The JC Lit Reviews Special: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: SACRIFICE (Spoilers)

First, let me start this by saying that I'm not a Traviss-hater, I love the RepCom books, but that's what Karen Traviss needs to stick to writing, her own characters. I actually liked the characterizations of Ben and Jacen, but that's where it ends, Mara's character was butchered, I mean, when did Mara and Luke start fighting? Why couldn't Mara tell anyone that Jacen was a Sith? And her death was terrible, one of the best EU characters dies because her nephew poisons her, and she isn't really a part of Jacen's sacrifice? Terrible. Also, Jaina doesn't spend all her time obsessing over boys, she focuses on her mission; it's the boys and the readers who spend their time wondering who she's going to end up with, not Jaina. I got the feeling that Karen Traviss was trying to change the EU into how she saw it. The only thing I really liked in this book were the Mando parts, sadly they seem to have nothing to do with the story.

All-in-all, I give Sacrifice a 3/10.

 

I found Sacrifice like the previous books in the LOTF series to be a very uneven read. The best parts were Boba and the Mandolorians. I have never been a big fan Boba Fett but the author did a good job with his character in this book.

As in the previous books Ben continues to be my favorite character and he is the only major character in this that I really care about.

I had some problems with how Mara's character was handled. Her interactions with Ben were understandable and very well done. Unfortunately her so called plan for taking out Lumiya and Jacen did not make a lot of sense. I did not understand why she did not tell Luke or the Jedi council about what she found out about Jacen. The only reasons that the author gives for her behavior is that Luke would furious and go after Jacen or to protect her son from shame. The end result of her strange and selfish behavior is that Luke and the Jedi have no knowledge that Jacen is Sith. She has needlessly put the Jedi in peril. Hopefully Ben will tell his father and the Jedi the truth about Jacen in the next book.

The author did great job in handling Mara's death and the reactions from her husband and son.

Another problem with book is Jacen. His journey to become a Sith Lord is boring and predictable just like in all of the previous books. So much of this story just repeats events from the films. I new before reading any of the spoilers that Mara was the most likely sacrifice. I also felt certain that Jacen was was going to seize power by methods that were technically legal and the Jedi have no knowledge that he is a Sith just like in the prequels. The name Darth Caedus is OK but I would have liked some explanation on why he chose that name.

This is the first book involving the Big Three in which they are hardly in the book.

Overall I will give this book 7/10.

 

When I started Sacrifice, I was a bit doubtful. Some of the writing in the early parts of the book was just awkward, especially any scenes with Lumiya. Be that as it may....

As the book neared the end, my experience vastly improved. Thank the Force someone finally wised up and took the proactive stance to dealing with Jacen and Lumiya. Additional thanks that, after Luke's little introspection, maybe, just maybe, he'll pull his head out of his hindquarters when it comes to dealing with Jacen.

Even if I don't like Traviss's interpretations of Lumiya and Alema, she made up for it with the Skywalker family. I've enjoyed her take on Ben since she humanized him in Bloodlines. As Mara finally gets some sense knocked into her and chases Lumiya from Hesperidium to Hapes, I get a little thrill, even if I know what's coming.

The final confrontation with Jacen was great. But it pales in comparison to Luke's last battle with Lumiya. I'd never let you fall. ZIP! Fantastic.

The only thing that could have possibly made those final pages better would be if Mara had accepted Kyp's offer to let him help her. But I suppose bigger and better battles will come later.

As always, Traviss does a good job with Boba and the Mandos, though I think it would have been better suited to a different book. Any sideplot that's supposed to run alongside the events of this book should have been spectacular, and for me, it wasn't quite that. Very good, though.

Oddly enough, the only thing I'm finding annoying about Karen's Mandophilia is the Mandalorian language. I'm absolutely sick of it being injected into casual conversation for no reason that I can fathom. And I simply can't see Boba using it.

All in all, though, I'd say this book was well worth hardcover price, if only for the last half. Final score be 7/10.

