- ISBN13: 9780345509086
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Repercussions from the dark side’s fatal seduction of Jacen Solo and the mysterious plague of madness afflicting young Jedi continue to wreak havoc galaxy-wide. Having narrowly escaped the deranged Force worshippers known as the Mind Walkers and a deadly Sith hit squad, Luke and Ben Skywalker are in pursuit of the now Masterless Sith apprentice. It is a chase that leads to the forbidding planet Dathomir, where an enclave of powerful dark side Force-wielders will g… More >>
It is widely believed that the Sith were eradicated, but there remains a Lost Tribe on the Planet Kush. They use the dark side of the Force and eventually plan to spread out to rule the galaxy. Grandmaster Luke Skywalker and his son Ben, meet Sith Master Lada Rhea who they killed and her apprentice Vestara Khai who is on intent on killing them in the mysterious Maw where a force wielding creature resides.
This sentient being is sending out messages to Jedi who when children hid in the maw and now are going insane. Han Solo and his wife Leia are criminals after taking insane Jedi from Coruscant to a safe haven in the Transitory Mists. Their activity is an affront to Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala who is furious and whose goal is to make the Jedi become subservient to her. Luke and Ben track Vestara, the Sith apprentice without a master, to Dathomir where they become embroiled in a clan war in which dark side Force practitioners abet Vestara.
The fourth Fate of the Jedi science fiction thriller is loaded with action and plenty of intrigue which fans of the saga will expect. The story line is refreshed by a deep look at a new world and its culture. However, it is Vestara who makes the thriller work as she is a unique Sith unlike any seen before; incredibly she steals the show from the Skywalkers and Solos. By nature she is evil, but by nurture she shows signs of the light. Readers will relish this strong entry as Vestara brings new meaning to the dark and light sides of the Force.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 4 / 5
Slow, ponderous and boring. Also making the sith not really bad guys is ridiculous. Moral relativism has no place in star wars. At least real star wars if you discount the garbage prequels.
The preview of the next book Allies was better than this whole book. Second weak book by Allston, Christie Golden will probably hit another one out of the park, and Denning’s next will be middle of the road, or stink based on previous efforts.
While Allston was never as good as Stackpole at least his Entries in the X-wing series were pretty good, like Solo Command.
He does politics, military and regular characters right, but really fails when it comes to writing Jedi Or Sith.
The books lack excitement or the fun of the swashbuckling adventures of the original trilogy, and you would think the guy who wrote doc sidhe would know pulp fiction from garbage treatises on Religion and Politics, or moral relativism.
Rating: 2 / 5
After finishing the book my only thought was I paid too much for it. The story didn’t really advance much and the book was at times boring. This is from someone who marks on his calendar when the next Star Wars book is due out so it has to be really bad for me not to like it.
Rating: 2 / 5
Backlash was funny and very well plotted. The humor was absolutely perfectly written. It was not funny to be a comedy it was the little additions that made you laugh. Teenage sarcasm from Ben Skywalker. The constant rougishness of Han Solo and the perfect situational observations.
Once again I find myself wishing for Jedi powers or the Millenium Falcon to fly into and out of danger. This is an absolute must read!
Rating: 5 / 5
Luke and Ben seemed to have abandoned their mission to uncover the murky truth of Jacen’s turn to the Dark Side during the third FOTJ book, Abyss, when a weird new tribe of Sith caught their attention. In Backlash, the adventure continues. Luke’s on the prowl, metaphorically sniffing out Vestara Kai like some crazy bad ass Jedi hunting dog; with his blood splattered on her person after a lightsaber battle that ended with the death of her Master, Vestara’s unaware she’s even being tracked, but you can bet she’s looking for a place to hide. Ben’s aware of his father’s exhaustion, despite Luke’s protests, and elicits the help of the Jedi via an encrypted, sneaky, and very under-the-radar message intended to make absolutely clear it isn’t Luke who’s asking (which would violate the terms of his parole), it’s his son. Eager to help and reminding us the “good thing about the Solos and Skywalkers” is they “never run out of things to do” (p. 6), Han and Leia pack Allana and her pet nexu aboard the Falcon and head to the only place Luke and Ben can guess is the most likely location Vestara would land: Dathomir. And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where the fun begins. What follows is a witty and wild adventure in which Daala realizes she’s in over her head, Han gets a flamethrower, and a nexu manages to elicit more pathos out of me than Allana ever will.
Now that there’s more time between FOTJ releases, the page count per book can go up and fans like me can feel we’ve bought something worth the cover price. Let me make this clear: the extra pages were not only needed, but they’re everything that made Backlash read like a complete installment in the series rather than a rushed addition or careless afterthought. Every success reveals a new failure, though and unfortunately, no matter how much I’m enjoying this series, something went wrong. To be fair, there’s many things going on behind the scenes that have affected FOTJ. One of those is the release of the Lost Tribe of the Sith books as e-books. Sure, they’re free, but they’re e-books. I don’t know about you, but I hate e-books. Sitting to read in front of my computer for extended periods of time isn’t as easy as sitting with a physical book. There’s considerably less eyestrain; not all of us can afford fancy e-book readers with e-ink (or to keep printing each story). Some of the plot in those books, which I still haven’t and refuse to read until they’re in print, would, I hear, have helped clear up some of my confusion over the latest band of Sith apparently no one’s ever run into before. With the release of Crosscurrent, I finally got a lot more information and backstory that I really should have gotten before I read the first FOTJ book, Outcast. It might be too much to ask for books to be released chronologically, but it would have been really, really helpful.
