A Disturbance in the Force

The books I read tend to be non-fiction. I'm not quite sure why; probably because it takes less imagination and concentration (in general) to follow along with "real" things than imagining the fantastic elements of fiction.

I had troubles with the first few Star Wars books released in the mid-'90s. Sometimes it was because of the fantastic elements (nearly everything had to be new since The Empire was gone), sometimes it was the feeling that Luke, Han, Leia, and the others had had their big adventure, and adding more just seemed unrealistic (like: don't these people ever get a break to enjoy their success?), and maybe a large part of it was because I was in college at the time, and I'd get to the book every few weeks.

Anyway, in the past few months, I've read a half-dozen Star Wars related books, and I've actually enjoyed them all. I'll probably get to most of them on a later post. The one I'll discuss now is the only one I read set after "A New Hope" and one I just finished: Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal, by Aaron Allston.

I picked it up because a post-er on newsarama.com mentioned that it had a killer ending, and even after I was 90% sure of what was going to happen a few pages in (I won't give any spoilers away here), I liked the ride.

The gist of the book is: The Corellians are making plans to secede from the Galactic Alliance. It's not overt, but Corellia is doing things behind the scenes-- and against GA rules-- to set themselves up for independence. This is troublesome for Wedge Antilles and Han Solo, who are Corellian themselves, but dedicated to the GA. Throw in Han's wife, Leia, their children, Han's brother-in-law Luke (Jedi Master and leader of the new order), and his wife and son, and there is large amounts of conflict. And a number of moments where the betrayal from the title happens.

While the parents are handling the "big", galactic-level parts, the kids (namely Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker) are charged with a betrayal of their own when they're sent on a mission to destroy a necessary component in the Corellian secession. After that assignment, they need to investigate common elements that look as if the Corellians are being influenced by an outside force. Again, elements of betrayal abound.

I'll leave the synopsis there and conclude by saying that Allston seems to have everyone's "voices" down. The book felt like a true Star Wars story. While it's been years since I read any post- "A New Hope" novels, I was able to follow along. This was especially nice since things really changed during the "New Jedi Order" series of books, of which this one was after. And, while I'm sure Allston hadn't acted alone in the decision for change, things do indeed change by the end of this book. I'm looking forward to reading what comes next.

My one complaint: the Star Wars universe has grown enormously, and it's essential to have some sort of timeline for people to be able to use to put events in relation to each other. But, I suppose they have the same problems they do in comic books: if they give an official timeline, things eventually won't add up. By that, I mean we'll know Han and his buddies are in their 60's at least, maybe even their 70's, and they're still flying around in fighter ships on missions.

But there's enough information given in the book that the most observant/loyal readers know where the story rests: about 15 years after the Yuuzhan Vong/"New Jedi Order" series. Now if I only knew how many years the Yuuzhan Vong War was after "A New Hope" ...