Lit The Dark Nest Trilogy

The Dark Nest Trilogy



To say that i’d heard negative reviews about this trilogy would be an understatement. From many people i had essentially been warned off reading this and anything after it, but then that gets in the way of the ‘reading all of the Star Wars books’ thing really.

So I headed in, expectations low, and perhaps I should thank the naysayers as it probably meant I enjoyed the books more than I expected to, rather than less, if that makes any sense.

Now I think the first thing to get out of the way is the disconnect between the NJO and these books. I’d been told about this but if i’m honest having read a few of the bantam era books it almost felt like it was the NJO books where there was a different attitude if we take Star Wars books as a whole (Of course I haven’t read enough to truly judge this. The NJO + 37 other Star Wars books does not an expert make me) But essentially in this trilogy the Jedi seem to be far happier to break out the lightsabers and use force than their reluctant/forced action during the NJO and they seem to question all they learned previously. Now this is a disconnect and the 5 year gap excuse only goes some way to explaining it, but personally I feel its nice to see characters like Luke doing something for a change (From the NJO) but yes it certainly feels more comic book KAPOW SPLAT GNYARG than the NJO’s more thoughtful approach and I wouldn't for a minute say this was anywhere close to the NJO in terms of quality and depth, but it is what it is, a relatively shallow action trilogy that hearkens back to some of the Bantam era books.

OK so now that’s out of the way, what about the story. Well i’d have to say I’ve never been a fan of characters being mind controlled or made to act differently by something other than their own life experiences and personal choices (i.e. Anakin falling to the dark side is OK, Jaina and pals becoming drones not OK) it takes away from their personalities and essentially turns them into different characters, which is what happens with most of the ‘Heroes of the NJO’ as the books proudly state, yes they’re there but you know what, they may as well not be they’re that altered and devoid of their personalities. I’ve never been a big fan of Jaina but here she’s just annoying, and not even the worst of the bunch.

In general the story feels like its is all filler with the main purpose being to show how Jacen changes from the NJO to make what will happen in LOTF seems somewhat more reasonable.

Well it doesn’t sound like I was enjoying them at all. What I will say however is that the books had their moments, I enjoyed parts of them even if I felt that as a whole the trilogy was a bit of a nothing in the grand scheme of things. I did for example like some of the humor such as Luke’s slight over use of his force persuasion getting him more attention than he bargained for and I liked Jaina’s fragile ‘relationship’ with ‘Wuluw’ who I felt genuine sympathy for. The Sullustan, Ewok duo they meet are a fun comedy couple with Jae Juun’s requirement for procedure and Tarfang’s active temper they provide some genuine laughs.

It is however a trilogy which, were it never to have happened would have little effect on the overall state of the galaxy bar the one truly important event regarding Jacen’s…

No spoilers.

I couldn’t really say I’d recommend reading this set of books but it feels very different talking about the trilogy as a whole, it’s easy to look back and say it was weak, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the books when I was reading them, which goes back to the enjoyable moments thing. If you read these books I’d like to think you will find enjoyable scenes among them, just don’t expect an overall feeling that you’ve been a part of something important.

 

Can't resist....

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I'd pretty much agree with the opening post here though I've only read the Joiner King. I'm also trying to read all Star Wars books but had been warned off this trilogy. Still I gave it a try and though there were some parts I liked and it had some amusing humor at times, it was also very weird and I didn't really like it all that much. Since I've started the trilogy I might as well finish it but I'm in no hurry to do so.

 

I liked the trilogy the first time I read it but go back and forth on it now. The mess that is the Post NJO book series' begins here. No real big issues (for the most part) but it snowballs from here.

 

Dark Nest started the grand tradition of "the events you just read about in the prior series didn't actually happen the way that they were written."

 

On its own, a decent enough series of books, IMHO. Not great, not terrible, certainly readable.

But it's also a harbinger of the awfulness that is to come. Pretty much every negative of the trilogy is but a thousandth of what the next 2 series display

 

For me, the problem with Dark Nest, Legacy of the Force, and Fate of the Jedi is the aforementioned quality in which they are liberal with how they retroactively change the meaning of preceding works. This trumps any shortcomings in the storytelling. Poor stories are forgivable: Bantam was loaded with them. But Kevin J Anderson didn't didn't face heel turn Mara and reveal that she was actually working for Palpatine all along and then had her killed and replaced in importance by Kyp Durron (keep in mind she wasn't Luke's love interest in the early 90s). Regardless of the quality of the stories in Bantam, they ultimately were a net positive for how they enriched the Expanded Universe.