I bring this up because suddenly Zekk’s madly in love with someone named Taryn. I was as baffled as everyone else–when did this happen? I can only guess, after a kind fan suggested, theirs was a romance forced to bloom behind the scenes, after Blood Oath was cancelled. Honestly, though? I think these kind of “surprise!” revelations lose any real relevance when they come out like this, especially because Zekk played a larger role in LOTF and has since then suddenly dropped out of existence. His return is lukewarm, unexplained, and unfortunate in execution. Allston, to his credit, was doing the best he could. It’s not his fault Blood Oath was cancelled, and I’m sure at some point, if it wasn’t him who corralled Zekk back into the narrative, it’d just be another author. Kudos to you, Allston, for taking the bullet.
Now that Zekk’s back, I couldn’t really understand his role in Backlash. Luke and Ben have made it on planet and are tracking Vestara when they run across a clan of Witches and a little bit of trouble; Han and Leia are off to investigate when they leave Allana in the Falcon with the droids and nexu; Zekk and Taryn are supposed to be watching the kid, but fail to intervene or even notice when Allana successfully outmaneuvers 3-PO (we all know how hard it is) and sneaks off to rescue Artoo. He shoots something once (I think) and is never brought to task for her being scared half to death and the nexu getting a concussion. Someone please correct me and point out where I misread Zekk’s actual involvement. I’m not above being corrected, I’m just confused.
Zekk and Allana aside, the return to Dathomir was, surprisingly, most of what made this book so much fun for me. Sine Luke’s last visit, the Dathomir Witches have evolved a little and emancipated their men–they can leave clans, form others, own property, vote, and wear pants, too. There were many jibes at the expense of traditional Dathomiri gender roles made even more entertaining when the gang is politically caught up in the elaborate process of the joining of two mutually exclusive, gender-polarized clans in the one thing that I never knew was missing from Star Wars: Dathomir Olympics. It’s about as backwater as you’d expect: rock throwing, sharp shooting, wrestling–you get the idea. There’s even medals; Han wants to make his into coasters. Dathomir’s also famous for rancors and darned if there isn’t an influx of them and some skirmishes that bring to memory Luke’s caged battle with Jabba’s wee baby pit monster. Delicate political negotiations aside, the diversions of the games was a great balance to Ben’s investigation into Vestara’s real motive.
We also get to meet some new and interesting characters. In particular, I’ve grown fond of Dyon–a Force-sensitive and unsuccessful Jedi candidate Ben hires for the cause at 5 credits, apparently the going rate for Jedi. Dyon is the little character that could and the type we don’t see enough of in a world saturated with familiar heroes and villains. Speaking of villains, Allston’s portrayal of Daala turned into a bit of a caricature of the stiff woman we’ve come to know and expect. At times it seemed she was making fun of herself, or perhaps it’s just Allston’s characteristic touch of humor that unclenched the Chief of State and finally started letting her realize just how big a can of worms she’s unleashed. Although, if you ask me, “policing” the Jedi is not the same thing as sending Mandos in for guerilla attacks when no one’s looking and causing hundreds of thousands of credits worth in damage. She needs a dictionary as much as everyone else needs more ginko bilboba in their diet.
Everyone (Han, Leia, Jaina, Jag) is not only surprised when there’s a Mando attack, but act as if it didn’t just happen in Abyss or as if Wyn didn’t try to warn them about it through Fel, who as we all know by now, failed miserably at being the good guy by not passing along the information to everyone who should have found out about it sooner rather than later. The powerful dynamic and tension created from that misstep in the last book is gone from Backlash. Jaina and Jag are, blessedly, hardly ever front and center, which I’m glad for, not caring for either as a character and being lukewarm at best to their relationship. Unfortunately, there’s bound to be more Jag with the direction the plot is going, but I’ll deal with that when it comes.
Overall, Backlash was just as good, in my opinion, as Abyss, but a little less weird. I really love that Luke’s not allowed to do any real important Jedi-related activities. It’s as if the entirety of Star Wars has said, “Enough. You’ve been sitting at a desk and meditating too long on the academic abstractions of the Force. Time to go out, play with a lightsaber, and have some fun.” Really, I can’t be the only one that misses Luke going out to take care of business when he’s been acting like the Grand Master mentor figure for so long. The story is definitely picking up and moving along, even though it took the gang an entire book to figure out if Vestara was really “evil” or not. Their doubt made way for some entertaining distractions, sleuthing, and allowed a couple of backwater no-fame secondary and tertiary characters shine like only Allston can make them. Dyon and Tarth, here’s looking at you, kids.
Rating: 5 / 5