Rating: 
Summary: breath of fresh air
Review: I might be new to the whole SW thing,but after struggling through the Jedi Academy books,this book was like a breath of fresh air.The writing style that everybody else is complaining about is exactly what drew me to this book in the first place- I want to know what everything looks like,not just a quick, rudimentary description and then continue with the business of blowing thins up.(If you think these descriptions are lengthy, try reading something like Les Miserables) Luke also seems to have regained that inner vulnerability and sensitivity that first drew me to his character, that just wasn't there in the previous books. So skip this book if you're looking for straight out action, but I think the series could use a few more books like this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Forget Sominex. This book is all you need for a good sleep!
Review: First of all, this book put me to sleep several times. Barbara Hambly is no doubt a good writer, but I think she would be better served writing romance novels. Every writer has his or her own writing style, but some styles are simply inappropriate for certain genres. Babara Hambly spends much time giving overly eloquent/poetic descriptions of the surroundings, moods, and thoughts of characters but hey, Star Wars was not meant to be Shakespere. It's obvious that she gave very little thought to who the target audience is. Don't get me wrong I love Shakespere, but I read it when I'm in the mood for it. When I'm in the mood for Star Wars, I want Star Wars. What's wrong with the plot? Well first of all she came up with the very original idea of an Imperial Super Weapon. Second, you know how many authors describe the difficulty of creating adversaries to give a worthwhile challenge for a very powerful hero? Not to worry, BH has a better idea. Very early on in the book Luke gets injured. Over the next 150 or so pages Luke encounters some very trivial obstacles (for a Jedi that is). About every 4 or 5 pages we are told, "Normally Luke would just use the force to...raise the box/lift the door/open the lock/fool the guard/take the blaster from the Gamorrean/insert your own obstacle...but his pain keeps him from focusing the force. Around the fourth time I saw this pattern I got disgusted. What's the matter Barbara? Couldn't think of a challenging bad guy? This was a very cheap substitute. And what of the good old Jedi healing or pain blocking techniques? Oh but this hurt Luke too bad for Jedi techniques to work. Riiight. ;-) Final analysis: This is beyond a doubt the most boring book I have EVER READ! Of any kind! If you *must* read it because it's "star wars" try to get a used one or borrow one. I would hate to see such a sad effort get enough unintentional support that they allow, let alone recruit BH to write a third book. Yuck!
Rating:
Summary: I would rather have my fingernails ripped out with pliers...
Review: ... than ever read this book again! I am generally pretty leniant with books of all types, and I rarely rate a book one or two stars, but this, THIS horror simply must be exposed! To be fair, I will say that the writing isn't the problem. I enjoy this author's emotional and discriptive style, and I think she is very talented, but this book simply has too many flaws to be rated any higher, and I shall go into them in a moment. Anyway, what basically happens in this book is that the Emperor left behind yet another super weapen (this one is called the Eye of Palpitine) and it has somehow been activated and is heading to a certain planet where the jedi once hid their spouses and children, (hence, the Children of the Jedi) and seems to be preparing to destroy it. Han and Leia head to the planet to check it out, but basically do nothing but hang around and "repair their relationship" (talk about boring). Meanwhile, Luke and a few of his little Jedi pals head to the Eye itself (talk about stupid!) and spend the rest of the book wandering around looking for each other. Luke, seperated from his compainions eventually discovers the spirit of a long dead Jedi girl called Callista locked in the computer and he soon falls in love with her. So from that point forward he is in constant turmoil as to whether he should complete his mission and destroy the Eye, and Callista with it, or let it and her live (live? she's already dead!) and put the rest of the galaxy in danger. As you can probably guess there is a happy ending, but not for me because my main problem with this book (and I'm not the only one) was Callista! She is the absolute worst girlfriend anyone could have come up with for Luke! Even Gaeriel was better, and I didn't like her much either. Callista is a weak, stupid, cowardly, whining, idiotic, brainless twit. She had her life, she lived it, she died, she should not have a second chance. And, as another reviewer pointed out, she only has one aspect of her personality, Luke's girlfriend. Some other people on here have said things like "Oh, it's so romantic, Luke and Callista fell in love before they could even see or touch each other" but anyone who has actually read the book can tell that that's not true. Luke basically considered her an interesting phenomenon until he slipped off into a fevered dreamworld (brought on by his wounds) and saw her as she was before she died. This surprised and annoyed me because Luke is not shallow in that way like most real men are. AND, even though when she came back she got a young and beautiful body, she is technically old enough to be his mother! And wouldn't Luke feel just a LITTLE strange afterwards getting close to a woman stuck in the body of not only someone he used to know, but someone who was one of his students!?! And I simply cannot forgive this author completely mischaracterizing the incredible Mara Jade! She was not 'drawn to' the Emperor. He sensed her through the force and kidnapped her as a small child so he could train her to be The Emperor's Hand. Zahn made it so obvious that he wanted Mara and Luke to end up together eventually, that this author seemed to feel she had to make Mara as unapeeling as possible so she would no longer be a temptation, therefor leaving the way open for the hated Callista to steal Luke away. My only comfort is that Callista and Luke are together for only one other book besides this one, and once she dumps him he comes to his senses and marries Mara a few years later.(YES!!) Also, this author portrayed the characters all wrong physically too. Leia does not have auburn hair, nor does Han have hazel eyes, and since when has Luke had a scar across his cheek from where the ice wompa got him on Hoth? He looked fine to me in Return of the Jedi. Very fine actually...:-) Anyway, this series is not really neccecary to the overall story, though if you want to know who Callista is for future reference or "have" to read all the Star Wars books (as I do) then I guess you should read it. If your just a casual fan though, and or hate romance (like me) stay away at all costs and read something good like Heir to the Empire.
