Rating: 
Summary: "Meh" (Warning: Spoilers)
Review: Wrong writer to wrap up the series, as well as the wrong wrap up. The only author of the entire NJO that I really "knew" by name is Matt Stover for his excellent work on 'Traitor.' The rest of the authors are interchangeable and, to me, forgettable, not that a few didn't do a decent job (just not a great job like Stover).
My major beef with UF echoes the lot of my fellow "meh"-ers: there's simply too much going on and too many featured characters to wrap up the NJO in one 500-page novel. Yet I can't imagine it being much longer, since UF is too much exposition.
The biggest inconsistency with UF versus the past few NJO novels: it's been explained that the Vong fleet has been vastly depleted and that warriors are in such short supply Shimrra calls for an earlier breeding age. Yet in The UF the battles drag on as if this crippling effect didn't exist at all.
The perceived Boba Fett cameo was fanboy pandering, plain and simple, as was one too many mentions of Anakin (Vader) that had no bearing on anything. Nom Anor's unwitnessed "death" (if you don't see 'em die, they ain't dead) was a needless copout. I'm sure we'll be seeing him again.
The NJO has been a tremendous 'reset button' for the SW universe and the Jedi in particular. It started out much more frightening and interesting than it ended.
The too-tidy ending makes the next few books predictable (we'll be seeing plenty of rogue Vong teeming with old enemies, more fights with skips, Zonoma Sekot cameo, etc). And let's not forget the Bothan "total war" resolution and Alpha Red.
Rating: 
Summary: Bittersweet Ending
Review: It is very hard to review this book on it's own as it is the wrap up to the ambitious New Jedi Order Series. I'll try to comment on both of them in their appropriate place.
There are some problems with this book, I felt it was too long for one and the first 300 pages dragged. I'm reviewing it now and I got it in hardcover when first released. However the ending picks the pace up and manages to keep the reader enthralled.
There are obviously no real surprises here. The ending has been telegraphed fairly well over the last 4 novels or maybe more. That being said although we know where the journey is taking us, Luceno, not one of my favorite authors, makes the journey a pleasant one. We get to see Luke absolutely kick butt, we see the annoying Solo children of the previous publisher's books come into their final fruition. Though I didn't like Jacen's temporary godhood it was the telegraphed culmination that he would be the new "balance of the Force".
The ending was particularly well done, bittersweet farewells of tired damaged warriors in a tired damaged galaxy with some very nice human moments.
What can we say about the NJO? I don't think it did all it set out to do, but it came pretty close. It was light years above the New Republic series of the previous publisher. The lows of the NJO came nowhere near the many many lows of the previous series. We saw main characters die, we saw characters change, we saw the philosophy of the Force through many viewpoints. We saw a high level of writing overall and some pretty good editing to contain the very large story arc. We got new stories in the Star Wars universe with an intriguing culture in the Vong. We got Nom Anor, the most despicable creature ever who went from being an absolutely loathed cardboard villain to someone the reader knew inside out. We saw many characters have very real crises of faith, hit rock bottom and come back in a fashion that didn't make it seem predictable or cliche.
Thus it is somewhat sad to see it end. It needed to end, don't get me wrong, it had gone on long enough and it was time. The Clone Wars novels are now the spiritual successors to the NJO, showing the greater depth and complexity of the shaded morality of the universe that we first saw here.
Rating: 
Summary: wow
Review: I found this book quite enjoyable. I don't know why certain people have griped about it. It is a worthy closure to the series and leaves you realing from the force-action oriented ending. Luke did what!? The Yuzzahn Vong can't be found through the force because of that? Jacen did what??!!! wow. It leaves you waiting for the next 3 books (the dark nest trilogy, 2005) to come out as fast as possible!!! I think, however that one should read the whole series of NJO to truly appreciate the ending.
--T.R.
Rating:
Summary: The War is Over
Review: 'The Unifying Force' finally brings a close to 'The New Jedi Order' story arc. Written by James Luceno, the novel outlines the events that finally precipitate the final confrontation between the Yuuzhan Vong and the Galactic Alliance. The Gallactic Alliance had risen from the ashes of the New Republic to establish diplomatic links with not only the worlds of the former republic, but with the remains of the Empire as well.
Luceno's novel has a very brisk pace. He has excellently managed to keep the action in the book moving while still establishing important plot points. The exposition in the novel is woven into the action, which keeps the book moving. Luceno's action scenes are very worthy of the Star Wars Pantheon. His description of combat between Vong warriors and Jedi is masterful. His space battles are gripping and detailed. Not to mention that the tactics and positioning of fleets in the epic space battles are well done.
