Shane Dix

After a very long pause in the publication of new material in the New Jedi Order series, Sean Williams and Shane Dix bring us the first chapter of the Force Heretic trilogy, Remnant.

Aptly titled, most of this novel takes place in the Imperial Remnant, who has fallen under attack by the Yuuzhan Vong, and is very nearly destroyed. A large amount of the novel also revolves around Nom Anor, as he struggles for survival in the under levels of Yuuzhan'tar, previously known as Coruscant.

Overall show more impressions of this novel are quite positive. Though not necessarily as memorable as many of the other books in this series, it stands very well as not only a single novel, but doesn't fall victim to the trilogy effect. The book actually has one of the most satisfying endings of the New Jedi Order.

The first notion that this book may be a slightly different read than normal is the lack of chapters. The story is divided into four parts, no doubt the result of having two authors working on it. We can assume that both authors wrote two parts.

However, this novel doesn't fall prey to many of the traps that others in the series has similarly not been able to avoid. There are no annoying repetitions of various terms or phrases, no scenes that simply don't make sense, with the exception maybe of Tahiri's dream scenes.

Unfortunately, the book is not completely without fault. There is very little humor, and rarely will the reader more than grin at some cliché line, or an inside joke. The space battles are adequate, but lack the vivaciousness of other NJO novels.

Though the Expanded Universe has not always followed the movies, or George Lucas's explicit word, it was especially disheartening to read that C-3PO was built by Cybot Galactica, when we know he was, in fact, assembled by Anakin Skywalker from spare parts. While an explanation probably exists, this reviewer has yet to see it.

Tahiri's scenes were quite odd, and if they continue in the same manner throughout this trilogy, it will be a frustrating series. However, it is a good possibility that Tahiri is the Force Heretic that the series title implies.

Other than those small problems, there are no major issues with this novel. Despite not being an exceptionally memorable book, Remnant holds up quite well. After reading this book, the titles Refugee and Reunion, the two remaining chapters in this series, become obvious, and we can look forward to a decent series. show less

Dear Mr Williams and Mr Dix: epithets are our friends; good friends which, when used correctly, can make writing easier. But don't use them constantly, or you'll wear them out. Poor epithets! "Anakin's mother", "the middle-aged stateswoman", "the former rebel leader." See how tiring that is to read? See how it's possible just to use "Leia" instead? Trust me, it makes things a lot less, well... leaden.

Oh, and not having a character's internal monologue read "as he had thought in his earlier show more analogy" makes things a lot less, well... inane. No one thinks like that. Trust me. show less

I had memories that this was the best of the "Force Heretic" novels: Luke and company finally reach Zonoma Sekot and learn its secrets while Han and Leia go on a rollicking space adventure on a weird planet. Well, I don't know if the difference was that reading all three Force Heretic books in one go really showed how little happened, but this time I found it the worst of these books. As always, nothing actually happens, yet nearly 400 pages are somehow taken up. Seriously, I don't get how show more Williams and Dix do it; both plots here are extremely simplistic, yet hundreds of pages somehow go by. Events that should be momentous have all the energy sapped out of them; events that should be fun are delivered as dully as possible. The midpoint peak of The New Jedi Order turns out to be an aberration; it is ending as dully and as falteringly as it began.

Who was the "Force Heretic," anyway?

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I'm not usually into Sci-Fi but I really enjoyed this book. Definitely a scary look at what could conceivably become of Humanity if we consider on our present course. It was a little difficult to get my head around different characters with the same name (and essentially the same identity), but this book is well worth a read!