Lit Review - Review: Jedi Academy Trilogy - Kevin J. Anderson (minor spoilers...ish)

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A couple of days ago I finished Champions of the Force, book 3 of the Jedi Academy Trilogy and I’ve decided to review the 3 books together. Lazy or efficient, you decide…

Well let me begin by saying that I prior to reading these books i’d heard from various people that a) They were boring/slow b) I, Jedi is much better and I may as well just read that instead. Now I haven’t read I, Jedi yet so I can’t comment on b), but as to a)…

I wouldn’t say this series was boring or particularly slow. There’s a huge amount that happens over the course of the three books, the events are varied (this is definitely not just a series of books about Luke’s Academy) and there’s some important character and political developments. It’s true that there are parts of the books that feel unnecessary (see Jacen and Jaina’s adventures at the Holographic Zoo of Extinct Animals) but there’s also plenty of fun and interesting stuff in there as well.

What I would say is that the books are…flat

These are not the best written books in the Star Wars library by a long shot, everything is very straightforward without any huge “I didn’t see that coming!” moments. As I said, there’s a huge amount that happens but despite the epic nature of many of these events they managed to come across as relatively minor when compared to a much smaller event in for example one of Timothy Zahn’s books. The tension just wan’t there.

In terms of characters we have pretty much the entire raft of major and minor characters from the films plus plenty of new ones, some good, some bad, some…wavering. I’m not going to go into detail about all of these new characters or their exploits but I will mention that I found Admiral Daala to be overly…unfortunate, to the point where I never felt her to be as much of a threat as she should have been. At the other end of my character expectation scale was Tol Sivron, a character who I had no expectations for but who had me laughing out loud in Champions of The Force.

I did enjoy reading the books, but mostly for the amount of content rather than the implementation of it.

I expected before I began that this review would end up being one of my longer ones due to this being 3 books, but to be honest so much happens but with so little excitement that i’m struggling to recall much.

I am going to give the trilogy as a whole a 3 out of 5. Interesting, very relevant to the Saga as a whole but ultimately as above…flat.

I’m planning to read I, Jedi next while the series is still relatively fresh in my mind and see if I can answer b)…

 

The tension just wasn’t there.

this is where we disagree. I mean maybe that is true in most of the material, but i remember reading these books soon after they first came out, and i was literally scared to death when i read about Exar Kun and Kyp putting Luke in a coma with the power of the force alone. I was shocked that it could happen to Luke, and they it seemed they had accomplished it so easily. To me this was a big shock scene up to the level of big shock scene we got with Anakin dying in Star By Star. I found myself waiting for the next book in great fear of what would happen to Luke. After that scene, i really thought Luke might be dead.

 

I guess for me reading them so long after it was released I didn't have any worries about Luke dying, so yeah that would remove the tension there.

 

Darksaber, which I am almost through, appears to contain the bits I felt were missing from the JA trilogy

 

You needed sequences where Star Destroyers act like snubfighters?

 

Heh it was more the overriding threat

 

Not sure what you mean Gorfy.

 

Well in the JA trilogy it never really felt to me like there was anything particularly threatening to the New Republic. At least in Darksaber theres a larger imperial presence. Plus I love Pelaeon so its nice to see him.

 

Ah, I see - yeah, JAT has more an assembly of minor villains, amped up by one means or another. Here there's the Imperial fleet on the warpath.