I've heard that Luceno went back and read all of the Star Wars novels in preparation for writing this one. It shows. Not only does Luceno manage to tie up loose plot lines (Jacen's vision from Vector Prime and subsequent novels, the debate about the nature of the force from 'Traitor,' and the relationship between Jag and Jainna amongst others), he brings in elements from novels outside of the NJO, including 'Tatooine Ghost' and the 'X-Wing' series. The first third of the novel contains a cameo from a character that is a cult favorite amongst Star Wars fans. The cameo is carried out excellently, and the character is captured perfectly. I won't give it away so as to not ruin the surprise.
My least favorite element of the NJO, the living planet Zenoma Sekot, even takes on a bearable quality in this novel. Luceno gives the planet its due, but keeps the action and story focused on the bipedal characters.
Anyone who has been reading the NJO must read this book. It wraps up the entire series, which has been uneven at times, in a satisfying manner. Luke Skywalker finally gets his fair share of action. In previous novels in the series, he has been relegated to a sideline character while the Solos and other Jedi did all the work. Star Wars fans in general should be pleased. Luceno manages to capture the feel of the Star Wars universe in a way that not many other authors can (with the exceptions of Zahn, Stackpole, Denning, and Keyes).
If you haven't read the other novels in the NJO first, go back and read them first. Pick up R.A. Salvatore's 'Vector Prime,' (which is excellent in my opinion) and read the following 17 novels before this one. You can't appreciate this novel nearly as well if you haven't. It is worth the wait.
Rating:
Summary: All good things...
Review: All good things must come to and end. And this book has lots of good things and a masterful ending. Unifying Force is the climactic conclusion to the New Jedi Order story arc. This story arc started 18 books ago with Vector Prime, a novel in which we were introduced to an enemy the likes of which had never been seen in the Star Wars universe. Vector Prime set in motion one the most grandiose and ambitious stories I have ever read. The story wound its way through several different events, characters and authors, falling in the hands of James Luceno to tie it all together. In Unifying Force, Luceno had to bring the story a close, as well as, meet every expectation ever set forth for this series. Luceno, like the story itself, succeeded in grand fashion. There are so many great aspects of this book, but to name them specifically would spoil the story for anyone who reads this review before the book. Lets just say Luceno gives equal attention to the main story arc, tying up loose ends, and the little details that enrich and deepen the story as a whole. With the main story, Luceno does a great job with scene changes to touch on the varied events going on simultaneously. With such a large and varied cast, this helps keep the novel well paced with constant action. Tying up the loose ends, in my opinion, was going to be the hardest part. This was, to an extent, the heart of the story. So many questions had been set forth that had to be answered for the conclusion to, in any way, be satisfying. In the end we get the answers to everything: why the Vong are devoid of the Force, why the Vong left their galaxy, why Zonama Sekot seemed so familiar to the Vong, why Shimrra kept Onimi as a pet, what Nom Anor's role was, and what the Vong culture was like. In tying up all these story lines, Luceno gives us a clear glimpse into an enemy that baffled the Galactic Alliance and the readers for the duration of the saga. He also presented us with an ending that was as satisfying as it was intriguing. Luceno's attention to the little details has as much to do with his commitment to continuity as it does with his references from other books and materials that make up the entire Star Wars saga. In one scene aboard Right to Rule, Han and Leia met with Grand Admiral Pellaeon. As a way to express his gratitude, Pellaeon gave Leia a moss-painting by the Alderaanian artist Ob Khaddor. Just after Han and Leia were married, they went to Tatooine and tried to retrieve it as a part of Leia's lost homeworld. It ended up in Grand Admiral Thrawn's private collection. The painting made it way into Pellaeon's hands and he felt that Leia was the person best suited to have it. This example illustrates the accurate use of previous Star Wars material, as well as, including a little detail, that while it is of no real significance, it adds a little extra depth to the story and the friendship between Leia and Pellaeon. All and all, the NJO story arc was as grand as it was enjoyable. With the disappointments of the Prequel movies, NJO delivered a story Star Wars fans could enjoy as much as the original trilogy. Furthermore, NJO was good enough that it could have been used for Star Wars Episodes 7-9.
Rating:
Summary: A good conclusion, but only a so-so series...
