A drop in quality compared to Sacrifice as this series hits a bit of a lull.

Not much movement in the characters as it descends into lengthy space battles and some weird decisions from the main characters. ( )

Luke Skywalker is grieving for his lost wife, Mara Jade, and Jacen Solo— secretly Darth Caedus— is growing into his new role as Sith Lord. The conflict in this volume centers around Jedi against Sith, though the Jedi are unaware of this; the collateral damage, of course, is getting a whole lot of people killed as Caedus keeps raising the stakes with everything from hostage-taking to orbital bombardment of civilians. Denning keeps up the dramatic tension throughout, making it a good page-turner. ( )

The plotoutline of the book seems pretty good; unfortuntately this book is not much more then a thin tangle of lines connecting the predefined skeleton. Except for some longwinded fight-scenes, there really isn't much development. Several key points in the book are also completely butchered. ( )

It's been some time since I read Sacrifice, so I may be blaming Inferno for its sins. But the book appears to have completely ignored much of the character development of Exile, which is just plain annoying.

Ben Skywalker, once Jacen's apprentice, has been toying on the edge of Sith teachings under his master's tutelage. But during Exile, and his time on Ziost, it seemed like he had permanently put their sacrifical outlook behind him. Come Inferno, though, and we find him yet again giving heed to his emotions: wanting revenge, not justice.

Yes, his mother was just killed. But having consciously rejected Jacen's teachings, it seems strange to see him trying to leap right back into them.

Jacen, too, is acting without visible cause; he tosses Ben into the Embrace of Pain, but we're never really told why he thinks that torturing Ben will turn him. His "military" actions are equally extreme; it's surprising that nobody among his crew batted an eye, and that it took his later murder of an officer on the bridge (in Fury) before they really turned against him.

Inferno's poor characterization and senseless events result in a subpar novel; unfortunate, seeing as how the Sacrifice it builds on wasn't much better. ( )