Lit The Last Jedi by Michael Reaves

Obviously in an avant-garde manner. He did it in a style much too sophisticated for a plebeian like me to comprehend.

Thrawn should really consider growing a goatee and wearing a turtleneck.

 

I haven't gotten to the climax yet, but the murkiness has slackened off. It may be that those particular sections got a lot of editing and rewriting that wasn't smoothed out enough.

Oh, and Ulicus, Vader is awesome in this book. He doesn't get to kill anyone, but he's like this unstoppable shadow that's everywhere at once and everyone is always terrified of him and where he's going to be and how he's going to catch them. He's like an invincible force of nature. It's incredible.

 

Excellent. Reaves is one of the few authors I trust to provide a satisfying Vader pretty much every time.

 

Yeah, I finished it. There's yet another Vader-Jax confrontation that Jax gets away from, but I'm still satisfied with the Vader. They really need to just let Vader kill the guy, but if they're not going to, the ending we got is reasonable, and Vader gets to be completely awesome all the rest of the time.

 

This book, heck this entire series actually is one of Vader's better showings. Describing him as a shadow is probably the best way to put it, because Jax always spends a good portion of his time, other characters too for that matter, fearing Vader and trying to plan his moves around the possibility that Vader may be trying to trap him. He's like an unstoppable force.

 

What did you guys think about Sacha, Xizor and Pol Haus in the book?

 

I've never been a terribly big fan of Xixor, but he seemed to be doin' his thing (minus the whole rapist part) in this book. I'm just confused about what his being a Vigo is all about, because I thought I remembered him being in a position of power on Coruscant in CN1, but here he has a power structure on Mandalore. I guess the Vigos don't just divide the galaxy up by "geography?"

Pol Haus was a good protagonist for the B-plot and I'd like to see more of him. Ideally, we'll get more to see how he balances his job with his Rebel activities. His kind-of-flirtations with the Poetess rebel (can't remember her name) are way better than any Maul/Ahsoka fanfic I've ever read. I'm also interested in the sub-plot of whether he ever starts taming his hair. That's not a joke.

As for Sacha, I don't think we really got to know her well enough. She's your typical rebel agent pilot person, with no real personal motivation. I don't even remember if they revealed why she joined the rebels.

 

That's the Luceno spelling.

The correct spelling is Xizor.

 

Well, if Black Sun is "based" on Coruscant, Vigos can easily have a power base there, as well as their own "constituenties."

 

I liked this book. My one complaint is that it should have had more Coruscant time, but I understand why it didn't. OK, two complaints, the fact that Jax did the equivalent of Jedi pouting most of the book didn't sit well with me. It made for hard reading of a character that I in general like. Other than that, I like the whole story, if in fact this is the fourth novel in the CN series, or whether it is a standalone with the same characters, I like them. I like Reaves's portrayal of SW as well. To this day, Death Star is one of my top 5 (which surprised the hell outta me), and it is because Reaves's does it well.

 

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2013/09/star-wars-last-jedi.html

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. However, it felt very-very RPG-like. Nice to see all the continuity nods to TCW.