to be a sectarian conflict between Jedi and Sith, though one did end up being a part of it. Then there are the eyeroll or chuckle-inducing moments. Daala calling mercenary work "honest", which I believe reflects one of Fett's lines in sacrifice, Daala's fleets having mini-superweapons (because heaven forbid the "good" guys win with wits or innovation when you can have unstoppable tech), and it may be more accurate militarily, but since when has everyone referred to the number of ships they've had as "hulls"? Maybe I've just not been very observant in my past Star Wars-related reading, but that seemed to jump out at me while reading this one. So, like I said, plenty of complaints, many if not all already expressed by YodaKenobi. Many, though, are simply details in an overall well made work. 5.75/10 -----signature----- "The only thing more insane than falsehood is truth." We are well and truly forked.
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chiss_man Registered: Jul '02	Date Posted: 9/2 4:00pm Subject: RE: The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION (Spoilers)
	UPDATED SCORE: 652.17/122 = 5.35 As far as I could tell anyhow, this whole thread is very disorganized... (I'm working on a project here, don't mind me) -----signature----- "(You are) a shameless grab for cash with no quality" Soontir
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