Review: Firstly, I must give full credit to James Luceno for doing, in 500 pages, what few authors could do. That is, conclude a series that by almost any measure, was nowhere near completion at the finale of the previous book. He didn't even sacrifice the pacing of the novel itself to do so. This is evidenced by the fact that almost nothing happens in the first fifty pages of this book. In 50 pages at least Jane Eyre had concluded that she hated her step-brother. I was bored senseless by the seeming lack of purpose for this lengthy introduction, but I quickly realized that's exactly what it was - an introduction. Though Luceno does spend an extraneous amount of time on the background info of the series in that introduction, from the point of view of the book as an independent unit, it also serves a number of useful plot and character services. This time also pales in comparison to the myriad of occurences that are described in the other 450+ pages. Luceno's storytelling, if nothing else, is brilliant. The plot moves quickly, effortlessly, without any glaring character-innacurracies or sudden impromptu plot movements.
The novel did falter for me near the end, when the action sequences (despite taking centre-stage) faltered and the dialogue and descriptions became weak or at times too overly-contrived. All things considering though, the writing was excellent for a book that must've been rushed through all stages of production.
Now though, comes my analysis of the series as a whole, and the plot that LucasArts and the mosaic of writers they employed created.
Quite simply: It was good. Not great, not amazing, but not horrible or ruinous of the Star Wars Universe. One major question I have to ask is... How does George Lucas expect to make a sequel containing the main three characters of the first three movies, in this radically altered Universe? He can't really make a sequel of anything immediately following the destruction of the Empire, as that is catalogued in the Extended Universe (EU) already, and I don't see how anything but three movies devoted to the Yuuzhan Vong could really explain Coruscant's changes, or the extreme character development of someone like Jacen Solo - not to mention all the other new characters the series relies on as well. While I trust Lucas' view of the series as a whole, I don't trust his moviemaking skills after the prequels, and whether he could create a post Yuuzhan-Vong galaxy as emersive as he did the original one, is something I'm not decided on.
The Yuuzhan Vong themselves, however, were an excellent motivator for the whole "Extragalactic Invaders" idea, coming across as ruthless, defiant and bloodthirsty as any other patron of the Sci-Fi idea, but with the philosophical backings to make it work. As disfigured as their beliefs are, they do have some merit, and eventually (in The Unifying Force) there was even a hint at the reason for these beliefs. If there was one constant I loved seeing throughout the New Jedi Order, it was the consistency of the Yuuzhan Vong's sadistic nature.
Unfortunately, that's just about the only thing that was consistent. While the Star Wars EU has always relied on a plethora of authors to structure and shape the main plot, it has, until this point, kept it mostly in the hands of obvious professionals, well honed and purposeful in their contributions. In the NJO, that idea was thrown out the window. 11 different authors, each with different takes on characters, settings, and each with different strengths and weaknesses to their writing styles, lent a rather shaky groundwork for the entire series. Some, such as Luceno and Greg Keyes, were obviously heading the project from the beginning, while others (Elaine Cunningham comes to mind) dropped in, put in their two cents, and left. Of course, for every abysmal Williams & Dix novel, there was a Traitor by Matthew Stover, or a Star by Star by Troy Denning. Novels intricately placed in the scheme of things kept the series running, no matter what. In reality though, one could read Vector Prime, Agents of Chaos 1, Balance Point, Edge of Victory 1, Star by Star, Traitor, Destiny's Way, any one of the three Force Heretic novels and The Unifying Force to get the absolute best of the series. That's 9 novels, a mere half of the entire series.
That being said, while the series itself wasn't entirely brillaint, (due to shifting authors and a roving importance placed on first the galaxy as a whole and then single star systems and characters and then back again) the plot was absolutely brilliant, and well pulled off.
From the first of Jacen's visions in the Allston novels (fulfilled nearly ten books later in Traitor) to his second in Balance Point (concluded only in The Unifying Force), to Anakin's seemingly pointless over-adventure on Yavin 4 (which came to shape a large part of the Yuuzhan Vong story), to Alpha Red (created in Destiny's Way but conceived as well in the Allston novels) to all sorts of movements, occurences and fine details that gave the NJO shape and purpose unlike any science fiction series written in this manner. Indeed if George Lucas was to make a film trio out of the Yuuzhan Vong encounter, the three books he would be forced to recreate would undoubtedly be Vector Prime, Star by Star, and The Unifying Force, though without the backstory of the other novels, it would be near impossible. Even in that limited frame though, is a story striving for greatness and finding it all too often.