 

Average score: 451.6/63 = 7.17

 

SACRIFICE: THE REVIEW

Well, time for one of my in-depth reviews, I reckon. I finally got a copy of Sacrifice, and blitzed it. To my surprise, this book proved quite a strong and compelling read. Initially I was annoyed, and began typing up a word-file of all my quibbles just out of sheer aggravation value; but as the novel continues, it grows in strength. The main plot is quite strong, and I found characterisation both improved from Bloodlines and improving throughout (although I suspect Traviss should have gone back and rewritten the start after she'd finished; characterisation by the end was so very much stronger). There are lots of interesting twists and turns, some logical, some less so; I found two things most interesting of all. First, the doctor in Bloodlines is doing a symposium on the Sith tassles back on Llord (or however it's spelled). Second, there's a throwaway mention to Haruun Kal having representation in the Senate (a delegate for Haruun Kal speaks up in the scene where Jacen and Niathal are speaking to the Senate). This makes me very curious as to what's gone on there since Shatterpoint, and I'd love to see more development of this (especially given the Force-strong nature of the population; for some reason I'd assumed they'd have been purged by Palpatine and Vader, although maybe they were just a source of Dark Jedi). Still, those are just minor details that really captured my imagination. The Mandalorian plotline, surprisingly, was quite enjoyable; although it suffered from the other authors' ignoring it, imo, and it interrupted the main flow as the story continued. I actually found myself skipping it in the end, and then going back and reading it later. Structurally, as a result, I think the book could've done with a little tweaking.

Sacrifice sets up a lot of excellent twists in the story here. For the first time, Jacen and Tenel Ka's little secret is close to being exploded; ironically, Jacen goes after Mara because he thinks she knows about Allana, when Mara hadn't even thought about Tenel Ka and Allana. But the fact Jacen was in Hapes space may draw attention in that direction. As the next book is a Denning, I'm suspecting the secret to be revealed. Mara's death is tragic, although amazingly (given all the comments I've read on the boards) well-handled. The understated reactions of Ben and, especially, Luke, are heartbreaking. I actually nearly cried at that short paragraph on Luke's reaction. How... terrible, how tragic, and how insane is Jacen Solo. I found the subtle takeover very believable, esp. with the manipulation of the law in very cunning ways. Some details there - "tough on whatever, tough on the causes of whatever" - jerked me out of universe a little, simply because they're major parts of British politics and political catchphrases over the past few years; Traviss really needs to stick to basing her material on more historical examples. The Jedi Council's hands are tied, they don't know what to do; their confusion is evident in all of the Council scenes.

Now, for me, the plotline has to hold true to the characters. So here we go:

MARA
I've seldom included her as top of the list in the characterisation stakes, because she's rarely so major a figure in a book. In fact, this may be one of the few times she's been used so strongly. We've had flickers of her in Betrayal, maybe a couple of 'viewpoints' in DN, but on the whole we've not really had an extended period of time from her perspective for decades - since Destiny's Way, in fact, and maybe further back, to Balance Point. Interestingly, I can't help noticing a common thread in all of the Mara-rich books, be they by Zahn, Tiers, WJW, or, now, Traviss; the dualism of her being both light-and-dark, handled very well indeed in Sacrifice. The ship recognises Mara as trained in the Dark Arts, and in fact treats her as an apprentice Sith. Her Imperial training is brought to bear on Lumiya and later on Jacen in excellent form. She even plants a tracer on her son, the first sensible act she's done in t

 

I've been a pretty tough critic of Karen Traviss in the past. In my reviews of her previous books, I displayed many examples that show her prose to be laborious at best, and at times absolutely confusing.

Mysteriously in Sacrifice, Traviss has greatly cleaned up her writing -- it almost felt like I wasn't reading one of her books. Its pace flowed, and the prose snapped at times. I've never seen a turnaround like that from one book to the next in my life; I wonder if she was working with a different editor, or something.

Anyway ... I have to call it like I see it: I greatly enjoyed this outing. But that's not to say some Karenisms didn't pop up from time to time. No discussion of her Star Wars efforts can take place without the inclusion of the Mandolorians. My stance on this is simple: I enjoy her passion for the subject ... except when it becomes invasive. What I mean is, the Mando obsession is not welcome when its used to cut down more established Star Wars traditions -- like Jedi. I didn't particularly enjoy Boba's take on Jedi families -- to me it was something personal from the author, but that's just the way I saw it.

