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December 2, 2007
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 Forgive me if I don?t recycle the cover art for Aaron Allston?s Fury, the seventh book in the Legacy of the Force adult novel series, to supplement this review. The digitally rendered composite features a young Ben Skywalker, son of Luke and Mara, and continues the series? strange habit of primary art that has little to do with the subject matter (see Tempest and the cool, but inappropriately teasing Tenel Ka cover art).
Yes, Ben appears, and yes, he?s pissed off on account of his family tragedy from a couple volumes past, but Fury is all about his cousin, Jaina Solo, and we here at SWAC are all too happy for any excuse to feature the fetching 'Sword of the Jedi'.
Despite appearing in relatively few scenes, Jaina infuses the novel with a deliciously dark presence, as her brooding focus and obsessive determination to be ready for the upcoming confrontation with her Sith Lord brother (basically a foregone conclusion at this point) begin to alienate her from her family and the two men in her life, Jedi Knight Zekk and ace pilot Jagged Fel. She is clearly being groomed for leading lady status in future books (hopefully a future series), and it?s a joy to read a conflicted character who doesn?t engage in the moral hand-wringing that has handcuffed so many of her fellow Jedi since the New Jedi Order series.
As far as the novel itself, it continues where Troy Denning?s Inferno left off: namely, with the galaxy in disarray and rife with opportunities for ass-kicking. Luke Skywalker is working through his grief over the passing of his wife, and has returned to his position as Grand Master of the Jedi Order. He?s also shed the indecisiveness of previous novels, the harrowing events of the Legacy series having hardened him into a steely mass of resolve and unquestionable authority.
Han and Leia Solo are fugitives from the Galactic Alliance and hunted by its Chief of State, the Sith Lord Darth Caedus, who has cast off his former name of Jacen Solo, as well as any remaining vestiges of humanity and empathy (the guy keeps his own daughter in a box, for crying out loud). Caedus is a villain you love to hate: unrepentant, smug, and able to back it up with a blistering array of political maneuvers and scary combat prowess.
The novel doesn?t have the emotional depth of previous entries in the series, but it makes up for it with a healthy dose of action sequences sure to please most readers. Chief among them is a beautifully choreographed lightsaber duel between Caedus, Jedi Master Kyle Katarn, and a group of young Jedi that is at once brutal and balletic. Space battles are also the order of the day, as Luke leads a squadron of Jedi in an all out attack on Caedus? flagship, followed by a breathless chase sequence as the dark lord and his captive daughter escape in an experimental TIE. Rounding out the highlight reel are some nifty sequences of the Millennium Falcon serving as a fire-fighting vessel above the blazing Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk.
Despite all the visual wizardry, the novel does have some problems, chief among them the returning character of Alema Rar. Her ineffectual presence is at odds with the amount of time the heroes devote to tracking her down, and her gimmicky, Force-projected ?phantoms? are an extremely weak plot device that make me long for the good ol? days of Jacen?s lame, but believable ?flow-walking.?
There?s also some throw-away pages dealing with a Sith cult from Korriban that shows up to harry the Falcon for no apparent reason, and its enough to make you wonder if Allston was running short of ways to fill out the spaces between the novel?s action scenes. The book is relatively short, and reads even faster, careening from one breakneck battle to the next, so if you?re new to the series, don?t expect a lot of backstory to come clean in this one.
Overall, Fury is a fun read, and a must if you?ve already been sucked into the Legacy of the Force series. While it mainly serves to set up the events of the last two books, the action scenes make it a pleasurable, if brief, sojourn into Star Wars, and it leaves you wanting more.
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review, Jef.
