The latest installment in the New Jedi Order demonstrates yet again the value of a cohesive, planned story arc.

Star Wars: Agents of Chaos I - Hero's Trial by James Luceno follows close on the events of the first three New Jedi Order books -- Vector Prime, Onslaught and Ruin. I suppose most everybody reading this review has already read the previous three NJO books, but just in case, beware of spoilers for those -- and for Rogue Planet as well.

Spoiler-Free Review

Despite Luceno's good track record with a handful of published sci-fi novels, one big worry for fans concerning a "new" Star Wars author is always this: will the writing be lame? Back in the old Bantam days we also used to worry about the plot, characters, villains, and superweapons being lame, but with the NJO at least the books are all following one big story arc which, so far, is about as far from lame as you can get.

I am happy to say that, while Luceno's writing is not up there with Zahn or Stackpole, he passes muster. I found the opening difficult to get into -- Luceno likes to start scenes with a "wide shot," describing events from a remote, omniscient viewpoint and then working his way in -- but after a little while I was able to find a rhythm. The writing style occasionally pulled me out of the story, too emotionally distant and lacking clarity in places. Still, there's good chemistry between Han and his new sidekick, who grew on me as the story progressed. The main feature of Luceno's writing in this book is his apparently exhaustive knowledge of the Star Wars expanded universe. He shows off by managing to insert dozens and dozens of references to obscure people and events from previous Star Wars books and comics. It's like a trivia challenge trying to recall or look up all the stuff he alludes to. But he works it all in so that even those who've never read anything but the NJO will still know what's going on. Sometimes the allusions seem forced -- as when Mara recites a list of Luke's past loves -- and it did tend to get old after a while, but for the most part I found it entertaining. I could have done with a lot fewer quotes from the films, though. Finally, despite being the first part of a duology, this book does have a satisfying ending of sorts -- one of the major plot threads is tied up, at any rate.

Overall, I'll give this one a B+. This concludes the spoiler-free section of my review. As with my other reviews, I'll give you a plot summary, then tell you what I liked in The Light Side and what I didn't in The Dark Side.

Plot Summary (spoilers)

As the book opens, the Yuuzhan Vong have already taken 30 planets, with the library/archive world of Obroa-skai being their latest conquest. The Vong priest class has arrived in the galaxy, led by Harrar who arranges for a Vong priestess, Elan, to be captured as a double agent. Elan's mission is to get to the Jedi by offering them a cure for Mara's illness, then kill them by exhaling a nasty form of Yuuzhan Vong critter at them. She offers the New Republic information about the Vong's habits and upcoming attack plans. Interestingly, her travelling companion is a bird-like humanoid named Vergere who appears to be from this galaxy. (In fact, if you have read Rogue Planet you'll recognize Vergere -- more on that later.)

Both books of the Agents of Chaos duology will concentrate on Han, with cameo appearances by most of the other main characters. After Chewie's funeral, Han is approached by an old smuggling buddy named Roa, who tells him how a mutual acquaintance, Reck Desh, is aiding the Yuuzhan Vong with a group called the Peace Brigade. Desh is responsible for the death of Roa's wife, and he wants Han to help him get revenge. Han is more than willing.  Han and Roa go to Ord Mantell's orbiting space station and meet with Fasgo, one of Roa's informants who has worked with Reck Desh in the past. Coincidentally, Leia has just gone to Ord Mantell to help resolve the problem of what to do with the millions of refugees who are fleeing the Yuuzhan Vong's area of space. At the same time, the Yuuzhan Vong stage an attack on Ord Mantell and suffer heavy losses in order to make their double agent seem on the up-and-up to the New Republic. During the attack, Roa and Fasgo are sucked into a Yuuzhan Vong critter that takes captives for later "sacrifice." Realizing that he must find Reck Desh and the Peace Brigade before he can help his friends, Han books passage on the jinxed starliner Queen of Empire to Bilbringi. Unfortunately, the New Republic has put Elan and Vergere on the same ship, making their way undercover to Coruscant via a circuitous route.

