Rating: 
Summary: Huh?!
Review: What happened? What did I miss? Is this another planet? Who gave these fools the authority the publish another novel? Is this some sort of scheme to make James Luceno look like Tolkien?
There is NO excuse for writing this poor.I should start out my complaint by clarifying several things:
1) I am a huge Star Wars fan, especially of The New Jedi Order.
2)I must give Dix and Williams the benefit of the doubt-the idea of Zonoma Sekot always struck me as rather hokey and a waste of time. All they could do was carry the story along as best they could.
3)They didn't do that. My main beef with this book is the way they have to have every Star Wars plotline re-emerge before the end. Luceno brought us both Centerpoint and Hapes, Cunningham wrote Hapes AGAIN, and now these...fools!...bring back Bakura for the third time. It wasn't interesting back then, and it's worse now. They also write the stars totally out of character. The two main groups, Luke's and the Solo's both stumble around like idiots and accomplish absolutely nothing! You'd think in 430 odd pages something would happen, but no, it's off to Chiss space to foil an assassination, and then to Bakura to foil a separate assassination. I'm tired of too much political intrigue and too little action. That brings me to my next topic. The action. I can just hear people reading this and saying "What action?" You might have missed it trying to look for a sensible sentence. There was action, I promise you, but it read like the fan fiction I wrote in second grade. These people need to learn how to write a space battle. Consult any of the following for advice: Michael Stackpole, Timothy Zahn, Greg Keyes, R.A. Salvatore, Troy Denning, Aaron Allston, A.C. Crispin, etc. It's a long list, so I'm sure they'll find something helpfull in that list of authors, or at least they could buy a MR Spell and fix all the damn typoes.
Rating:
Summary: Huh?!
Review: What happened? What did I miss? Is this another planet? Who gave these fools the authority the publish another novel? Is this some sort of scheme to make James Luceno look like Tolkien?
There is NO excuse for writing this poor. I should start out my complaint by clarifying several things:
1) I am a huge Star Wars fan, especially of The New Jedi Order.
2)I must give Dix and Williams the benefit of the doubt-the idea of Zonoma Sekot always struck me as rather hokey and a waste of time. All they could do was carry the story along as best they could.
3)They didn't do that. My main beef with this book is the way they have to have every Star Wars plotline re-emerge before the end. Luceno brought us both Centerpoint and Hapes, Cunningham wrote Hapes AGAIN, and now these...fools!...bring back Bakura for the third time. It wasn't interesting back then, and it's worse now. They also write the stars totally out of character. The two main groups, Luke's and the Solo's both stumble around like idiots and accomplish absolutely nothing! You'd think in 430 odd pages something would happen, but no, it's off to Chiss space to foil an assassination, and then to Bakura to foil a separate assassination. I'm tired of too much political intrigue and too little action. That brings me to my next topic. The action. I can just hear people reading this and saying "What action?" You might have missed it trying to look for a sensible sentence. There was action, I promise you, but it read like the fan fiction I wrote in second grade. These people need to learn how to write a space battle. Consult any of the following for advice: Michael Stackpole, Timothy Zahn, Greg Keyes, R.A. Salvatore, Troy Denning, Aaron Allston, A.C. Crispin, etc. It's a long list, so I'm sure they'll find something helpfull in that list of authors, or at least they could buy a MR Spell and fix all the damn typoes.
Rating: 
Summary: The end is near
Review: While the first in the trilogy was good enough this one really pulled me in. This is what a Star Wars book should be. It had political intrigue, back room dealings, betrayal and action; in my opinion all the elements that make this fantastic series such a success. Mr. Williams and Mr. Dix have done an excellent job in book 2 of their trilogy and I am eagerly waiting for book 3 to be released. The plot line concerning Bakura the Ssi'Ruuk and the p'W'eck was rather suspenseful and thrilling. It kind of reminded me of the X-wing series. In addition a character from the past is re-introduced. "think the Corellian Trilogy." There are a few twists and turns as Jaina, Han, and Leia try to uncover what is truly taking place on Bakura and why there is a communications breakdown. The biggest surprise for me was at the end with Bakura's Prime Minister; never saw that one coming. As well, the subplot with Tahiri was interesting even though she really isn't a favorite character of mine. One minor flaw that this book might have might be that it really doesn't advance the overall storyline as far as the war is concerned but I didn't really care. I simply read it, or rather listened to it as a stand alone story and I was entertained to the very last CD. This book contains 3 CDs in addition to the great narration by Jonathan Davis there is music and sound effects. Enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Ugh.
Review: Whose idea was it to let this slop stretch into a trilogy? All of the important points could have been condensed into a single novel (or maybe even a short story). The New Jedi Order does bring an exciting new plot arc to the Star Wars universe, and there have been some great books in the series, but once we get toward te end, the true marketing genius becomes clear; a reader who has already read a dozen novels and gotten caught up in the story of the war with the Vong, will work their way through even the worst book to make it to the end of the series. Or indeed, the worst three books. Only a couple of interesting bits (like the Tahiri subplot) save this from a 1 star review.
Rating:
Summary: Another embarassment
Review: Williams and Dix are careless and sloppy. They make constant major mistakes with the source material, like claiming that Mara and Luke were last in Chiss space in Thrawn's day (off by about a decade, given that Mara and Luke went into Chiss space in a Zahn's last series). Prime Minister Cundertol loses an arm at the elbow, wants payment to buy a new arm, decides to fight for it, and clenches his fists. Both of them. None of the pre-NJO characters, not a single one, acts in character. Luke may as well be Kenth Hamner or any other minor Jedi with a vague personality. Jacen, the thoughtful one, the one who should be the most self-aware and applicably intelligent, acts like an absent minded professor. Danni continues to throw herself at Jacen, still with no justification other than hormones. It seems like she does this because someone decided to write this plot into the series, but no effort is made to actually show any sort of interest or interaction, any reason for her interest. Perhaps this is because the idea itself makes no sense'they have no compelling potential for a relationship. Hopefully she's killed off soon. The entire Bakura plot is pointless, another slow, small mystery being presented when the series really needs to get moving. Tahiri is sometimes written competently, but the resolution of her multiple personality subplot {makes no sense}. Welcome to the realm of the plot device. There is some small praise I can offer: the Yuuzhan Vong are written wonderfully. Nom Anor is at the top of his game. Action scenes are written well when we aren't focusing on a character's internal monologue. Basically, Williams and Dix cannot write dialogue or monologue, spoken words or internal thoughts, with the exception of the Yuuzhan Vong. I'm not very impressed with fan-fiction in general, but I can say that Williams and Dix don't even come close to the fairly low quality of the average fan-created story available on the internet.
Rating: 
Summary: The weakest of the trilogy
Review: Williams and Dix are good writers, but this book doesn't do them credit. The biggest problem was that every character seems to stray significantly from their prescribed personalities and the changes are simply not rational. Han and Leia seem to be floundering with nothing purposeful to do; Tahiri's problem is so obvious as to be redudant when stated; Soontir Fel seems to suffer from some dated perceptions of who his enemies are (and when he seemed so interesting in Visions of the Future!); and does anyone not see the triple-cross coming on Bakura? On the plus side, it's nice to know that we're finally going to get to Zonoma Sekot in the next book and that Han and Leia's aimless wandering will soon come to an end. Fortunately, I have the benefit of writing this after reading the next book, Force Heretic III: Reunion. That novel (same authors) is MUCH improved. I was very pleased with is. Read Refugee if you're going to read the complete NJO for continuity; if you're a SW fan you should read the series. But other than that, don't bother.
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