I The Solar War • II The Lost and the Damned • III The First Wall • Sons of the Selenar • IV Saturnine • Fury of Magnus • V Mortis • VI Warhawk • VII Echoes of Eternity • Garro: Knight of Grey • VIII The End and the Death ( Volume I • Volume II • Volume III) Only from out of great conflict can true heroes arise. With the galaxy aflame and war on an unimaginable scale tearing the Imperium apart, champions of light and darkness venture onto countless fields of battle in service to their masters. They ask not for remembrance or reward – simply to meet their destiny head-on, and only by embracing that destiny will they come to learn what the unseen future may yet hold for them… Another very short story that barely makes sense without context. It’s not bad, it’s just too short and random. Then we have John French’s micro-short Serpent which is a very brief snapshot of a Chaos ritual being performed by a priest of one of the Davinite Cults. We met the Davinites for the first time in Graham McNeill’s False Gods, the second novel in the series, when Horus was wounded during a battle on Davin and was attended to by the seemingly innocuous religious healers of the planet. Not quite sure what the relevance of the story is, but it is a decent look into the bloody rituals of those who have given away their all to the powers of Chaos.

However, fast forward to the winter of 2022, some fifteen years after the original release. The landscape of Star Wars fandom is massively different. Countless novels, games, comics have been rendered as "Legends" tier canon following the Disney acquisition of George Lucas' franchise, including this very title. When The Force Awakens was released in cinemas, I thought the movie franchise might be in good hands, and I was pretty certain upon the release of Rogue One that it was worth sacrificing my beloved "Extended Universe" to see new Star Wars content on the big screen. Unfortunately, everything that followed has made me think otherwise. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2023-06-23 00:10:47 Autocrop_version 0.0.15_books-20220331-0.2 Boxid IA40992923 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifierMany stories in the Star Wars expanded universe seem to be in sets of 3’s, like the trilogies we see in theaters. If the novels had been made into movies (they should have been), then the “Thrawn Trilogy” could have been episodes 7, 8, and 9. Then there were several story arc’s leading to this current book. I don’t come to Star Wars for Shakespeare or deep thought. Jacen is particularly unintelligent and prone to the justification of his actions, and Luke is an enabling boss and negligent father. Ben gets a pass at being naive as he’s a 13-year-old kid, and I know he is trusting of his master, so doesn’t question what’s going on much. But don’t these people have the Force? Well, first of all, the Force is presented differently in the books then it is in the movies, so go into this book (or all Star Wars books) expecting that. People complained about Rey having new force powers in episode 9, but that’s nothing new to these novels. This is where Aaron Allston's Legacy of the Force: Betrayal comes in. Where Kylo Ren is flat, uninteresting and bland, Jacen Solo is nuanced, complex and prodigious. Where the new movies' Luke is a batty, frightened old man, the late EU version of Luke is wise, deep and paternal. Without intending for this review to be a bash on Disney's interpretation of the Star Wars franchise, I feel like in 2022 this novel shows me more than ever before what I wanted the new movies to be. I enjoyed meeting the children of some classic characters, and the return of the characters themselves, older but not necessarily more mature. I especially enjoyed the return of Admiral Gilad Pellaeon on the side of many of his former enemies, and discovering his (Hebrew) first name, having missed it if it appeared in earlier books.

Six years after his retirement from the CIA, Bagley was startled by an unlikely coincidence. “Two deaths—each purportedly a suicide, each with its deep roots in the secret world, each with its own perplexing mysteries” caught his attention in 1978. Bagley was living in Brussels after stepping down as CIA station chief there. One of the men who died was a KGB defector who had provided invaluable information to the agency. The other was a long-serving CIA senior officer. In both cases, the circumstances made it clear to Bagley that suicide was unlikely. And as he dug deeply into the available (and sometimes secret) facts, he became convinced that neither had killed himself. But at the potential cost of betraying his friends and family in pursuit of this goal and tarnishing his reputation. Bagley was a man determined to know the truth and to make it known. His biggest enemy was not foreign countries but his own country. Whereas the Dark Nest trilogy focused heavily on Han, Leia, and Luke, Betrayal was more focused on Han and Leia's story, Jacen and Ben's story, and then to a lesser extent Wedge Antilles and his oldest daughter Syal. In particular, Luke and Mara played much smaller roles than I expected, but perhaps the authors will cycle through different main characters in these books.I also wanted to mention Censure. This continued to tell the aftermath of the battle on Calth but included a nice interplay and dynamic between an ordinary soldier and the super soldier, space marine. As a fan of the Star Wars (now designated Legends) books throughout my life, I had spent much of my youth reading the seemingly unending stream of stories (some better than others) up until about 10 years ago, when, upon completely the Yuuzhan Vong series, chose to step away from Star Wars novels and explore other genres and writers. Now with Episode 7 on the horizon and the de-canonization of the Legends novels, I chose to return to galaxy far far away in something of a farewell tour. I wanted to see what ideas will make it to the films and TV series, what won't, and what will be changed and inverted in unexpected ways. However at the end of the book there are two short stories written by Karen Traviss, one of the best Star Wars writers I've seen in a long time.

This is advice Pete Bagley never accepted. This scene from "Smiley's People" resurrected itself as I read this book, a thrilling story without question, but incomplete at best and beset with unsupported, if dubious evidence. Why was Pete Bagley conducting his 'private enterprise' to find the mole at the heart of the CIA's directorate of operations? Isn't this the job of the CIA's agency director, who at least for part of the time was the discredited J Only from out of great conflict can true heroes arise. With the galaxy aflame and war on an unimaginable scale tearing the Imperium apart, champions of light and darkness venture onto countless fields of battle in service to their masters. They ask not for remembrance or reward - simply to meet their destiny head-on, and only by embracing that destiny will they come to learn what the unseen future may yet hold for them... [1] Contents

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The space battles are really well written, just like the old X-Wing novels that Aaron Allston used to write about Rogue and Wraith Squadron. His knowledge of Star Wars vehicles and ships are just as good now as they ever were and they made the rest of the book worth it.