Another negative aspect of the Mando overload is that it makes some of the other parts of Traviss's work seem lazy and at times rushed. If Traviss put as much care into the rest of the novel as she did with the Mandos, R2-D2 and C3-PO would've been in it more, and Han and Leia (although I'm fully aware of their situation) would've played a more prominent role.

But it's all cool: I think over the course of the series, the Mando arc will be a nice inclusion, even if it is featured most prominently in Traviss's novels.

As for Mara's death, it resonated with me -- even though I would've handled it MUCH differently. I enjoyed Luke and Ben's reaction, and although I have many questions surrounding this event, I'll see what transpires in the rest of the series before making my final judgement.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read. I have to give credit where it's due: For whatever reason, Traviss' prose was magically cleaned up, and she created a moody, exciting piece.

Now the real miracle will be if Aaron Allston can fix all of his massive issues -- but that's a reach. Oh well ... thank the makers for the great Troy Dennind.


Good job, Ms. Traviss ....

7.5/10

 

Much improved compared to Bloodlines. That book felt to me as though Karen was struggling to get the characterizations right. In Sacrifice, the characterizations felt far more organic. I particularly liked that the crisis of Jacen's fall and Ben's endangerment drew Luke and Mara back to their roots, and their core personality traits - "your true self" which "you've only forgotten" (although not to the extent of ROTJ Vader of course ).

My only substantial characterization quibble is the brief portrayal of Jaina. As others have mentioned, at no point in DN or LOTF has Jaina's supposed "love triangle" (which isn't, but that's for another thread...) ever interfered with her doing her duty. Mara is too perceptive not to have picked up on this. That said, I can see how that scene arose. After Mara's death, Jaina naturally (we all do it) goes back to "what was the last thing I told her?" - and I do think it's a great setup for Inferno if the answer is "I didn't tell her I loved her, or how much I respected her, or how much she'd taught me; we were just talking about my stupid man troubles." It seems so trivial and so insignificant now, and Jaina would beat herself up about it. So that piece of characterization is, IMO, spot on. The problem is, taking that ending point, Karen had to reverse engineer an earlier conversation about "the boys" - and that's where she fell short in execution. Mara and Jaina could have talked briefly about Jag and Zekk, and Jaina's conflicted emotions about them and the Sword of the Jedi, in a mature, emotionally powerful way (after all, Mara herself struggled with letting herself love Luke...) instead of making it seem like Jaina is some petty teenager (which she isn't).

That's a small quibble in the scheme of things, though.

Although the characterization is much improved over Bloodlines, oddly I felt that the Boba/Mandos plotline was less connected to the main storyline in Sacrifice. In Bloodlines, we end up with Boba and Han working together against Thrackan, and Jacen killing Ailyn Vel; the Solos and the Fels are interconnected. In Sacrifice, Boba ends up drawn into his role as Mandalore. At the end of the book there's some hinting that the Mandalorian warriors or their new starfighter, or both, might be a factor that swings the outcome of the war. Which is fine if it happens. In the meantime, though, it left me wondering why all that was there...

I don't have a problem with Karen using Boba/Mandos in her books. I don't mind that Aaron uses the pilots and Lando, or that Troy uses the YJKs and Alema, either. But I would have like to see a bit more direct interconnection of Boba/Mandos and the main Sacrifice storyline - like in Bloodlines.

Overall a good book. Not great, but much improved over Karen's first LOTF book. Which leaves me optimistic for Revelation.

This probably deserves around a 7 or maybe 8, but if the haters are going to be juvenile in their scoring, I'll use hyperbole in my final score too:

10/10

 

Average score: 475.1/66 = 7.20

 

Bodies fading is a part of the FG skill. Was Mara taught this by Luke? If not she'd have no way of knowing it, per ROTS.

 

Way to take the high road, man

The only people in this thread who have tried to manipulate the overall rating are you and jedimaster203, who gave it 10's even though you both think it doesn't deserve that...

