Legacy of the Force: Tempest

Tempest is a good book that I feel a little mixed on.

For a book with Tenel Ka on the cover, whilst she is featured quite a lot, it is not as much as you'd expect, and I don't feel like we actually get much of a deep dive into her as a character.

Troy Denning continues to excel at probably his greatest attribute in my opinion, action, writing many exceptional action scenes, but there are quite a few boring sections of the book, enough so that towards the end I did skim through a few sections.

Whilst Jacen's time under Vergere is still given a very surface level interpretation in this series, the version they are going for they do a very good job at, but I feel like it sacrifices some characters to create tension.

Namely, my favourite couple, Luke and Mara. I thought Denning wrote Mara excellently in the Nest trilogy, specifically with the focus on them trying to break up the couple, to absolutely no success as their love and dedication is so strong it barely cracks their love.

However, there's a bizarre, forced tension between them, as it takes until towards the end of this book for Mara to accept the idea that Jacen might possibly be bad. I think a lot of it is that she doesn't want to accept the implications it has for her son and the various explanations they come up with, but I doubt she'd so firmly brush off Luke's concerns, especially with who he is and the faith she has shown to have in him. I'm just not sure I buy it.

Alema is a villain I actually really liked in the Dark Nest trilogy. I thought she was very different and interesting, and I still love her hatred of Leia for how she mutilated her. But I'm not sure I buy how she keeps surviving, and Denning seems to have to go through so many hoops to have Jacen keep her alive. That scene between them just felt kinda dumb.

And... Alema isn't that powerful, or shouldn't be. I don't think it fits her interpretation in the Dark Nest trilogy, and now she's putting up a good fight against Mara. I don't buy it.

Lumiya, however, has a brilliant, but brief fight with Luke, cutting off his robotic hand again. Like I said, I wish this fight was longer, but what we saw of it was brilliant. I'm glad they're making Lumiya really threatening and powerful, and starting off with this fight being so close and depressing for the Skywalkers is a good storytelling decision to make their next fight even more tense, if a little predictable.

Han and Leia are really good in this book. I love their conflict between not wanting to support the Galactic Alliance slowly turning into the Empire, but also not being able to accept the Correlians trying to get them to assassinate Tenel Ka. Things are going to be very difficult for them from now on.

Jacen decides to fire on them, becoming very “Vader-y” on the ‘Anakin Solo' - a Star Destroyer named after Anakin to “honour” him - choking a Hapan woman with the Force, shouting at people a little, and yes, deciding to fire at his own parents.

This leads to a really great, tense encounter between Ben Skywalker and Jaina, Zekk, and Han on the Falcon, where Ben nearly accidentally kills Zekk, and his dedication to Jacen really comes to bite him.

Now... I know he's thirteen, but I think there's often a stereotypical portrayal of young people being much dumber than they really should be in media, and I kinda feel that applies here. I can't wait for him to develop, because I know for a fact when I was his age I wouldn't have bought that so easily.

But... to defend it, he's a very emotionally complex person, and I imagine he must be traumatised from how sensitive he was to the negative emotions felt during the Yuuzhan Vong war, and he is kinda dependent on Jacen, so he finds it really hard to accept his absolute hero is becoming a monster.

So you know what? Maybe I like it. I'm just eager for him to start developing!

So, all in all, it's a pretty good book.

It has some pacing issues, and a few moments I really wasn't a fan of, such as aspects of Alema's character, and the treatment of my favourite character, Mara Jade here.

There's some exceptional action, such as Tresina Lobi's fight with Alema and Lumiya, and the big fight I mentioned.

However, the novel is a little predictable, and runs probably a hundred pages longer than necessary.

I'd still say it's an enjoyable experience, but I'm kinda just waiting for Jacen to properly become a Sith now. I feel like it has been built up for so long that I'm not sure how long I can wait before it drags a little.

I may have mostly stuck to writing my negative opinions, but I still enjoyed the book, it was just a conflicting read sadly! Not as good as either of the last two.

7/10

For a star wars book it was ok. I want to give it 2.5 stars but since I cant pick half a star we will leave it at 3 stars

Jacen continues to slide to the “dark side” of the force and memories of the old with lord's surface with the force choke used for the first time in this particular star wars book series.

Family loyalties continue to be tested between luke, mara and Ben as well as han, leia and jacen.

One little thing that seemed to be kind useless and pointless was when Ben decided he needed to arrest han and leia. He decides this in the middle of a battle when they are trying to survive. I mean why wait till mid battle if they were all aboard the falcon why wouldn't he have decided to do this before? It just made no sense for the timing and seemed a rather pointless thing to insert into the story at that time.

Overall it was ok. Not terrible but not great

One of the things Star Wars often ignores is the political side of war, which is understandable - it's more exciting to watch or read about a lightsaber battle than it is to see ambassadors negotiating treaties. And while this book still had some of the former, it focused more on the latter, which is a welcome change.

Denning also tried to provide more explanation for Jacen's Sith turn, which I'm still not happy about, on a character, story, or thematic level. But I did appreciated that he knows it's a decision they're stuck with, so one might as well make it as believable as possible.