Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Abyss (edition 2009)

Finally this series has something beginning to resemble a storyline. I thought it would never happen. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the writing as much as I did with the previous two books, or even Denning's own books in the previous series. So I'm not sure whether to be elated that something is finally happening, or disappointed in the writing. It didn't stop from reading until I'd finished though.

While I enjoyed the previous books, they didn't really have a driving force behind them. But now we're finally starting to see groups have objectives. And some questions with a bit more substance than "What's Going On?". There are two women and a force presence, who seem to be important, but for what? What's going to happen with the lost tribe of the sith? What's going to happen between Daala and the Jedi now that (Sarcastic Spoiler) something has happened.

Admittedly, these don't appear until towards the end of the book, which means that for a long time the plot is as aimless as the others. It feels like that, while the series does start slow, the stage has finally been set for this "epic" story. In truth, I feel that it would have been much better served by squashing the first three books into one, and going from there. Maybe a trilogy. I'm starting to think that the nine-book series is just because it worked before, not because the story needs nine books. And that disappoints me somewhat. I'm not as excited about the next book as I was in Legacy of the Force, and now that I've read all three authors in this series, I feel just in saying the story is just not as good.

Maybe that will change. Luke finally knows about the Sith, so maybe it'll get better now.

The characters in this book are okay. They seem to have suddenly all got much better at dealing with the ill jedi, and I'm quite disappointed that a lot of this stuff seems to have been glossed over. I don't like the Jedi Council in this book. Master Hamner suddenly seems to be almost a "bad guy", when in previous books he was a nice person, doing his best for the jedi order, Master Cilighal is barely in it, although in charge of the ill. Master Sebatyne is annoying. Master Katarn isn't bad, but again, isn't really in it. And some of the other characters just don't match up to who they have been in previous books. Some of them are characterized quite well - but wrongly. And that's the problem I had with the writing. it doesn't match the others in the series well enough. it's like reading a different story. It seems the only character that is continued well from Omen Alanna. Unfortunately, I didn't really like how wise she was in that book, and the same is true here. I'm quite disappointed.

Denning's descriptive language isn't the best. "In the Jade Shadow's forward canopy there hung twin black holes" is a lie, they are ahead of the Jade shadow. I had to re-read that several times. I also didn't like the description of the main room of sinkhole station as a serving bowl. It was a fairly long metaphor, and "bowl-shaped would have sufficed.
Finally, he keeps using words, particularly slang, that I've never seen in the star wars universe before (Maybe this is just ignorance on my part), and then having to explain them. Or worse, not explaining them. In a similar vein, it seems every little trick has to have a name - the "Shling Slide" or the "Toydarian double flip flop" (Exaggeratted silliness - slightly). The first of those isn't explained at all, but it's apparently something to do with persuasion. The second is just a pointless way of saying "yes" to Allana's statement. it takes about a page. To be fair, those are the only two I can think of - but they both annoyed me quite a lot,

In writing this review, I think I've come to the conclusion that it just isn't up to the standards I expect from a Star Wars Book. It gets +1 for it's additional plot, but loses points for the unnecessary terms, the poor descriptions, and the misalignment with the first two books. On the plus side, some of his ideas were pretty neat - a particular journalists method of spying for example. I really hope the next one goes somewhere. ( )

http://booknutreview.blogspot.com/2011/03/fate-of-jedi-abyss-troy-denning.html ( )

Following the trail of Jacen's departure to the dark side, Luke and Ben also find that the Lost Tribe of Sith is after them, and that the threat that has tortured the Jedi dwells within the Maw, and that it wants to get out. Meanwhile, the other Jedi and their allies try to work against Daala, finding it more difficult with each passing day.

Another fun read in the series and a great addition to the Star Wars Expanded Universe. ( )

The third book in the Fate of the Jedi series fell short of my expectations when compared to the adventures the first two books held. It moved a little slower, didn't feel that it progressed the 'Fate of the Jedi' story along much, and just seemed a little flat. Until the last few chapters when it seemed that a 'hurry up, we have to wrap this up' mode kicked in.

This book left me feeling the Jedi Order is a weak group of bumbling idiots that can't function without Luke's direct control. When a slimmy journalist can set spycams within the Jedi Temple, all you can do is groan. ( )

This was a nice addition to the story line. I only gave it a three as I still feel a little lost. For example, the mysterious "evil force" lady is still a wonder and I'm having a tough time understanding her relevance to the story. However, overall I liked it. Finally, the two plot lines begin to merge.

At this point in the storyline, I would also recommend that you read the two eNovellas Lost Tribe of the Sith downloadable for free as PDFs on starwars.com here:

http://www.starwars.com/vault/books/losttribe01.html

and here:

http://www.starwars.com/vault/books/losttribe02.html ( )

Not worth $27, so borrow it from the library. Okay, I had to get past that. Now on with the review.

This book moves the plotlines of the Fate of the Jedi series incrementally forward. Denning juggles the plotlines well enough to keep you wanting to know what happens next, but the problem is the same as with the previous two books in the series: nothing much happens next, or at least nothing much different.

A quick recap of the Fate of the Jedi plotlines. In plot A, Luke and Ben Skywalker are following the path of Jacen Solo's five-year walkabout to try to find out why he turned to the dark side. In plot B, young Jedi are falling prey to a mysterious disease that makes them believe that everyone around them has been replaced with evil copies. And in plot C, a planet where Sith have lived in isolation for thousands of years is visited by a Sith spaceship that returns them to space and makes them a power to be feared.

