“Fett, you can teach me to bring down Jedi. You’ve done it often enough.” -Jaina
Jaina goes off to find Boba and ask him to train her to fight Jedi with non-Jedi tactics, believing it to be the only way to have a chance against Jacen in her impending duel with him. He reluctantly agrees, but enjoys humiliating her with a few tricks while training her. Here he is an non-Force sensitive old man, and he is able to beat her in a few fights.
Ben, on the other side of the galaxy from Mandalore, decides to launch a true investigation into his mother’s death, using the training he received earlier in the series as a GAG soldier. He starts at the scene of the crime remembering a fact that he had unconsciously filed away when he found Mara’s body. He calls in some favors, including one from his old GAG mentor, who is now Jacen’s right hand man.
On the war side of the story, we see the return of the Imperial remnant as both the exiled GA and Jacen’s GA try to woo Palleon, former understudy to the late Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Here’s the breakdown.
Characters
Revelation sees the return of Palleon and the Empire, and Tahiri Veila, who has been missing from the series until now. I don’t like her new role, though. It seems a bit of a stretch for her to turn so far from the light side for a few more moments with Anakin. Palleon, on the other hand, acted in character and was just as intelligent as you would expect of someone who served under Thrawn.
Story
With the last book, you can see them trying to drag out the story a bit. With this one, you see the dragging end and the story begin to pick up again. It’s not great, but it is a necessary step in the overall arc. A good set up to the finale that is Invincible.
In the end, it is incomplete. What I mean is that, while it is a complete story in itself, it is still a preparatory step for a finale. It leaves you with the knowledge that there is a final showdown soon, just not in this book. Don’t get me wrong, though, it’s a good book.
C-3PO: “I say, sir, I might suggest a more gradual approach.”
Jag: “Good idea. I’ll pass it along to Han.”
C-3PO: “Why, thank you, sir. Though he’s always been reluctant to implement my suggestions.”
In this book we see how truly dense most of the Star Wars characters are. In the previous few books, Jacen has killed Mara, set fire to Kashyyk, tortured and tried to kill Ben Skywalker and taken over the Galactic Alliance. Somehow, most people haven’t realized that he’s a Sith yet. How exactly is that possible?
Then he goes and kidnaps his own daughter, who is also the heir to the throne of the Hapan Consortium, in an effort to bring the Hapans into the GA fold. Smartly, Tenel Ka withdraws from nearly all contact instead, denying Jacen the support he wanted. And people still don’t realize he’s a Sith. Either the people in the Star Wars universe are very forgiving of family/war heros or they are truly dense and refuse to see what he really is.
Anyway, here’s the breakdown.
Characters
I wasn’t all that impressed with the Jedi vs. Jacen characters in this book. The Jaina’s group vs. Alema Rar was marginally better as they actually seemed to learn something and grow a little. Jaina realized that going after Jacen with Jedi tactics wouldn’t work so she has to learn a whole new style of combat to fight him and goes the the one person in the galaxy that has experience hunting Jedi, Boba Fett.
Story
I was less impressed by the story than the characters. An attack on Jacen only to place a tracker? Jacen’s plan to kidnap his daughter seemed half-baked as did Tenel Ka’s reluctance to go against Jacen. One thing I did like was the foreshadowing when Kyle Katarn mentions that Centerpoint’s destruction left a void in the Force (according to spoilers I’ve read, this may have implications in the Fate of the Jedi books).
Overall, it wasn’t a great book. Good, but lacking too much quality to be great. At this point in the Legacy series I think they started having trouble with ways to extend it over 9 books and it started to drag a bit.
So apparently, not everyone likes Jacen’s way running things. The Wookiees are some of those people. So what does Jacen do to fix that? By burning their forest planet to a crisp, that’s how. Hence, the title Inferno.
So Luke’s lost his wife. He ran out and chopped the head off the person he thought was responsible, but found out afterwards that he was wrong. Then his son is kidnapped and tortured by Jacen. Luke does not like this and nearly kills Jacen. Hence, the title Inferno.
Things are really coming to a head. The Galactic Alliance that just rose from the ashes of the Yuuzhan Vong war is now fractured in another civil war. The Jedi have split from the GA and a Sith is now in control of the ruling power in the galaxy. Where have I heard this before…
Anyways, it’s a good book, like the rest of the series. Be sure to give it a read when you can.
Part of the journey to become a Sith involves sacrificing something that means a great deal to you. For Jacen, he’s not sure what that is until the end of this book.
Ben has started to figure out that Jacen isn’t a good guy anymore, especially when Jacen orders him to assassinate Corellia’s newest leader. Luke and Mara’s relationship is strained because of their encounters with Lumiya. Mara, being the person she is, decides to hunt the Dark Lady of the Sith, and neither character survives this book, but not in the way you might immediately think.
If you really must know what Jacen has to sacrifice, it’s Ben’s love for him, but it’s the how and why that is really telling of Jacen’s character. He is one cold-hearted son of a motherless pygmy goat and only gets darker from here on out.
Despite many fans decrying Traviss for killing Mara, it probably wasn’t her decision and it was necessary for the story. Don’t malign her like many did Salvatore for killing Chewie.
It’s the midpoint book in the series and things are really starting to heat up.
Han and Leia are hunted. By their own son, no less. The Skywalkers are strained as Luke and Mara suspect Lumiya is behind Jacen’s new path and neither like that he wants Ben to follow him. All the while they are still working behind the scenes with Han and Leia.
