Rating: 
Summary: Boring, Boring, Boring..... and inconsistant!
Review: The one word that characterizes all the books of the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy? BORING!!!!!!!!!! The book moves too slowly and is simply too inconsistant. Luke Skywalker runs off to become a hermit at Darth Vader's old retreat rejecting his Academy, his family and pretty everything else. Only a mysterious woman who is able to enter his stronghold induces Luke to leave with promises about his lost mother. Leia is shown much more as the Chief of State, an idea that did have merit, while Han Solo is shown more as the family man. The problem is, is that the story moves so slowly. The characterizations are weak: Princess Leia, the people's leader refuses to learn the names of her bodyguards preferring to ignore their existance. That is totally contrary to Princess Leia, Han Solo is done all right but that is because he really has nothing to do. Luke is done terribly. The Black Fleet crisis marks the epitome of stupid Jedi power Luke. It took Zahn coming back into the fold to save the expanded universe after the Black Fleet Debacle. The Lando adventure has possibilities but it too drops by the wayside due to just too much non-sensical writing. Perhaps this story should have been a one or two book set not a trilogy, at time it feels like the auther was just trying to fill space. In any event, this book needed some major editing and marked a dark period of Star Wars literature that not even the Jedi Academy Trilogy (horrible as it was)reached.
Rating: 
Summary: A Flavor All it's Own
Review: The Black Fleet Crisis books are hard to review. The 'Luke' plotline is decent, although it fails to give rise to any strong, particular interest. Then you get the 'Lando' storyline, which is dull, incohesive, and overall a bit too similar to Arthur C. Clark. At the same time, you get the 'Leia' storyline, which is a very well-done tale of political crisis that mirror many ethnic problems of the day. The Republic is obviously presented as building itself up and still vulnerable. Politics are brought to the forefront here, effecting every deed and action. This is definetely one of the most 'adult' SW books with political and military plotting and events that seem far superior to the vast majority of those in a SW novel. Kube-MacDowell has just added another dimension onto the SW universe that unfortunately had been picked up by almost no one, which is rather a letdown in its own right. Indeed, the Black Fleet Crisis books are largely ignored and James Luceno seems to be the only author that's really involved its characters into his own storylines.Two of the three distinct plotlines aren't worth your time, but the actual Black Fleet Crisis story parallels in eerie and revealing detail modern crisses such as 'ethnic cleansing', racial tension, and involvement in the affairs of toher nations and lands. The Yevetha are an interesting race that have been unfortunately called sterotypical and untineresting by the same people who called the similar-but-even-more-outlandish Yuuzahn Vong fanstastic. The series needs its due, if for no other reason than the fact that the main plotline is one of the most intelligent and adult in any SW book. Read the 'Lea' storyline and skip the 'Luke' and 'Lando' ones. You'll walk away satisfied then.
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