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Review - Legacy of the Force: Exile
by aush
3 March, 2007
The fourth novel in the Legacy of the Force series, Exile, written by Aaron
Allston (Legacy of the Force: Betrayal, books in the X-Wing series),
continues the adventures of Jacen Solo and his journey to learn the ways of
the Sith. Aaron Allston does a great job in continuing this story, but more
for the other characters in the series than Jacen, with a perfect balance of
action, suspense, and humor.
The story starts shortly after Tempest where everything is on edge and the
slightest nudge will erupt the galaxy into another civil war. As Jacen works
to bring peace to the galaxy, the other heroes strive to find a more peaceful
solution and seek out the main root of all the trouble. Ben Skywalker,
however, still seeks to work with Jacen and is then tested to see if he could
in fact become Jacen's future Sith apprentice.
Allston has the reading run smoothly and everyone gets a little screen time.
Similar to Betrayal, Allston tells the stories like they're episodes making
it easy to place a bookmark. The characters all seem like themselves and act
just like you would expect them to act, but probably with a bit more humor in
them which comes from Allston. The most obvious character fun of humor in
this story and does have it wear off onto others was Lando Calrissian who
does make his appearance for the first time in the series in this book.
But how can Lando make an appearance with Luke, Mara, Leia, Han, Jacen, Ben,
Wedge, and all the other characters in the Star Wars galaxy? It doesn't seem
all that hard for Allston. A great list of characters are included in the
pages, all contributing somewhat even if all they do is stand there and say
one or two lines. One scene involving Alema Rar and several others is very
well done because of how Alema responds to the situation she gets herself
into. If a major list of characters exists, count on Allston to be able to
get them all in somehow.
Several action scenes take place, but not all the way you would expect
Allston to deliver them. When I hear the name Allston in Star Wars, I
expect some kind of space battle. Space battles do happen, but with all that
goes on with the major characters, two major fights are written like
summaries. This is disappointing, but since the story involves the Solo and
Skywalker families primarily, and they aren't really in those fights, it
makes sense to try and just get back to the Solos and Skywalkers as quickly
as possible.
And besides space fights when hearing the name Allston, expect humor to be an
accompaniment. Lando, as I mentioned earlier, is really the source of it,
but even Wedge Antilles will sneak in a humorous scene through his words and,
better yet, his and others' reactions. Even Luke and Mara have some humorous
moments when discussing their son and trying to unravel the mystery of
Lumiya's role in all of this.
Finally, for the title of the book, Legacy of the Force: Exile, it works
perfectly, as the titles for all the books in this series have. Many
individuals become exiles, the cover hinting at a couple just like Betrayal
hinted at a betrayer and Bloodlines hinted at a blood connection. And the
legacy of the Force is coming about when Ben Skywalker discovers something
that hasn't been seen in the galaxy pertaining to a certain Force wielding
group for many, many, many years. With all these connections from the
titles, just think about the upcoming books....
Final rating: 9/10; don't miss this one.
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