The second book in the Fate of the Jedi series picks up right where 'Outcast' left off.

Luke and Ben Skywalker continue to trace Jacen's steps, attempting to piece together the journey which turned him to the darkside...and continues to effect dedicated Jedi.

From the Maw comes a new threat. A new Sith world has been discovered by the training ship 'Omen', introducing a new generation of Sith Lords to the galexy. ( )

At 250 pages long and with not much new to distinguish it from the first book in the Fate of the Jedi series, Omen is a disappointment and the perfect example of what is wrong with the all-hardcover approach to this latest series of Star Wars novels. With Legacy of the Force, three of the books were hardcover, and you could maybe convince yourself that it was worth it to buy and read those immediately rather than wait for the paperbacks to come out a few months down the line. The problem with making all of this series in hardcover editions is that not every book (and certainly not Omen) is worthy of a $27 cover price. What might have worked in an $8 paperback is revealed for what it truly is in hardcover: stealing money from the pockets of hardcore fans. (Unless you do what I did and borrow it from your local library!) Perhaps Omen would have worked better trimmed down and distributed as an e-novella between two more substantial books.

Major complaints:

The author spends way too much time describing how the Aing Tii aliens lick Luke and Ben's face. Luke even has to tell Ben to "get used to being licked." Enough with the face-licking!

A major part of the book happens at the Coruscant equivalent of a livestock show, where Han and Leia are being all grandparent-y with their secret granddaughter. What's next, they show up for Open House at Coruscant P.S. #138?

No more gratuitous memories of the movies! Would Han Solo really lay in bed and think "about the various creatures he’d had to ride during the course of life..., most memorably tauntauns." He then goes on to remember cutting one open to save Luke. This is Han-frakking-Solo! I don't want to read about him lying in bed reminiscing about the pony he owned on Corellia!

Finally, this book's three plotlines are the same as the first book with some changed names/locations and sometimes two bad things happening where in the first one only one bad thing happened. Skip this one and jump right to Abyss. You will not have missed anything vital. ( )

This series has me hooked in. I want to know what it the heck is going on with the Jedi! That Force is a tricky thing - just when I think I understand it, a storyline takes me around to another view of it. I like that! Good series, so far. ( )

Transition? Confusing plot line? Huh? I was not impressed with this book. Other than having some of the same characters, it did not fit well into what Aaron Allston started off with this series. For completeness, I would recommend that you read this. But, be prepared to suffer through it. ( )

20 words or less: Mediocre Star Wars novel that takes no chances while slowly progressing the overall plot of Fate of the Jedi.

My Rating: 5/10

Pros: Avoided mistakes of Legacy of the Force, no glaring continuity errors

Cons: Mostly a set-up novel, overly cutesy at times, poor execution of Luke/Ben subplot, weak page count.

The Review: If I were judging Omen by itself, I would give it a 3 or a 4. But Fate of the Jedi appears to be trying a more serialized structure than Del Rey’s two previous SW series so it's hard to distinguish one book separately from the series. Fate of the Jedi is really putting the “opera” back in “space opera.” Rather, I’m going to focus on its role within the series. There are the overarching threads that began in Outcast and continue here but aside from a very poor sub-plot featuring Luke and his son Ben there are no internal plotlines that get resolved by the end of the book. Young Jedi continue to go crazy with the mysterious Force sickness, Jaina and Jag continue to investigate what could be causing it in the face of government pressure, Luke and Ben continue to retrace Jacen’s five year sojourn, and Leia and Han continue to do nothing of importance. The book felt like a continuation of the series but it didn’t do anything that necessitated it as separate release from that of Outcast, especially given the fact that fans of the series waited 3 months to get a meager 236 pages.

The only new information or plot development that we really gott was the introduction of a Sith remnant that had been marooned on the planet of Kesh for the last 5,000 years. Recent developments in the SW universe had set in motion a series of events that ended up with an ancient and sentient Sith ship locating the planet and allowing the Sith castaways to escape the planet. This was one of the more interesting plots of the book but it felt strange that it was introduced in this book rather than the previous one. It’s almost as if the series planners decided there wasn’t enough plot to carry a 9 book series without filler so they decided to introduce another plotline to boost the still low page count.

Other the insane Jedi plotline, which is interesting but extremely slow paced, the other characters have very little to do. Han and Leia took their granddaughter to buy a pet. Seriously? This very predictably started out as a mash-up of all of the creatures ever witnessed in a Star Wars film (rancors,rontos,banthas,etc.) and even more predictably turned into a fairly boring action sequence when the creatures get loose. The probability that Han Solo dies from being attacked by that large cat species from Attack of the Clones is so small that C-3PO couldn’t quote me the odds. Han and Leia are stuck in a character limbo where they can’t be killed off but they also can’t be fade into retirement; either of which would apparently upset the fanbase more than just making up ridiculous, implausible ways to give them something to do. But I can’t blame Christie Golden for making nothing out of nothing. She’s writing in a set series and she has to work within what she has assigned.

What I do blame Golden for is the lack of delivery in Luke and Ben plotline. She was giving the Aing Tii monks to develop, a mysterious Force sect that can use the Force to teleport, time travel, and who knows what else. There was so much potential and all of it ended up wasted, with the Aing Tii being extremely boring and developed as well as Michael Bay plot. There was a brief thread about a mysterious prophet that was interesting at first but that thread ends up being very poorly resolved with a conclusion straight out of an after school special. This wasn’t too different that the Baran Do (another Force sect) plotline in Outcast which didn’t do much other than give something for Luke and Ben to discuss and resolve until they figured out the next stepping stone in Jacen’s journey. They could give these Force traditions so much more depth and character but they turn them into these boring groups which are too stupid to solve their own poorly developed problems.

Another problem I had with Golden’s delivery was her choices of language. More than a few times, she chose weird turns of phrase that I can’t really describe other than “not Star Wars.” Even when they weren’t bad writing, they were still just off somehow. For example, towards the end of the book, Ben Skywalker gets excited and exclaims “Lubed!” That’s not a Star Wars utterance, and it shouldn’t every be said. Anywhere. At other times, she tried to be a little too cute with the dialogue between characters in relationships (Han/Leia or Jaina/Jag) and the conversations felt more at home in a romantic comedy than in Star Wars. Han and Leia tease each other in the movies but they aren’t so sappy about it. Golden seems to be the weakest of the 3 series authors so far, at least in terms of pure writing ability. I was not impressed with her Star Wars debut.

Regardless of quality, the overall plot did advance and it managed to do so without the rehashing and confusion that happened in the Legacy of the Force series which was one of my major concerns going into the series. They planners have really made an effort to organize FotJ, almost to the point where it seems like the books are overly simplistic because there is no room for organic growth. This book was released in hardcover with only 236 pages (the shortest HC Star Wars book ever, I believe). There were 4 major plotlines and I think that it wasn’t until page 90 or so that a single POV was repeated. 236 pages isn’t enough to write a complex and compelling story for four distinct groups of people whose storylines have yet to intertwine. If they combined it with the 309 pages of Outcast and edited out a few of the unnecessary scenes, you would have had a 545 page book that clearly established the plot of the series and would be worth the cover price. As a single 236-page book, Omen fails significantly. However, the faults of the book are independent of the faults of the series. As an entry in the Fate of the Jedi series, Omen manages to progress the story along without screwing up characterization or retreading old plot and I'm interested to see what happens when the storylines finally do manage to intertwine. ( )