In Abyss, all three plots are nudged along, but it feels much like these words that are given to Luke on page 233: "We aren't telling you anything.... We can't tell you what it is because we don't know." Except I think the three writers in the series do know the answers to the mystery of each plot line. They just have the poor job of having to stretch that mystery out over nine books when the job could be completed well in one or two, a trilogy at the most.

And so we come back to my first point. This series is only being released in hardcover editions at $27 a pop. With tax you will be paying $250 for this "epic." It feels like a crass, commercial move on the part of the publisher and there has been nothing in the first three books that felt like it needed three books to be told.

I will read the rest of the series. I like the Star Wars universe and I would like to know the answers to the mysteries, but I will be borrowing each copy from the library. Maybe if enough of us do this, the publisher will get the hint. ( )

Just when I think that the Star Wars universe has been played out, they come out with another compelling series that goes in a whole new direction. I like that this series isn't centered around war and I'm always intrigued by the whole Force mythology. Luke is awesome, as usual, but in such a non-flashy way. ( )

Jumped the shark with all the beyond the shadows rubbish, but other than that it was pretty average. ( )

20 words or less: Fate of the Jedi plotline begins to pick up in a typically uneven Denning novel that does more right than wrong.

My Rating: 3.5/5

Pros: Interesting Luke/Ben subplot finally delivers on potential; Spot-on characterizations; Series plotlines finally start to come together

Cons: Poorly written dream sequences; Denning continues to demonstrate a weakness for describing action sequences; Techspeak crutch used to arrange scenes

The Review: After reading Omen (review here), the Fate of the Jedi series left a bad taste in my mouth. Now, after Troy Denning’s Abyss, I’m happy to say the series appears to be back on track. In the first two books, it was clear that LucasBooks were trying to fix some of the issues that plagued their first attempts at large story-arcs (of the 9+ book variety); mostly regarding continuity errors, sloppy characterizations, and dropped plotlines. It was easy to see that each book had a specific start and end-point and the author was responsible for navigating between the two. This structured approach felt unwieldy in the first two books, possibly a result of the authors not being given enough plot to fill a 350 page book with or creative struggles on the author’s part. It might be the fact that the overarching plotlines are finally starting to intertwine, but Abyss felt like a fully developed story rather than 3 unrelated novellas that simply occupied the same chronological space in the Star Wars Universe. The characters all have something interesting to do, rather than visiting the galactic pet market or teaching sages the importance of living life to the fullest or whatever one-dimensional storyline was used to bridge the predefined end points for Han, Leia, and Luke.

The Luke/Ben plotline specifically was a huge improvement over previous entries and very interesting in its own right. Retracing Jacen’s journey to various Force-wielding cultures around the galaxy sounds like a very intriguing story on paper. However, the first two entries came and went with only minor amounts of “galaxy-building” development or Force philosophy leaving only a massive amount of wasted potential behind. With the Mind Walkers, a secretive sect hidden amidst the galaxy’s largest Black Hole cluster, Denning delivers on that original potential, fleshing out a strange and possibly ill-intentioned group of Force-users that inhabit an equally mysterious space station. In previous books, the Luke/Ben story was a glaring weakness. In Abyss, Denning has improved it into one of it’s strengths.

The second plotline concerning the “Jedi-sickness” plaguing young Jedi Knights continued as well. This was one of the most intriguing parts of the first two books and Denning managed to add some much needed momentum to the story after it started to crawl in Golden’s Omen (10% of the book involved two characters going to dinner). The multi-faceted Jedi/Republic/Empire/Press conflict continues to develop as loyalties change and additional incidents occur. The third plotline is Sith being Sithly. Which doesn’t disappoint, although they aren’t quite as evil as they possibly should be. Clearly, all three plotlines are related but this is the one that is really going to make things interesting in the books to come. Overall, the series made tremendous improvements plot-wise in this volume.

While I was much happier with the plot advancement of Abyss, it still had some stylistic problems, albeit not nearly as many as Omen. Where Golden was a Star Wars “noob” still finding her voice, Denning is a seasoned Star Wars author. He gets what Star Wars characters do and don’t say (at least pre-Phantom Menace characters anyways). The majority of the dialogue and galaxy-building is strong aside from Denning’s tendency for tech-dumping. Inventing “mirfields”, “wallscopes”, and other technologies for a single scene is more lazy writing than anything else. Rather than trying to come up with an internally consistent reason for the situation he wants to write, Denning resorts to “new technological advancements” to introduce a conflict. It doesn’t help that these buzzwords never really get explained and don’t make much sense from any of the context clues. This is further compounded by Denning’s apparent inability to write an action sequence. As soon as the action gets going, whether it’s the exploration of an ancient run-down space station, a lightsaber battle in zero gee, or a chase through the streets of Coruscant, the characters get lost in general spatial vagueness and an absolute vacuum of detail. Anyone who has scene Star Wars knows that the visual elements are tremendously important and Denning just can’t deliver up to expectations. I spend so much time trying to figure out what is actually happening that it’s almost impossible to get lost in the thrill of a fight. Normally, I would be a little lenient but Denning does this in every Star Wars book he has every written. I suggest he try a little Joe Abercrombie to see what how an action scene should be done.

Ignoring my distaste for a couple of Denning’s bad habits, Abyss is still a worthwhile entry in the Fate of the Jedi series and it really put the series back on track without straying from the more rigid serialized structure that is cleaning up the series continuity issues quite nicely. This was especially nice to see after Omen failed to advance the plot in any appreciable way and wasted a huge opportunity with the Luke/Ben subplot. Honestly though, if you aren’t a Star Wars junkie like me, there’s nothing really worth talking about. I would say you were missing much. As a fanboy, however, I’m very eager to see where the story goes in future volumes. Unfortunately for me, FotJ Book 4, Backlash, won’t be out until next March. ( )