Rating:
Summary: Notice: Quality is not welcome in Star Wars
Review: Here's a quick NJO breakdown: Traitor is good.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect end...
Review: James Luceno's mastery of the Star Wars universe is hard to match, after The Unifying Force. In this novel, he successfully ties together nearly every mystery left from the previous novels of the New Jedi Order, closing old plot threads and hinting enough at new ones to make sure the Star Wars universe stays an interesting place for many years to come. Luceno had one of the most challenging tasks in terms of the pure difficulty of writing this novel that any Star Wars novelist has faced. He had to maintain continuity as well as tying up all the loose ends that nit-picky readers like myself would have instantly caught - and he succeeded marvelously. Not only did he do so, but he created heroes that all of us can wish to be like. The NJO had its ups and its downs. This was one of its ups, a close tie for me with Traitor, the only other NJO novel that was as powerful as thrilling. Luceno's character development was, as usual, flawless and exceptional. Luke Skywalker finally became the Jedi Master readers of the NJO had longed to see him as. Mara Jade Skywalker, while staying utterly true to her no-nonsense, kick-butt character, also demonstrated the side of her that cares so strongly for the Republic and her son Ben. Nom Anor got a fitting finish: his character (the true center of the saga, in many ways) remains constant to the end, and you'll appreciate it, believe me. Jacen becomes the incredibly deep and thoughtful yet powerful Jedi Knight we saw in Traitor, exceeding my greatest expectations. Jaina was a hit-and-miss character, never quite living up to her billing - one of Luceno's only low points in my opinion. The only other low points were how Danni Quee and Jagged Fel were developed - not that it was bad, but that it was not all that it could have been. Though the conclusion of the saga did stretch the imagination just a tad, it works well and I can't wait to see where the Star Wars universe goes next. With authors like Luceno, Stover, Zahn, and Denning at the helm, it can't go wrong. May the Force be with them...
Rating:
Summary: Unifying Force
Review: The Unifying Force by James Luceno was a mastery of a book. That is not to say it up there with the best books ever, but to a fan of the universe created by George Lucas it is one of the best ever. It deserves a ranking up there with Zahn's original trilogy. I have read all of the books in New Jedi Order as they came out along with all of the Star Wars books. The Unifying Force deserves a spot among the best in the New Jedi Order. My personal opinion is the top two are Star by Star and Unifying Force. I almost didn't jump on this one right away because the past few NJO novels have been OK and not stellar. I was glad I did. The book was fantastic. It had something for everyone. The war and massive space battles, and through statistics thrown in you get a sense of how massive this war is. The use of all the leaders throughout ALL of the previous Star Wars books, from Wedge Antilles to Ackbar, through Kre'fey to Sovv, including Bel Iblis and so many more. Your favorite was in this book. Unifying Force brought back all the favorite characters from other books. Some of my favorites, Shada, Talon, Crev Bombassa, Lando, and Tendra were all involved. The politics were there in limited form, same with love stories. Even though the Jedi and their affiliates really did get the focus in this story, Luceno made it not seem too focused on them and some other books have done. The best part of The Unifying Force, I believe, is the grandeur and absolute enormous size of it. It is huge in every sense. The Galactic Alliance is making a huge stand. While all the other books did a very good of bringing back a few old friendly faces, this book brings back EVERYONE. There is not a single important person not mentioned or that doesn't make an appearance. It is some much fun to see all your "old friends" in action playing important roles. I have only a few minor complaints with this book. I didn't want to put them in, but I feel I have to include them to be fair. The battles seemed rushed sometimes. Han, Leia, and Luke specifically seem to get into impossible situations with captures and fights all over the place, and they always conveniently get out. It seems almost as if the author was told that he was in no way or form to kill anyone important, which makes sense but kind off kills the suspense. Also, at times there seemed to be too many characters running around inside the Coruscant system and you sometimes lose track of them. However, as I said before, I have very few complaints with this novel. This book meant a lot to me personally. It was meant to have a feeling of closing. There is a very good chance this will be the last book to be set this side of the Galactic Civil War. The Unifying Force did this very well. I finished the book in a very happy mood, a very content one. The loose ends from all over the place were tied up. The New Jedi Order comes to a close with a great novel in The Unifying Force.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book!
Review: This book was extremely well written and a perfect ending for the series. The book was nearly non-stop action cover to cover. The characters were very well written and detailed plus the ending was fantastic. I am looking forward to the Dark Nest Trilogy this summer. If you like Star Wars and want an excellent read, read the whole NJO series!
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