This is the first book we really get to see Ben on his own. It’s a good side story that grows Ben’s character a lot. From this book on, Ben really begins to think for himself and not just lean on what Jacen or Luke and Mara tell him. It’s a hard path that starts in a dark place on Ziost, but it’s a necessary one.
Han, Leia, Luke and Mara gather with Wedge, Iella, Corran and Mirax on Booster Terrik’s red star destroyer and discuss what’s going on in the galaxy. They come to the conclusion that someone is manipulating the war for their own ends and instead of focusing on the war, they should focus on finding the manipulator.
There’s a lot more going on, but it’s been a while now since I read it. It’s a good book and fits well as part of the story of the Legacy of the Force series.
I see why this book is called Tempest. By the end of the book, there is a literal tempest of battles going on all over the Hapan Consortium. From space battles between capital ships to lightsaber vs. lightwhip to kidnapping attempts to the Falcon dodging through a battle while the passengers argue amongst themselves. Ooh… it’s so exciting I read it in about a day.
Han and Leia discover just how far their side of the war is willing to go to win. It just happens to be too far for them: killing the Hapan Queen, who is, unbeknownst to them, Jacen’s wife and mother to their granddaughter, Tenel Ka. They’re none to happy about it and by the end of the book, are no longer willing to help the new government they just helped set up.
Alema Rar is back from Tenupe with a grudge against Leia. She is the first person to figure out definitively that Jacen is going Sith and decides that there’sno better revenge against Leia than to help him along. So she teams up with Lumiya.
Jacen is still being stupid and going down the Sith path. Yes, he’s stupid. He fell for a simple misdirection. “Gee, I can save the galaxy by becoming Sith! That worked out so well for my grandfather! Wait! It didn’t! Let me time-walk a couple of times to see what he did wrong… Okay. I won’t make those mistakes. I’ll just alienate my entire family.” Idiot.
Jacen is exactly why it’s never good to justify the wrong actions by telling yourself it’s for the greater good. Luke figured that out in the first book of the Dark Nest Trlogy. Unfortunately, Jacen won’t figure it out any time soon if at all, since he’s been duped into listening to Lumiya and Vergere. Again I say, Idiot.
Also, Ben shows just how stupid he is for following Jacen. He tries to arrest Han, right after Han just pulled him into the Falcon from free-floating in space. Apparently, stupidity is contagious when your hanging around a Sith wannabe.
It’s a great book and a wonderful addition to the series. I’m loving this series. It’s the first time we’ve seen the family ties of the Solos and Skywalkers tested. The first time they’ve really not been on the obviously right side. The first time they’ve been on the opposie sides. It makes for excellent character development.
This one picks up right where Betrayal left off: Jacen is learning the ways of the Sith with Ben Skywalker as his apprentice. The elder Solos are on the opposite side of the conflict between Corellia and the Galactic alliance as their children and Luke. Luke is beginning to have doubts about Jacen and is fighting with Mara over those doubts.
After reading this, I find myself disliking Jacen more and more. He’s being sucked into the idea that you have to do the wrong things to get the right result. For example, he keeps telling himself that he’s trying to avert war with whatever he does, yet his leading the raids on Corellian sections of Coruscant just push the Corellians further toward war. Then he fires the first shots of the war with Corellia.
He also alienates his parents and sister with everything he does. Han actually says that Jacen, the Jacen he knows, is dead. He doesn’t want anything to do with this new person that Jacen has become. Jacen tells himself that his family’s rejection of him is all part of the sacrifice he has to make to bring order to the galaxy.
Also making an appearance in this book is bounty hunter Boba Fett. He’s dying and trying to make the last bit of his life count for something… by finding a way to make his life last longer. Along the way he is approached by someone with his former wife’s jewelry who also promises to show him his daughter, who has tried to kill him in the past and hasn’t seen him for 50 years. Wonderful family, the Fetts.
Han is busy on Corellia, taking care of other family business. His cousin, Thracken, has apparently put a contract out on Han and his family. Han does not like this and decides to “talk” to Thracken. And by “talk” I mean “kill.” Of course, this causes problems for the Galactic Alliance, but they are not foremost on Han’s mind, since they are Corellia’s enemy at the moment.
All in all, a great book. Definitely fun to read and a worthy sequel to Betrayal.
We keep trying to retire. Give up this life of shooting things.
Tycho:
We’re really men of peace at heart.
From Betrayal…
Thrackan:
All right. General Antilles, acting as Chief of State and Minister of War for Corellia, I hereby order you to communicate with your daughter Syal and do your genuine best to persuade her to follow whatever course of action I recommend to her. Is that clear enough?
I saw this coming. I saw it coming ever since New Jedi Order: Traitor. When he dropped the Light Side vs Dark Side mindset, I knew he would fall to the dark side. It was inevitable. I’m talking about Jacen Solo. I finished Legacy of the Force: Betrayal last night. It’s a good book. The ending left me saying “holy crap.” The whole Dark Side Phantoms thing was pretty sweet. I can’t wait for Bloodlines to come out. Then Tempest. Then the other six books that follow.
On to Outbound Flight! Yay for another Timothy Zahn novel!
I’m glad that the first series after the New Jedi Order series didn’t focus on the Yuuzahn Vong assimilating into the galaxy. That would have been boring.
