Same as always: excellent - Rated 
Well, it's a Karen Traviss "Star Wars" book, so it's bound to be excellent for all the usual reasons. Blah, blah, blah, superb research and attention to detail making the story and characters believable (inasmuch as magic-wielding space-knights et al. living in another galaxy can be made believable). Yadda, yadda, yadda, surprise returns of some of Traviss' beloved characters from previous stories. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, brilliant wordsmithing and tying up storylines beautifully. Okay, that's all out of the way. There's only so many times I can say that stuff without it getting so repetitive it loses its punch. But, it's Karen Traviss we're discussing, so it's Mando-tory. (Should have resisted that lame pun. Couldn't. Apologies.)
Now for the GOOD stuff, which is a bit of a spoiler, I'm afraid:
SPOILER: Boba Fett getting a "swirly." It was worth buying the book for that alone. Several mentions of the Clones on Kamino giving Boba Fett "swirlies" in their youth. After that, the rest of the book was just gravy. Fine, savoury, delectable gravy. Kandosii!
Annoying Guy Below - Rated
Dont read the retards review below he just complelty ruined the series. Complete UTTER RETARD
One of the best - Rated
Wow. I took this book on holiday and went through in a day and a half. I simply couldn't put it down. Excitement and tragedy. (SPOILER) I gasped when Mara died! (END SPOILER) This has got me on the edge of my seat now. I can't wait until the next book is published. Star Wars at it's very best...
a vital redress for a floundering series - Rated
in a recent interview, arron allston said that one of his methods for ensuring he got the right level of detail into his books was to write drafts, then go back and insert adequate description. Fair enough, if you're trying to hone your style before jumping into writing, but for a published author it's ridiculous. description should be intertwined with the rest of the text to the extent that the environment draws itself in your mind as you read, you shouldn't have to concentrate hard to construct a picture and hold it together.
in a recent interview, troy denning commited the ultimate lucasism when he talked about evil people never knowing they're evil, *but they are*. it's bad enough when the bearded one himself puts this twelve year old's black-and-white approach into the films, but when it continues into the eu it's infuriating.
because of this, each of the past two books in this series have only just managed to hit the right side of terrible. denning comparmentalised ben as a whining child, and turned jacen from the thoughtful, intelligent and increasingly-dark man we had at the end of betrayal into just your typical 'bad guy' straight away in tempest. allston did the same to a lesser extent in exile, then messed things up further with description that suffered from the aforementioned problems.
thank god for karen traviss. She can write, and she can both understand and dissect the grey areas. thus, in Sacrifice we get the best book in this series by a mile.
this means that the characters go back to being people, all with their own qualities, flaws, and traits that are a bit of both, rather than the cardboard cutouts of tempest and exile.
jacen is dark now, no doubt about it. but more to the point you can understand what he's doing, why he's doing it, and chart the changes in this man as a smooth curve rather than erratic lurches between straight evil (consumed by anger and itching to murder alema, his parents, et al in tempest) and straight good (his scenes with his daughter in tempest). ben is back to his best ;you can really see him turning into a man and accepting his responsibilities. The best marks though have to go to lumiya, niathal, and what little we get of alema.
for the first time we see things from niathal's perspective. we see the hardliner that we've always seen, but she's tempered by morality and a rigid sense of duty into a rounded, likeable character.
the way lumiya is written is outstanding. the light-side tinted glasses we are so often forced to see her through are thrown away as we look at someone who's only real difference from her enemies is a highly admirable level of maturity. her reaction to what she discovers at hapes also endears her totally to the reader.
alema too, goes from just a nutter to a just a nutter who at least has credible reasons.
luke and mara are the exception here. they both spend most of the book adhering more to the whims of anger, fear, hate, and prejudice than luke's dad ever did before donning the black, and at their age this is a joke. admittedly the latter is less down to the writer than to the inevitable contradictions of a panicked mother. however, with luke there is no excuse. one plus of exile and tempest was that ben's innocent questioning made luke question the black-and-white morality he has clung to for so long. however, in sacrifice, this maturity of thinking seems to be a restriction, and when he caves in to the 'they don't see things the way i do, they must be evil, they must die' mentality half-way through, it is written as if he's progressed somehow.
