It seems that throughout the "Fate of the Jedi" series, Troy Denning will have the enviable task of following Christie Golden's mediocre entries. In comparison to her off-base characterizations, wheel-spinningly irrelevant plots, and adolescent writing style, Denning can't help come off looking pretty decent. But even on his own merits, he manages to bring a few things to the table that have helped his two "Fate" novels stand out as the best of the bunch.

His action scenes in "Vortex", for instance, are really second to none. There are three distinct action set pieces that really zip along not only because they're fun, but because they're character driven. A fight on the hanger deck between two unexpected foes, a daring prison break, and an inevitable confrontation between Luke and Abeloth. All three scenes are highlights not just of the book, but of the entire "Fate of the Jedi" series so far.

Denning also does a passable job of dealing with some of the more inane goings-on from other novels in the series. He manages to merge Christie Golden's clunkily introduced slave revolution plot far more organically with the overall story. He tosses in a few callbacks to the annoyingly arbitrary shenenegans on Klatooine which make that entire subplot seem retroactively relevant. Even if it was only for a brief moment, he actually made Abeloth seem menacing. Just as he did with "Abyss", Denning takes a clunky, meandering series, and wrestles it back on track.

Which isn't to say things are perfect. Denning still has a tin ear when it comes to dialogue and humor. His characters frequently start talking like they're starring in a sit-com rather than a space opera, and his 'jokes' usually draw far too much attention to themselves. He also continues the "Fate of the Jedi" tradition of having everyone act maddeningly out of character in order to move the plot forward. The bickering Jedi would never end up bickering in the first place if any of them would approach their crises with a smidge less melodrama and a pinch more thoughfulness. But thoughful Jedi are so yesterday. Now they're all modeled after Kyp Durron, circa the "Jedi Academy Trilogy" era.

Daala's personality also remains hijacked in service to keeping the tension with the Jedi overly-inflated. She was far more interesting during the "Legacy of the Force" storyline, when she was philosophically opposed to the Jedi, but still a respectably principled military leader. Now she's practically psychotic in her drive to control the Jedi. Or blow them up. Or annoy them. Or something. She's like Wyle E. Coyote in her ambiguous persuit of them. It earns a little chuckle each time Denning (and Golden and Allston for that matter) tries to write unironic scenes where Daala mopes around wondering why everybody is mad at her in a wierd attempt to make her sympathetic.

Oh, and there's an awkward scene that serves as the culmination of the loco-Jedi plot where, in front of government dignitaries and the media, a doctor kicks a Jedi in the crotch to prove he's not crazy anymore. I have no idea what to make of that touching moment.

Which brings us to probably the single largest problem with not just this book, but the entire "Fate of the Jedi" series. This cycle of books has been burdened with the worst villains ever. There are basically three main villains: Daala, the Lost Tribe of the Sith, and Abeloth. Daala is a poor villain for the above mentioned reason; that is, she's being written so out of character, she's become a cypher. She does outrageous things for no other reason than to make the reader hate her. Bleh.

Then there are the Sith, who have spent most of their face time being more petulant than menacing. In a galaxy that was invaded by and eventually repelled the likes of the Yuuzhan Vong, it seems that a little more would be expected before you were instilling crippling fear in that galaxy's defenders. Other than calling themselves Sith, the Lost Tribe don't really do anything besides be mean to each other and toss snippy insults at Luke Skywalker.

And then there's Abeloth. There is a scene where Lando is talking to some Jedi and he urges them that when they go to fight Abeloth, they'll need EVERY JEDI AVAILABLE in order that they can DEFEAT THE MOST HORRIBLE THREAT THE GALAXY HAS EVER KNOWN!! But i'd like to ask Lando a quick question. Mr. Calrisian, on what exactly do you base this dire warning? Other than one very well written fight scene at the end of this novel, what exactly has Abeloth done to scare everyone so much? She's made a host of secondary and tertiary characters go insane, and she can turn into a tentacle monster that no one in the cast has actually scene except Luke and Ben. And that's all. She has done NOTHING! It's one thing to have everyone say the villain is a terrible threat. But at some point, you have to show them being an actual threat. And not just a threat in a one-on-one fight. The Yuuzhan Vong blew up planets and conquered Coruscant and killed Chewbacca! Scary! Fear of them seemed healthy.

The entire backbone of the "Fate of the Jedi" series is the threat posed by Abeloth. Its supposed to justify the alliance between Luke and the Sith. It's supposed to justify the desperate measures to which the Jedi go to launch their flight of StealthX's. But Abeloth never does anything threatening on a scale larger than putting a few people in danger and causing Luke to grow angst-ridden about all his exes. All the fretting and gnashing of teeth just rings so extraordinarily hollow that even when Troy Denning pulls off great action scenes, they loose a bit of their effect when you reflect on what everybody is fighting about.

That there are three more novels in this series is a daunting prospect. I suppose the silver lining is that Troy Denning gets to write the finale. But if the pattern holds, we'll have to sift through two more wheel-spinning books before we get to the conclusion, one of which will be written by Christie Golden, which has proven to be a dire prospect.