Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial

The third book in the New Jedi Order series was a very frustrating reading experience. As I had promised myself that I would read all the books in this arc, I ended up reading it after several attempts. I felt bogged down at several moments. It took a while for the reading to flow satisfactorily. Later I listened to the audiobook to remember some events to write this review.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings regarding James Luceno's writing. The verbose and encyclopedic writing style ends up becoming obstacles to a more fluid or organic narrative. At some times it seems that the author's concern is to talk about the origins of the “Corellian Bloodstripes” in Han Solo's pants instead of focusing on really important topics.

As I said previously, it is not and has never been the objective of Star Wars to debate serious topics, despite them appearing in the text and moving the narrative. The book presents the struggle of the New Republic (or rather, just a few people from the New Republic, like Ambassador Leia Organa Solo) to help the various waves of refugees from the war against the Vong. This is an urgent topic that is present in our real world.

This book also provides closure to Chewbacca's death. Finally Han Solo abandons his depressive stance and decides to embody something more nihilistic. He is our hero without purpose, however, he forgets his role as a father and husband and abandons his family at such a critical moment, which is the scenario of war.

This Solo narrative about the “need to find balance” is portrayed in the book in a controversial way. Leia is presented as the always compliant and understanding woman/mother, ignoring her own more pressing needs. This is a sexist reading and unfortunately quite common in the franchise's books during the 1990s (after all, the vast majority of these books were written by men).

Another problem with this book (but perhaps it was my expectation redirected to the wrong place) is that I imagined we would have a more in-depth presentation of the religious dimension of the Vong. I say this because the main villains in this book are Vong priests and acolytes. However, this is all presented shallowly and without depth (it was a missed opportunity).

To conclude, I read this book for the first time very recently, but I didn't remember almost anything that was written. I went to listen to the audiobook as if I were encountering this title for the first time. This feeling left me quite disappointed and says a lot about this installment.

Absolutely brilliant.

My God, Luceno.

One of the best SW writers by far.

Luceno seems to be the master of writing very slow books that seem boring at first, before turning everything around in the latter part of the book and suddenly making everything seem incredibly well-planned and executed.

Han Solo is characterised possibly the greatest so far, and it's finally time he got his due.

After scarcely appearing in the last two books, it was time for Han to get a focus, and finally properly talk about the grief of Chewbacca. Luceno just did it right. So good.

Various references to Indiana Jones throughout, etc. “fortune and glory”, “it's not the years, it's the parsecs”, clearly Luceno has a deep love for Harrison Ford and the character of Han Solo, and it shows.

His grief is portrayed in a really compelling way that perfectly matches his character. He's closed and difficult, trying to relive old glories and getting himself in sticky situations he knows better than now. He takes it out on his own son, and he disappears from everyone's lives.

The redemption of Han is amazing. His relationship with Anakin is on point here, and I simply adore, and I will gush about how many things came round at the end.

Chewbacca's gift to Anakin being used to save Han's life in the Falcon is absolute poetry, and I simply just love so much how Han is the one to figure everything out and save everyone. The twist with Vergere completely shocked me, but my God, I am glad Mara is cured! Finally!

I loved how Han figured out that Elan and Vergere weren't truthful, asking about the ooglith masquer, and once hearing their response, he immediately knew they were lying. How fucking clever!

This book is all about Han really, so I'm not going to critique it for not doing much with the other characters, unlike the past two novels from Stackpole. I think this focus was well-deserved and about time now.

In all honesty, this novel handled emotion generally the best. I found myself tearing up as Anakin and Han talked at the end, and Luceno just really gets people, how they speak, how they interact, real grief and getting over it.

This novel takes you on a proper emotional journey and it is an extremely satisfying one too. Whilst it also harkens back to a rebellion era Han Solo as he begins to slip back into his old ways, both charming yet sad to see him fall so far, then satisfying to see him pick himself back up.

I love, however, that this is not it for Han. He still has a long way to go before being completely out of the dark, but he's almost there.

The only thing I'm not sure on is where the next book will go with Han and Droma.

But otherwise, this was a stunning novel. Another Luceno to blow me away.

Probably my favourite of the series so far!