Shane Dix

I had memories that this was the best of the "Force Heretic" novels: Luke and company finally reach Zonoma Sekot and learn its secrets while Han and Leia go on a rollicking space adventure on a weird planet. Well, I don't know if the difference was that reading all three Force Heretic books in one go really showed how little happened, but this time I found it the worst of these books. As always, nothing actually happens, yet nearly 400 pages are somehow taken up. Seriously, I don't get how Williams and Dix do it; both plots here are extremely simplistic, yet hundreds of pages somehow go by. Events that should be momentous have all the energy sapped out of them; events that should be fun are delivered as dully as possible. The midpoint peak of The New Jedi Order turns out to be an aberration; it is ending as dully and as falteringly as it began.

Who was the "Force Heretic," anyway?

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"Force Heretic" continues its inexplicable move of making sure we know how planets from the least-interesting Bantam-era novels are holding up; Refugee specifically fills us in on the Ssi-ruvvi, the violent xenophobic reptiles last seen in The Truce at Bakura. It is not remotely interesting.

Also Luke and Mara and company get bogged down in Chiss politics while visiting a library. This subplot is possibly even duller than that synopsis makes it sound. I can't even begin to describe how uninteresting it is.

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This is one of those 400-page books that you're hard-pressed to explain how it could possibly be as long as it is. There are basically three plots: the first is Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, and company, en route to the Unknown Regions, helping the Imperial Remnant (hence the title, I guess, though I've no idea why this trilogy is called "Force Heretic") fend of a Yuuzhan Vong attack. This is, for what it's worth, the most interesting of the plots. Which isn't worth very much. It's always nice to see Pellaeon, but otherwise little of interest goes on here.

But that said, the other two plots are even worse. Han and Leia are sent off on the Millennium Falcon to see how some far-flung parts of the galaxy are faring during the invasion, and the answer is utterly tedious. Local politics, blah blah blah, pointless bickering, blah blah blah. Like, it would be hard to imagine a duller plot to inject in the middle of your galaxy-spanning invasion series. Even the Tahiri subplot is utterly dull: I like the idea that her Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong sides have to be reconciled, but Williams and Dix handle it in the most uninteresting way imaginable.

Finally, Nom Anor is getting up to cult hijinks underground on Coruscant. Again, should be interesting; again, sure is dull. I love Nom Anor, but this meanders and goes nowhere.

All that said, this is probably the best of the "Force Heretic" books!

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No Stars!
This book did not win my attention, and as I wonder why I keep coming back to the idea of a 200 year old love interrupted love affair as the central theme in a science fiction novel, and wondering why. The author has many opportunities to make this an interesting tale, but only lightly touches on the idea of colonial society controlled by a dictator who's rule is sanctioned by a greater dictator from “sol.” The dictator's motives were never really explained in a coherent manner consistent with the supremely logical beings the dictators were supposedly and in short, you are left at the conclusion of the tale wondering why the big boss had to destroy the whole colony, while the star-crossed lovers escape down a rabbit hole. In short, it is science fiction, I'd expect the technology to be explained, but it never really was – at least not like other writers. My take is that the author has some good ideas but his editor does not read Sci-Fy, or like it, so did not keep the writer to the story, whatever they decided it was. Pick something else to invest your time in, you can do better.… (more)