Rating: 
Summary: A really good book. Made me by six others.
Review: This book was the first SW novel I read in English. It was really good. In DK we've only got about 20 different SW novels, and when I finished the last one for the second time I decided to start reading English. This was the start. Afterwards I went back to amazon.com to by more. But anyway. The book tells the story from both Luke's and Leia's point of view. They starts on an official visit for the new republic. Then, in the middle of a visit, a crazy man shows up. Han recognises him as one of his former smuggler collegues. The meeting sends them to a new mission, where they split up. Han and Leia goes to the planet of Belsavis, and Luke, Cray and Nichos (Luke's apprentices) goes to Outer Rim, where they recognises an old dreadnought; the Eye of Palpatine. Luke gets hurt, meets Callista, who gets Cray's body. At last: a happy ending, but still unusual to SW novels. Zahn's novels are better, but this one i great too.
Rating:
Summary: Legacies Of Palpitine
Review: His clones were destroyed, the second Death Star briefly became his crypt, and then vaporized, and still Palpitine and who and what he has left behind, continue to threaten. The Empire may have taken a beating with the loss of the second Death Star together with the loss of their Emperor and his apprentice Lord Vader, but in these earlier installments of the Star Wars books, the influence of their darkest sides remain. This is not the only book that introduces weapons of mass destruction that were left behind and remained threats. I had forgotten just how many there were, and I again would suggest than anyone who has jumped in to this epic at a later point, should consider coming back to these earlier books. They all have substantial detail, character introductions, and history, that are referred to many books later. Ms. Barbara Hambly did a great job in this book. The environments that are the settings for the tale are more confined than other books. The entire Galaxy is not the setting; this is neither good nor bad, just different. With this story it is the way to handle her plot, as personalities are what this is about, machines and space battles are not center stage, and when certain inanimate mechanical devices are central to the story, are they inanimate? Ms. Hambly explores a variety of scenarios that draw different lines between what is life, what is a hybrid, and what is not. Did the Emperor leave behind a biologic piece of himself, and if he did how many implants would remove this remnant from the category of life as we define it? What of a Jedi that for 30 years is acutely sentient but has no physical form? What if this Jedi regained a body, what manner of life would this be? If a humanoid's body were to die yet every thought and memory was transferred to an artificial construct, what would you have? Would the result be a C3PO type, or would this new being with a human's memory encased in electronics be human, be alive? This is just one of the themes in this work. The question of whether or not other Jedi did survive the Emperor's attempt to eradicate them is addressed. Was Mara Jade the only "hand" the Emperor had? The bits and pieces continually are shared, and the Star Wars sage becomes more complete. A great read, a great Author, and a great help for someone wanting to find out what the references to "The Eye Of Palpitine" are all about.
Rating:
Summary: sadly required, but a bore nonetheless
Review: i was extremely disappointed with this book. it seemed to take luke back a few hundred paces in his jedi abilities, and the overall plot is severely lacking for a novel of this length. unfortunately for those people who, like myself, want to have all the info, this book is a necessary evil. don't buy it though, try a library.
Rating:
Summary: WHY? WHY? WHY?
Review: I had a very hard time understanding this book. Hambly spent too much time describing and detailing the surroundings. I found myself falling asleep (literally) while reading many of the chapters. The book could easily be 100-150 pages shorter and still tell the whole story. It's a shame that this book can be considered essential to help understand books that take place after the events on Belsavis. The only reason I read it was for this reason. I'm surprised that with the style of writing that Hambly uses, she is considered to be a great science fiction novelist. It bores me out of my mind! Maybe the rest of the Star Wars universe should be written by authors like Timothy Zahn, who honestly has not written a Star Wars book which hasn't been great!
Rating:
Summary: The worse Star Wars book i've ever read
Review: What does this book bring to the story? A love story between Luke and Callista? OK but it's a little short for this so looooooooooooong book. You can buy it only if you're a fan or if you want to know who Callista is for the following but it's very boring
Rating: 
Summary: Better than Some
Review: Hmm...it seems that the ones I think are passable are the ones that everyone else seems to hate. Maybe I'm too much of a Star Wars nut, but at least this one has a plot, decent characterizations of the original heroes, and a plot that at least is more plausible than others. Unfortunately, they once tie Lukes hands when it comes to the force, and their excuse is lame, and there isn't enough space action, but hey, thats me.
Rating:
Summary: Bre's
Review: What's wrong with this book? Everything! Well, almost everything anyway. Die-hard Star Wars fans will probably read it anyway, despite what myself and other reviewers are saying. Firstly, I spent nearly two-thirds of the book trying to figure out whether it had a plot or not. As it turns out, it doesn't. The original Star Wars characters are fairly well done, but the other characters fall completely flat. And Callista . . . well she's nice and all that, but she doesn't seem quite the right chick for Luke. Mara is much better. (Sorry to all the people who have been living in caves and haven't found that out yet.) I personally find Ms. Hambly's writing syle very difficult to get involved in. I felt it distanced me from what was going on in the book. And, lastly, this book had none of the magic which is Star Wars. A great disappointment.
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