aside from characters for a moment, the plot stands out from everything in this series so far. it's tighly structured and it goes somewhere. you care about every plot-strand, and they all intersect smoothly, which is a huge relief after the clunky mess of tempest and exile. the only possible exception is the fett sidestory, which still feels out of place. however, these sections do add an extra dimension which makes the problems forgiveable, moving things outside the solo-skywalker sphere and seeing the repercussions of the actions of other major players on the galaxy as a whole.
in terms of problems the main thing is luke and mara, although jaina still buzzes around doing nothing, presumably to keep her fresh in our minds so that we care when she finally takes up her sword of the jedi mantle (presumably to thwart jacen). there is one other probelm though. the showdown at the end is written intentionally as a scrappy mess, which is a welcome relief from the usual eu melodrama. however, for some reason traviss seems to feel a need to present jacen as a coward. during the fight he's constantly "screaming" and "whimpering" all over the place. considering all the effort that's gone into this character since he first met vergere and the embrace of pain, it's ludicrous to light up the 'look, this is the villain here' sign with supposed cowardice.
despite the few problems, however, sacrifice is a welcome breath of fresh air in a series that was rapidly collapsing in on itself. traviss brings a crucial subtlety and ambiguity to plots and characters that raises the slight but fervent hope that this series won't descend into the mess of "anakin was a great jedi, but because of his arrogance and lust for power he of course lost to wise-old obi-wan over less than a metre of higher ground".
then again, denning's up next. hope extinguished
The Sith Rise Again! - Rated
So here we are already, the halfway point of the Legacy of the Force series. A Sith Lord is born and a major EU character becomes one with the force. I must say that i really really enjoyed this book. Im a big fan of Karen Traviss and her previous work in the Star Wars universe, namely the Republic Commando novels and Legacy of the Force-Bloodlines. I think she deals in much more detail with what could be called the "little" people of the Star Wars universe, namely those without force powers. This in turn helps build a more believable universe around the central core of main characters.
In a nutshell, we take up where we left off. Jacen Solo is continuing in his drive to become the next Dark Lord of the Sith and the Galactic Alliance continues to fragment as more and more conflicts erupt throughout its borders. Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker continue to worry about the direction that Jacen is taking their son Ben, and on the other side of the galaxy Boba Fett starts to mould the Mandalorians back into the fearsome fighting force that they once were.
So what's good? First of all I loved the whole Mandalorian sections of the book. Not only do we get an insight into the devastating war that they fought with the Yuuzhan Vong, but we find out that they actually beat the Vong and drove them off their homeworld of Mandalore.No small feat when you consider the Vong battered everyone else who stood before them. Also one of Boba Fetts clone brothers turns up from the Clone Wars era. I loved the interaction between the two of them as we find out that not everyone in the galaxy is scared of Boba Fett. Who would have thought that he once had his head put down a toilet! It looks as if we are going to see a few more appearances from characters from the Republic Commando novels. And I think when the final battle comes in book nine, it wont just be between the Skywalkers and the Solo's, Fetts extended family will be heavily involved as well.
This book also shows Mara Jade at her best. In fact the only person who has wrote her character better is, of course, Timothy Zahn. Here she goes back to her Emperor's Hand persona in an effort to find out what exactly is going on with Jacen and Lumiya. Her relationship with her son Ben is also better written here than in any other Star Wars book. As Ben's own innocence is eroded away by the ongoing war so he opens up to Mara in a way not shown before.
Jacen's continued slide into the dark side and the choices he makes also makes compulsive reading. I actually agreed with some of the things Jacen was doing in the first book of the series. But now he is simply justifying any evil by claiming it is his destiny. And after finishing reading this book Ive gone from being on his side slightly to just hoping that he gets a lightsaber through his heart in book nine.
I can't believe that some people are giving this book one out of five over at Amazon.com mainly because a certain character dies. I thought that the scene was particulary well written and a fitting end to a great character. Heroes die folks, and this particular hero had a great
run in the Star Wars universe.
All in all this is the best book in the series and I can't wait for book six,Inferno. There is going to be hell to pay.
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