The Peace Brigade gets wind of the "defector" priestess and Reck Desh takes it upon himself to rescue her and bring her back to the Yuuzhan Vong -- something the Vong definitely do not want to happen. The Vong end up attacking the Peace Brigade, interrupting Reck Desh's "rescue" of the priestess. Through mistaken assumption on the part of a dying intelligence officer, Han ends up with Elan and Vergere, charged with keeping them safe. During this time, Han keeps running into a furry, beak-nosed humanoid named Droma (a Gypsy-like Ryn pictured on the book's cover) who is trying to get to his other family members. Han and Droma eventually end up together as they struggle to get out of the doomed ship. They manage to steal a transport and escape the spaceliner only to end up tractored by the Vong ship. Then Han puts together a few facts and ends up realizing that the priestess is really a double agent, and that the Vong do not want her back. Before he can do anything about it, she tries to kill him by exhaling. Instead he gives her a dose of her own "medicine" and she dies. Vergere ejects in an escape pod, and although the Vong try to destroy it, it's unclear if they succeed. Just before Vergere ejected, she gave a bulb full of her healing tears to Han, telling him to give it to the Jedi. Back home on Coruscant, the tears effect a cure, at least a temporary one, of Mara's mysterious disease. Han finally reconciles with Anakin, then he sets off again, bent on rescuing his friends from the Vong at all costs.

The Light Side (spoilers)

• If you've read Rogue Planet, you recognize the name of Elan's companion, Vergere. She was the Jedi apprentice who disappeared about 50 years before on Zonoma Sekot, allowing herself to be taken away by a group called the "Far Outsiders" who are ostensibly extragalactic and invisible to the Force. I think the editors at Del Rey should be commended for thinking through their stories to such an extent that everything can be tied together in this way. This is a very refreshing change from the way things were done at Bantam, with stories released out of order, having little or nothing to do with each other, and in some cases contradicting each other.
• Han has finally stopped whining and started doing something. Yes, he's still incredibly selfish, but at least he's not drowning his sorrows and sniping at Anakin. I thought Luceno did a great job with Han's character, giving him back that old "scoundrel" mentality. I think Han fans will be pleased.
• I liked how Anakin's gift of the multi-tool Chewbacca made for him ended up coming in handy throughout the book, even saving Han's life at one point. Great touch.
• Droma, despite the occasional movie quote that put me off, provides some good comic relief. At one point when Reck Desh actually recognizes his species (a rarity), he refers to himself as "the impossible-to-find item on every scavenger hunt list." The fact that he seems to be the only person in the galaxy who hasn't heard of Han Solo makes him all the more endearing. If Han had to get another sidekick, Droma is a good choice. I won't mind seeing more of him.
• It was good to see a few of the Young Jedi Knights make an appearance, even though they really didn't get to do a whole lot. And if you've been missing all the characters from the Corellian Trilogy, you should be ecstatic.
• Cool scene: Droma explains that his people invented the Sabacc deck as a spiritual guide, kind of like a Tarot deck. Then he uses the cards to tell Han's fortune. (Yes, his people are perhaps modeled a little too closely on Earth's Gypsies, but perhaps we'll get more and different details later.)
• Funny line: When they are unexpectedly pulled out of hyperspace, Han says, "We've been decanted."
• I also like it when Leia, of all people, refers to the Falcon as the "fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy."
• This is the only book I've ever read that used the word "syzygy" in a sentence. (And here I thought it was only used to thwart spelling bee participants!)

