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Rating: 
Summary: Save Your Money and Reread the Original
Review: Crimson Empire was amazing, the sequel was anything but.
After finishing the original, I was anxious to pick up the sequel. As soon as I did, It looked like the writer, artist, everyone was different. The art seemed like a step backwards in quality, and the writing seemed like it was cobbled together by a committee trying to emulate the previous book. It's shocking to discover it is in fact the same writers and artist. "Council of Blood" gets it all wrong. Kir Kanos, the anti-hero from the original is hardly even in the story. Sinn doesn't look or act like she did at all. You'll be flipping the pages looking for our two protagonists, wondering where the hell they are. Instead we get an annoying Hutt and even more annoying council filled with the least interesting characters every written. The Empire was filled with merciless and decisive Admirals and Generals. Now it's been magically replaced by stereotypical politicians with mind-numbingly boring dialogue. There's about 3 imperials actually on the Imperial Council! The end of the first book left us hanging, Kir Kanos leaving to assassinate the unseen ruling council. Now that I've see them, I couldn't care less about them. All the characters of power are supposed to be sinister plotters, but instead they come off as bumbling idiots. The art's pretty bad too, except for Dorman's covers, which are wonderful, the only redeeming aspect of the book. The only other good thing I can say about this is that it was easy to get through, as bad as it was.
The potential here was amazing, instead we got one of the worst Star Wars books ever written. Avoid it like the plague and pray they redo it properly.
Rating:
Summary: Save Your Money and Reread the Original
Review: Crimson Empire was amazing, the sequel was anything but.
After finishing the original, I was anxious to pick up the sequel. As soon as I did, I noticed the writer, artist, everyone was different. That was my first clue that something was wrong. "Council of Blood" gets it all wrong. Kir Kanos, the anti-hero from the original is hardly even in the story. Sinn doesn't look or act like she did at all. You'll be flipping the pages looking for our two protagonists, wondering where the hell they are. Instead we get an annoying Hutt and even more annoying council filled with the least interesting characters every written. The Empire was filled with merciless and decisive Admirals and Generals. Now it's been magically replaced by stereotypical politicians who do nothing but argue. There's about 3 imperials actually on the Imperial Council! The end of the first book left us hanging, Kir Kanos leaving to assassinate the unseen ruling council. Now that I've see them, I couldn't care less about them. All the characters of power are supposed to be sinister plotters, but instead they come off as bumbling idiots. The art's pretty bad too, except for Dorman's covers, which are wonderful, practically the only redeeming aspect of the book. The only other good thing I can say about this is that it was easy to get through, as bad as it was. The potential here was amazing, instead we got one of the worst Star Wars books ever written. Avoid it like the plague and pray they redo it properly.
Rating:
Summary: They screwed up in the transistion
Review: I'm afraid the makers of CE botched their attempt to go from a simply, direct revenge-type story to a complex tale of woven intrigue. The art, while still somewhat cinematic in stlye, suffers from highly unstable character depictions and cartoony inconsistencies. The change of Sinn's character and appearance is equally as annoying. While she was quite a bother in the original, its even more bothersome when they switch character personalities and appearance. As for the story, Mastadge's title puts it well. Way too much. Masters of intrigue and complex plots like Stackpole and Zahn should stake their claim as such, as other writers' attempts at such tales are consistently going astray. Carivus is an annoying, bloated dolt, and my interest in Nom Anor dropped about the same time NJO began coming out and butchering 'Star Wars'. And the Council. While some of the talks seemed to be only well-done examples of intrigue in the whole bloody thing, I still found that it was overdone at times. And why the aliens? I can understand a move toward a more inclusive Empire, but why add Whiphids, Givin, Defel, and other such races that have no real status in the overall galactic community? If they were going to add alien reps they would have at least added ones from species that had actual power in galactic affairs. Oh, well. If you want to learn a bit more about what happens after CE you can do so, but I can't say I reccomend the book.
Rating:
Summary: They screwed up in the transistion
Review: I'm afraid the makers of CE botched their attempt to go from a simply, direct revenge-type story to a complex tale of woven intrigue. The art, while still somewhat cinematic in stlye, suffers from highly unstable character depictions and cartoony inconsistencies. The change of Sinn's character and appearance is equally as annoying. While she was quite a bother in the original, its even more bothersome when they switch character personalities and appearance. As for the story, Mastadge's title puts it well. Way too much. Masters of intrigue and complex plots like Stackpole and Zahn should stake their claim as such, as other writers' attempts at such tales are consistently going astray. Carivus is an annoying, bloated dolt, and my interest in Nom Anor dropped about the same time NJO began coming out and butchering 'Star Wars'. And the Council. While some of the talks seemed to be only well-done examples of intrigue in the whole bloody thing, I still found that it was overdone at times. And why the aliens? I can understand a move toward a more inclusive Empire, but why add Whiphids, Givin, Defel, and other such races that have no real status in the overall galactic community? If they were going to add alien reps they would have at least added ones from species that had actual power in galactic affairs. Oh, well. If you want to learn a bit more about what happens after CE you can do so, but I can't say I reccomend the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good
Review: This addition to the Crimson Empire may not be as good as the first, but it still packs a punch and delivers to Star Wars fans.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much
Review: While the first Crimson Empire tale was very good and effective, this one fails in many areas. The main problem with this issues is that they had so many subplots and characters, it was like they were trying to compress a thick novel into a comic book series. There was so much going on they couldn't focus enough on any one theme and develop it. Also, as much as I didn't like Sinn, heroic rebel commander, being portrayed as a complete slut in the first one, I hate it even worse when they change how a character looks from one comic to another, in the same way that it annoys me when different actors play the same character in different movies. This book did have pretty good renditions of ships, and it was cool how they introduced mysterious Nom Anor, one of the main baddies in the New Jedi Order series. Unfortunately, although the ship and landscape art was mostly very well done, the people were badly rendered and disproportianate. The Hutt was tiny sometimes, normal sized at others, Sinn's face was a complete disaster, none of the carry-overs from the first issue looked right, and most of the time the faces were just too thick and disgusting. Another thing, the alien races on the Imp Council! Not only were several of those species known to be sided with the New Republic, plus the fact that the Empire is all anti-aliens, makes this not work. Plus several of those species are so obscure I'm not sure why'd they'd have a member on the council. Oh well. Still, I am definitely looking forward to CE III, as it is going to tie in pretty heavily to NJO... If you really love Star Wars, buy this one, but if you're just a moderate fan, I'd recommend skipping it over.
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