Dark Journey (Star Wars: The New Jedi Order, #10) in The Expanded Universe

Dec 05, 2009 Keith rated it it was ok

Shelves: star-wars

Stars: 2.5
Re-read? Only if reading the entire NJO

I liked many of the foundational ideas that Cunningham used, but I think they were largely squandered. I don't place much of the blame on Cunningham though; most of the problems I have with the choices she makes were likely dictated to her by the people planning the entire series. It's a quick read, so you don't lose much by reading it.

So the biggest problem is that they finally decide it is time to focus on Jaina as a character, but they don't w Stars: 2.5
Re-read? Only if reading the entire NJO

I liked many of the foundational ideas that Cunningham used, but I think they were largely squandered. I don't place much of the blame on Cunningham though; most of the problems I have with the choices she makes were likely dictated to her by the people planning the entire series. It's a quick read, so you don't lose much by reading it.

So the biggest problem is that they finally decide it is time to focus on Jaina as a character, but they don't want to spend multiple books building a foundation for her character. She hasn't been a main character really since she was a child, and she has been very secondary in this series until the previous book. They clearly had a character arc in mind for her character, but it seems to me they skipped straight to a climactic point. (view spoiler)[They obviously wanted her to go dark for a while. That's fine. I didn't care for it when she just randomly uses force lightning in the previous book, but it wasn't egregious. This book though has her just basically be a flat-out unrepentant dark side user. She is threatening to kill her friends (she threatens Zekk with Force lightning if he doesn't let her pilot). She is completely ambivalent about causing the death of allies. She pressures Lowbacca to send for wookie mechanics, and a bunch get killed because she doesn't send them an escort. She just tells Lowbacca, who is obviously upset, "If I'd known the wookiee ships were going to meet with that much resistance, I would have sent an escort..I don't know the location of every Sith-spawned hunk of rock in this galaxy! Yet....What we're doing is worthwhile. Important. I'm sorry that some of your friends died, but we've got to move forward." Later, she wants to trick the Vong into thinking the Trickster is all over the place and get them to hunt the signal. So she puts that signal on her own pilots' ships and doesn't tell them. Then she sends them out alone or in pairs on unknowing suicide missions to die. They just think they are going on patrol. Her response when confronted: "We're close to finding a way to lure the Vong into a trap. In the meanwhile, this little diversion is keeping them busy. They're finding my ship all over this quadrant." When Kyp volunteers to go on one of these missions, she says, "Forget it. The Jedi are too few and too valuable to risk." Jaina wasn't planning on going to Anakin's funeral. That doesn't fit at all, but whatever. When Kyp comes to get her to convince her to go, she is disappointed she doesn't have her lightsaber because she would attack him if she did. What? She uses the dark side to force her good friend Lowbacca to do what she wants. She even throws the life debt his family owes her family in his face to manipulate him to get the wookies to come and help her plan (these are the wookies who get killed on the way because Jaina didn't bother sending an escort through a war zone). I'm all for Jaina making evil decisions, but there has to be some kind of progression. She can't just lose her brothers and suddenly she is ambivalent about getting her allies slaughtered by tricking them, threatening her friends, use the dark side on people, and attacking Kyp multiple times. She uses Force lightning on Kyp and attacks him again with her lightsaber when he has to audacity to ask her what her battle plan is. Even in the very beginning, she fully expects that Tenel Ka will execute her disarmed opponents. She is already fully on-board with publicly executing pirates who have surrendered? Then, at the very end, she has some kind of vision and is like, "wait a minute, I don't need to use the dark side." And she is just done with the dark side. Just like that. (hide spoiler)]

This book also continues the series tradition of having no clue what to do with Kyp. (view spoiler)

The plot is a complete mess. (view spoiler)

Plenty of people have their character destroyed or damaged. (view spoiler)

Other things:
- (view spoiler)
- There's never been a truer line written: "Is every third human in this galaxy named Solo?" haha.
- More senseless Kyp hatred: Leia talking to Kyp, "There's a need here...one you understand better than most. Maybe you could make yourself useful for a change." Later. Kyp, "I know how much I owe your brother." Leia, "Really? You have a strange way of repaying your debts. You've done nothing to support him, and everything you can to spread dissension among the Jedi." Well, Leia, you absolute moron, does it matter that Kyp was right and Luke was wrong? Does it matter that Kyp has actually done something in this war while the Jedi at large have sat around doing almost nothing? Does it matter that Luke is now changing their strategy to be a whole lot closer to what Kyp was doing instead of the purely defensive idiotic plan they had before?
- Why is Jag in this book? (view spoiler) The most infuriating part of this book is how differently Jaina and Kyp are treated. Kyp is treated like he is practically a Sith because he thinks it's okay to go to a system and attack a genocidal invasion force (crazy I know). But Jaina (view spoiler)
- There is an entire drawn scene towards the beginning where nothing made sense. (view spoiler)
- So Jaina (view spoiler)

Previous Reads: 2003/2006 3-Stars ...more

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Mar 25, 2010 Jeff Diamond rated it it was amazing

Shelves: star-wars

It's the mark of a good author to make you care about a certain character. It is the mark of a great author to make you hate a character. In this volume of the New Jedi Order, a group of Jedi go to the Hapes Cluster, and a few of the characters that we have seen before (particularly in The Courtship of Princess Leia) make another appearance. One notable one is Ta'a Chume, former Queen Mother of Hapes. Oh, how I hate her.

One of the nice things about this book is the speed with which it moves, par ...more

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