Champions of the Force (Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy, Vol. 3)

Rating:
Summary: Wedge has a girl friend! and it isn't Winter.
Review: Han gets captured and enslaved on kessel. He meets Kip Durron and they help each other escape, but into a Maw of a forming Black Hole. Luke is trying to find Jedi for his academy, but a Dark Force spirit is threatening the students. This trilogy when combined with I, Jedi are important contributions to the SW Universe. We get Kessel, the Maw installation, Kip, adm Daala who reappears then disappears, Qui Xu, the first hint of the aftermath of Dark Empire, and more Wedge (now a critical character).
I had some problem with the story like: The spirit of a dead jedi having such tremedous power, the whole idea of the Suncrusher and the studip diversion of the blob race storyline. Unlike some, I feel that some of the darkhorse comics have made important contributions the SW Expanded Universe. Dark Empire was one of them.

For those of you who plan to read the New Jedi Order books, you'll find that Kevin J Anderson has made important contributions to SW including this trilogy and the young jedi books (the YJ books are surprisingly good).

Rating:
Summary: Ending with a bang AND a whimper
Review: The climactic novel of Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy is probably the best of the series, but in the end it is something of a disappointment.

The book picks up where Dark Apprentice leaves off, namely with yet another super weapon on the loose, this time in the hands of a would-be Jedi with revenge on his mind, while Luke lays in a helpless trance on Yavin 4. Meanwhile, a plot is in motion to kidnap Leia and Han's third child (Anakin Solo), the Republic finally gets around to moving against that hidden weapon's research facility from Book #1, and Admiral Daala continues to fail miserably in her Honor Harrington imitation (why does anyone in their right minds follow her?). All of these plot lines lead to that perennial Big Climactic Space Battle, which are a trademark of the Star Wars series. On the plus side, the action works well, the characters are much more interesting, and there?s actually a good deal of humor (more so, IMHO, than in either of the previous two books). However, on the negative side....

To give Anderson credit, he does manage to tie in all the threads he began in the previous two books, which is in some ways a marvel. But the ending feels rushed, and the novel loses much of its steam because of it. Going into the end of such a series, there should be a feeling of tension and excitement, a build-up to the final confrontations about to take place. There is little of that here, just a feeling that we're finally reaching a conclusion. Anderson does achieve his primary task of re-establishing the Jedi order, but once he has them back he doesn't really have much for them to do -- which is a shame, because that was supposedly the point of the series in the first place. At least he sets things up adequately for subsequent novels.

If you've managed to get through the first two books of the Jedi Academy Trilogy, Champions of the Force is an adequate ending. Even if you were wavering on reading the third book because Dark Apprentice was not quite up to snuff, going on to the last will at least satisfy your curiosity about how things turn out. But once you're finished, don?t expect to want to ever go back to the books again. This isn't the kind of series that's likely to occupy a permanent place on your shelves unless you are a Star Wars completest.