Star Wars - The Unifying Force: All Things End in the Force
Written: Nov 18 '03 (Updated Jun 07 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: Fantastic story, great tie-ins for other story lines.
Cons: Could this be the end of the Expanded Universe Novels?
The Bottom Line: A great finale to the Yuuzhan Vong/New Jedi Order series, Luceno gives us a superb novel which addresses nearly every storyline from the Star Wars universe.
martytdx's Full Review: James Luceno - Star Wars the New Jedi Order: The U...
Note: For those of you who are familiar with the New Jedi Order storylines, please skip to second paragraph.
***CONTAINS SPOILERS***
What came before… The galaxy was at relative peace when they came – invaders unlike anything that had been seen before. Eschewing technology, undetectable in the Force, the Yuuzhan Vong blazed across the galactic disc, seemingly unstoppable. Worlds were crushed by their bio-engineered weapons of war, and even the Jedi faltered under their assault. The New Republic fought valiantly, but ultimately lost to the invaders. However, the Jedi – in league with the remnants of the New Republic and the Empire – are fighting back, finally hurting and even defeating the vicious Yuuzhan Vong. Two groups of heroes are leading the fight against the Vong: Luke Skywalker and the Jedi have found the legendary Zonoma Sekot, the living planet, and are attempting to bring it into the war; Han and Leia Solo are leading the Galactic Alliance forces in a gambit to put a stake in the heart of the Vong. Meanwhile, the Yuuzhan Vong are moving towards final victory as they strike at the remaining Alliance strongholds.
The Galactic Alliance is up against the ropes. New advances by the Yuuzhan Vong have robbed them of galactic communications, and the recent loss at Bilbringi has hurt the fleet deeply. Moreover, the Yuuzhan Vong are about to execute 1,000 high-level Alliance prisoners as a sacrificial prelude to a massive strike at the Alliance capital world of Mon Calamari. The Alliance has developed a plan to attempt to counter the Vong, even though they are hopelessly outnumbered by the massed Vong fleet..
On the Yuuzhan Vong homeworld, the newly returned and elevated Nom Amor sits among the favored of Shimarra. He watches as the leader of the Vong sets out to end the war with one strike against the heart the Alliance - wiping out all resistance. However, Nom Amor can't help but notice that some of the resistance is coming unsettingly from within...
Meanwhile, Luke and the Jedi are trapped on the damaged world of Zonoma Sekot, poisoned by the traitor Nom Amor. As the world struggles to regain control over its powers, they Jedi and Sekot look deeper into the mystery of the Vong – and discover some surprising things about them. But will they be able to get to the known galaxy in time to share this knowledge?
As the two armadas streak toward a definitive meeting at Mon Calamari, the Alliance starts on a last, desperate set of maneuvers that they hope will stop the Vong and end the war. Rumors of what the Jedi have found offer that the key is obviously held by Zonoma Sekot - but whether that key can be used before the Vong strike remains to be seen...
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James Luceno has returned to the Star Wars universe, and I’m happy to say that his new effort is better than his previous forays. Although I liked Jedi Eclipse, I felt that Luceno’s freedom and space left some of the characters a little wooden and staid. In The Unifying Force, he has much more freedom – and time – to get his story across, and does it brilliantly. This book has all of the best aspects of Star Wars – the epic space battles and Jedi Knights, as well as intertwining intrigue and suspense - and Luceno seems much more in his element here. As the final chapter of the Yuuzhan Vong and the New Jedi Order, he creates an entertaining climax to the series which has had the cream of the Sci-Fi writing community - Greg Bear, Shane Dix, Sean Williams, Aaron Allston and Michael Stackpole, among others.
Luceno creates a number of excellent scenes, as the Galactic Alliance and the Yuuzhan Vong move toward the final, climactic conflict. The space battles are full of desperation and you truly feel the massive scale of the battles through his words. The characters of the series are equally well represented here – and all of them have at least a small role somewhere. Everyone has their moment, and he manages to get everyone into the mix, showing no one’s role is insignificant in a battle this colossal. The classic characters learn new things about themselves and also present the best qualities they’ve had throughout the Star Wars timeline. Newer characters become more fleshed out to create their own touch upon the universe we are presented. And everyone is presented as more ‘real’ – even the Vong show surprising character beyond their reputation as heartless killers.
As the story flows out of the book, it manages to keep the suspense up throughout – twists and turns complicate matters for both sides, and the intrigue which sets in helps keep the reader from knowing what exactly is going to happen next. Blasts from the past turn up to help the cause and new Vong technology appears to make the situation more tenuous for the Alliance. Personally, I found some of the methods Luceno used to integrate past pieces of the Star Wars mythos extremely entertaining, and there are some doozies in this book.
In fact, one of the things I’ve most enjoyed about the story was not only the way that it tied up the series well, but how it tied in most of the aspects of the Star Wars universe, particularly the Expanded Universe (EU). Characters, ships, planets and legends from the comic books, short stories and even video games have a presence, each incorporated almost flawlessly into the finale. Luceno’s ability to weave in these diverse sources never comes off as forced but instead gives the faithful readers a bonus for being a dedicated fan, offering up juicy references that the casual reader would be ignorant of. And it’s these pieces of writing that help make the book so successful.
It does, however, lend itself to a somewhat perplexing realization – because of how tightly almost all of the hanging story lines are wrapped up, including stories from the prequels through the latest non-New Jedi Order books, I can’t help but wonder if the Star Wars books’ days are numbered. Has Lucas stepped in and put an end to the exploration of the universe he created? Have we only the upcoming Episode III to hold us over in the near future (at least until the Force.net’s Virtual Sequels are released)? It’s possible, I guess, but I would hate to see it go.
But either way – as a completion of a series or of a saga, The Unifying Force has done a great job of signing off with class, providing a worthy end to a series which had lagged at times but was always ambitious and compelling. Luceno has taken the role as the man to end the series and done so with excitement, class and even a wink to the fans, creating a fitting conclusion to the Yuuzhan Vong saga.
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[CD-ROM BONUS!]
In a first that I have seen, this novel comes with a CD-ROM related to the New Jedi Order series. In includes:
• Vector Prime e-book
• Q&A with the creative forces behind the series
• The Yuuzhan Vong section of the Official Lucasfilm encyclopedia that authors used to stay true to this new race
• A section of images from the Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels
As far as having an exclusive CD-ROM, this one is a mixed bag. The e-book of the first book in the series is nice, but if you are familiar with the series, you have most likely already read that book. More interesting would have been a collection of the 3 or 4 e-book short stories that were produced during the New Jedi Order timeline.
The Q&A and Encyclopedia entries were both very interseting, as they give you insight into how the original storyline was developed, as well as how it changed as the books were written. The Encyclopedia is a neat reference into the Yuuzhan Vong on the surface, and also gives you a peek into the resources that the authors had at their fingertips while writing the stories. A nice touch.
The 'images' section is disappointing, at best. It offers only 4 images - 2 Yuuzhan Vong ships, and 2 Galactic Alliance ships, including the Millenium Falcon (like we didn't know what THAT looked like. It is nothing more than a teaser to get people to buy the larger book, and not that great a teaser at that.
At long last, the New York Times bestselling series that launched the Star Wars saga into the next generation and into thrilling new territory reaches...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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