I don't suppose you have any facts to back up these claims that people are being "juvenile in their scoring"? And why label people "haters"? Almost everyone who didn't like the book here gave their reasons Who's being "juvenile"?

 

Luke specifically says she choose not to fade out... implying that either she and Luke both knew how but she chose not to, or that Luke doesn't know how to Force Ghost but thinks Mara does... i'm betting on the former.

 

I really enjoyed this, I still don't like the general premise and storyline of LotF as a whole, but putting that to one side, I found it to be a good read. Mara being the one to die was somewhat of a cop-out and wasn't overly surprising, but I thought that it was done well. Being a Traviss and Mando fan already I really liked the inside take on Mando culture and such, along with the little tie-ins from the RC books, not sure exactly how this is going to affect the main story, but I guess the Murkhana-Roche part can expand into the main galactic conflict in ways and surely sooner or later Boba is going to be on Jacen's tail.

Whilst some of Luke's reactions weren't in keeping with his character in recent novels, I applaud this change, he's been sitting back and watching and doing nothing for far too long. It was good to see him finally taking action instead of deliberating and waiting. Mara was done very well for the most part, the only thing that bothered me was that she wouldn't tell Luke that Jacen was working with Lumiya, maybe that stems from the need of having Jacen remaining hidden as a Sith for the later books I don't know, I just found it a little strange. Lumiya's death was very cleverly done, dying knowing that she managed to trick Luke one last time.

Overall, I'm glad we've finally reached the end of the lead up novels and now LotF can really accelerate into the final four books from a very interesting position. The build up has been getting steadily better and aside for a few minor things I really enjoyed the pace and flow of Sacrifice so I'm going for 8.5/10

I would love to hear how it was, I've read Traitor several times and as far as I remember all that it says in Traitor is that Coruscant has (or had) 4 moons, one of which was destroyed to make the rainbow bridge and the other three were pushed out of their original orbits. Not once in the book is the name Hesperidium mentioned as far as I recall, nor are the names of the other moons (Centax 1, 2 and 3), therefore I don't really see what the problem is, without any source directly naming the moon which was destroyed how can we possibly know it was Hesperidium (unless there's another source which I'm unaware of, someone feel free to enlighten me if there is).

Maybe my memory is wrong, but no doubt I'll be reaching for Traitor again soon and I'll check on this then.

 

Leeland Chee has said that Hesperidium is a moon in the Corsucant system, not a moon of Corsucant in the Holocron thread at TOS.

There's been some hair-splitting about the line where Mara is leaving Corsucant orbit for the moon Hesperidium because some think that it means that she's heading for a moon of Corsucant, but Karen has said on her NG that it was meant to refer to a moon in system and not a Corsucant moon since the exact location of the moon is not given in any existing text.

People will just have to decide for themselves how to read that line and whether it was clear or not.

 

I'd argue that people giving it a 1 or a 2 are being pretty juvenile. If I'm doing that then I didn't finish the book because it was written so terribly.

 

That is an arguement based on a fallacy then. For myself, I rated the book that low because it was one of the worst Star Wars novels I have read thus far- in my opinion. You say you wouldn't even finish the book, but wouldn't you have to finish it in order to review the work? To not do so would have been disrespectful to the author and to the persons reading the review. How could I be intellectually honest about what I was writing without the whole picture? What if the end had ties the book up well or had a profound scene? It has to be finished for the review to be worth anything.


So for myself, I didn't fiddle with my score just to lower the overall rating. That is about the definition of intellectual dishonesty and disrespect for others who come here both to read and write reviews.

I felt it was just plainly awful, and I stand by my review. I would challenge those who altered their scores (positive and negative) to be honest and respectful to the rest of the board and score the book not based on the changing a number but based on what they actually read.

 

Over all I enjoyed the book and couldn't put it down, but there were some -major- problems I had with it, some of which has already been mentioned:

Exactly. I was like, "Okay, another book where Luke Skywalker is going to do abslutely nothing."

He spent about half the book sleeping, letting his wife go fight his battles, and the only thing he planned to do was meet with the Admirial, and he couldn't even be bothered to actually do it. When did Luke Skywalker become the lazy, do-nothing bastard of the Star Wars universe?!