Dark Nest doesn't add anything to the Expanded Universe. It subtracts from the quality of the New Jedi Order series. The New Jedi Order series is made lesser when viewed in the context of the continuity of the Expanded Universe by Dark Nest. And the New Jedi Order series is a thousand times the story that Dark Nest is. Certainly, this diminishing was enhanced by Legacy of the Force, but the strawman Vergere, post-NJO Luke, and JINO were established in Dark Nest, and the outcome of the NJO was entirely diminished: the character growth and lessons learned were revealed to be "wrong." This is much more egregious than merely being a bad story. This is cancerous storytelling that infects the stories around it with its badness.

 

Dork Nest is like the national socialism of Star Wars book. Unrepentant in its stupidity, irreconcilably daft and defended by human beings as wicked as the blackest depths of hell.

 

In retrospect, the DNT was the beginning of the end, the start of the gradual reversal of any improvements or changes that NJO had ended with. Coruscant is fine, the Jedi are mostly useless, and Jacen is about five seconds from mwa-ha-ha.

The sad thing is that there were certain ideas brought up that might have been interesting. While I don't like that Luke almost literally had to crown himself king of the Jedi, as well as the Jedi's arguments about their role in the GA, you'd think a clear line of succession, of Jedi purpose in the galaxy, of not being beholden to any galactic government, but rather to their own moral compass, would be established. While the Jedi did eventually split from the GA in LotF, in FotJ, the Jedi are again completely useless without Luke there to hold their hands.

I actually did somewhat like Luke's final battle in Swarm War, as well as Raynar's fate (though didn't like the Jedi's overall strategy that much). Too bad they couldn't have had the same result in later series.

 

On its own DNT could have been a decent trilogy of novels, if there hadn't been an NJO. They are better than some of the Bantam-stuff, have enough "alien" elements to make them somewhat interesting SciFi, bad guys, who are not the Empire, there is action, there is humour, ect. .

Unfortunately for DNT THERE is an NJO before it and everything, that happened and was established there is started to be undone in DNT. Aside from that the members of the (new) Jedi-Order, that has been around for two decades by this point in time don't act like you'd expect, but like a bunch of kindergardeners (to put it mildly), we have excessive use of the Force on a scale not seen since DarkEmpire and a New Republ.. sorry, Galactic Alliance, which acts as idiotic as the Jedi.

 

I enjoyed DNT, unlike almost everyone here Possibly because I never read through the entire NJO so I don't have a full committment to the way events occurred there? Don't get me wrong, I know for the most part the storyline of NJO and I read Traitor (my absolute fave novel), Star By Star, and a handful of others in NJO. I like how DNT allowed us to see the seedlings growing in Jacen's fall to the dark side, but how unaware the others were of his behaviour, and how they even thought he was perhaps a better Jedi than them. I admit I found the political aspects of the plot (GA worrying about a war going on in the Unknown Regions..wha?) a bit confusing, but the character development was great! Alema's rise as a villain was beautiful to witness, she is a fallen Jedi in the same vein as Ventress (the original Ventress backstory) or Tahiri, someone who had lost their loved one and didn't get support or feeling of family from the Jedi, and so turned to the Sith to get it. I also enjoyed the way it tied directly into two of my favourite EU works, LOFT and Legacy.

 

Decent enough work if you ignore the rest of the EU that came before it.

EDIT: Tahiri as a Dark Jedi/Sith wannabe has absolutely no right to be mentioned in the same vein as Alema Rar, who was not only the single greatest part of DE, but the single greatest thing Denning ever wrote.

 

meh, I really enjoyed this series personally. Loved seeing Luke all swashbuckling and seeing Artoo tie the two trilogies together.

I got chills reading Luke witness Obi-wan and Anakin's duels.

 

Yeah Luke and JINO watching ROTS on DVD is the most memorable part of the entire trilogy. Which says a lot.

 

Tahiri was over Anakin's death in TFP or TUF. What came after should not have happened.

 

I've tried to reread this, but something about it - even moreso than LOTF/FOTJ - really rubs me up the wrong way.

 

The Killiks weirded me out in TJK and TSW the last time I read the series. They weren't as bad in TUQ.

Also. B'wutau. Hate that guy.

 

it is an ok trilogy. i like the powerful luke moments in Swarm War. But JK destroys the perfect ending that was TUF

 

Really? How could she have gotten over his death that quickly. (Sorry I didn't read those two so I'm missing a bit of NJO)

 

Paper thin character?

 

Seeing how those two books are two years after Anakin died, iirc, I think "quickly" isn't a particularly apt description.

Certainly it is more plausible than for her to be obsessing over her dead teenage crush for a longer period of time after he died than he was alive in the first place.

 

Well, TUF takes place about 2 years after Anakin's death.

I don't think she was "over" Anakin's death so much as she had accepted it and moved on to her post-Anakin life. The lack of him would always hurt, but it's nothing that should have caused her to go dark side. Especially not 13 years after his death.

 

I admit a grown woman fantasizing about a teenager, and going back in time to make-out with him, is, kind of out there