The Dark Side (spoilers)

• As I mentioned earlier, Luceno often begins scenes from a distant viewpoint, then works his way closer until finally you start getting the viewpoint of the people. Many times the viewpoint never gets close enough for my taste, especially in the battle scenes. I think some of the drama is sapped from a battle if we only see it through the viewport of a capital ship -- or a pilot we don't know. For instance, in Chapter Twenty-Four there's a big battle, but it's told from the viewpoint of Wing Command Kol Eyttyn about whom we know nothing and in whom we have no emotional investment. Eyttyn is all business, and the other pilots are all identified only by their callsigns. The result is that I just don't care about the people involved in the dogfight. The losses of pilots and ships seem downright impersonal. All along I kept wondering, Where is Rogue Squadron?
• Although I thought the scenes with Han were great, the rest of the regular characters (Luke, Mara, Leia) and the supporting players (other Jedi, former Young Jedi Knights, the kids, et al) suffered in comparison. I know Luceno couldn't have included huge scenes for everyone, but when they did appear, they should have had something important or interesting to do.
• Now, I may be way off base here, but I think this book has more than its share of bad prose. Here's a sample of writing at the beginning of Chapter Twenty-one that put me off -- I couldn't picture the scene at all despite the abundance of adjectives: "Above a gibbous Obroa-skai, Harrar's faceted ship hung in the shadow of the most recently arrived of the Yuuzhan Vong's yorik coral battleships, under the command of Yomin Carr. Where the one dazzled the eye, the other looked to have been cast fully formed from the churning bowels of some impossibly gargantuan volcano." Despite the big vocabulary, a few cliches made their way in ... the phrase "searching high and low" appears at one point. Where are the editors, one wonders?
• A little bit of coincidence is tolerable, but the way everybody just "happens" to converge at Ord Mantell and then again on the Queen of Empire is a bit hard for me to swallow.
• What's with Droma quoting all of Han's lines from the movies? This definitely pulled me out of the story, and it wasn't even amusing.
• Another bit of "humor" that didn't work for me was Threepio's concerns about being "deactivated." The less wordcount wasted on the internal struggles of a droid, the better.
• I think it's bogus to say that the New Republic and Yuuzhan Vong have no idea whether Vergere survived the last battle. Not when we have seen plenty of instances where battles were recorded and played back by the military in debriefing. Anyway, of course she'll be back. She said she was going to "join her own kind." I wonder, is she referring to her species or the Jedi?
• Mara's miraculous healing (however temporary it may be) would have been a lot more noteworthy if we'd ever really felt she was in danger. This is not all Luceno's fault; the other authors also failed to make the disease seem anything more than an inconvenience. Still, if Mara had been in a decline and gravely ill, unable to stand, etc., then the healing would have had a much greater dramatic impact.

General Comments

These aren't really criticisms, just things I'd like to point out.

• I was expecting some sort of continuing presence by the Imperial Remnant, but they were not even mentioned. Rumor has it that the upcoming Balance Point novel by Kathy Tyers will focus on Leia. I'm hoping that either there, or in the next novel,  Agents of Chaos II - Jedi Eclipse, we'll see Pellaeon and his crew again then. Not to mention Jagged Fel and the Chiss!
• I also missed the presence of the Jedi in this story. I know this will please some folks who think the Jedi are too prominent in the NJO, but it is, after all, the New Jedi Order. Yes, we see Luke and Mara and the others on occasion, but they aren't really involved in the story events in this book.
• The author implies that Chewie talked to Han through the Force. I know some people on our message boards who will probably spontaneously combust at the very idea! I, however, thought it was cool. I've always contended Han is really strong in the Force; he's too lucky to be otherwise.

Coming Next

The official Star Wars website has to say about the Agents of Chaos II - Jedi Eclipse, due out in October:

The Yuuzhan Vong continue their inexorable invasion, securing a tenuous alliance with the Hutts. Han Solo embarks on a personal quest to rescue an old friend and reunite a family. Leia Organa Solo departs on a diplomatic mission to recruit the aid of a formidable fighting force. Elsewhere in the galaxy, an old weapon has been resurrected, one which Anakin Solo has the power to wield. And in the heart of the galaxy, not even the upper echelons of the New Republic government is safe from the Yuuzhan Vong menace.

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