Seriously unreal.

 

I'd give it a 7 out of 10. I really like her writing and I really like the Mandalorian stuff but it seems forced into the books. Sure, the Fett stuff might pay off in how it impacts the core story but I can't see what it will add that couldn't be done with some other participant and 1/20th the page committment. I also dislike the demands of the over-arching plot of the series, where good guys have to be idiots to be as clueless as needed to advance the plot.

That said, I think it's a very good book. I thought Mara was written better and more interestingly than at anytime in the past, including by Zahn. I think it's interesting that she is in many ways portrayed as a deficient Jedi, pursuing the protection of her family over everything else. She's not a Jedi in this book, she's a mom with ninja and super-powers. Jacen was both believable and scary, finally giving the impression that he could be a Sith, sacrificing billions while easily convincing himself that what is good for Jacen Solo is good for the galaxy. It has Kyle. Finally, Luke is finally respectable again. He gets over his dithering and has total focus and squashes Lumiya like a bug. That's Luke power that we almost never see. He's not grandmaster because he has a better grasp of philosophy, he's grandmaster because he is the most powerful Jedi who's ever lived. Mara took Jacen to school, realizing in her way that only suckers fight fair and almost took out the new Sith. Assuming that he's not hobbled by plot-shackles, Luke is going to wipe the floor with Jacen.

Overall, it's a good book and part of another one (Mandalorian stuff). I would have given it an 8 if it was focussed on the main characters.

Matt

 

If it isn't clear then I suppose it's open to interpretation, but it's never been said at any point that Hesperidium was destroyed. Either way, I don't think complaining about this being a continuity error is much more than looking for extra excuses to criticise.

 

I'd give it a 9/10. I really enjoy Traviss as a writer. The only thing that bothered me was Mara not telling Luke that Jacen was Sith before she went after him, seemed out of character. Other than that, I enjoyed all of it and thought Karen did a great job with Mara's death.

 

My daddy was a bank robber,
but he didn't hurt nobody
He just loved to live that way
He loved to steal your money...

 

Average score: 499.6/70 = 7.14

 

Meh. Uneven, compelling at times, tedious at others. In the same league with the other LOTF entries, but maybe the weakest. Not a disaster, though.

My most lasting observation is the Mando portions read like something out of an entirely different book. They are presented with an enthusiasm and myopic vigor usually found in fan fiction. This portion of the saga might be better staged in a dedicated book or trilogy, but I know DH doesn't tend to play that way. At any rate, just because it's not my cup of tea doesn't mean there's not an audience for the Mando stuff, and I'm sure I'd find it more welcome if I were so inclined. I only trust this stuff will tie in later on. With that in mind, and because I don't desire to be labeled a score-manipulating "hater," I won't factor the Mando sections into my final score.

One observation that will, though, and I'm sure it's hardly original to my reading of the book: It was noted Mara "chose" not to Force Ghost herself to leave behind evidence. That's well and good, but I'm thinking her eyewitness testimony from the Force netherworld of Jacen's duplicity would seem quite a bit more effective. Conveniently, she was killed by a poison/toxin, so, conveniently, it would seem Alema is the natural suspect, and just in time for a Denning book. That seems a ponderous turn to take, but whatever.

7/10

 

To all of you saying Traviss got the characters right, I would have to disagree. She made it seem as though Jaina was only focused on boys. Which she's not. SHe made Mara into an idiot,pbsesseive mother,liar. Mara never kept secrets from Luke, especially stuff regarding freaking Sith Lords. WHen Mara goes to fight Lumiya, she was being an idiot by not taking someone to help her. ANd Luke is snoring half of the book

 

I also thought Traviss did not do a good job with Luke or Mara. Luke does not do anything until the very end of the book. Mara going after Lumiya by herself without telling Luke made no sense. The situation gets more absurd when she finds out that Jacen and Lumiya working together and still does not tell either Luke or anybody else in the Jedi council. How is Luke supposed to "crush" Jacen when he has no idea what is going on because Mara withheld critical information.