Review -The Unseen Queen

"The Unseen Queen" - by Troy Denning - September (or so) 2005

Let me just dive in.

The EU - R2's memory scenes. I'll admit it, I kind of like the idea of Luke getting to watch Revenge of the Sith bit by bit and R2 being worried that seeing it would hurt him. And introducing Allana was nice... I guess.

The Bad...

Well, you might have noticed that the EU part was short. Um, so was this book, in comparison to the Joiner King. As I moved to the Unseen Queen, I noted that the book was smaller -- (333 pages instead of 443 for JK). And as I opened it to read... the font was bigger. You know how when you didn't have a long enough paper and you would kick up the font size on your paper... eh... that's exactly what happens here.

And it shows. There just wasn't enough... meat here.

Seriously - in the first book, it was nice to see our good old heroes in Action - Luke and Han and Leia out and about. In this book... um... Han and Luke are in a bug prison hotel for what, 85% of the time? And Leia also gets to spend some time sitting in the poke. And as for the rest... well...

Okay, we get it - Jacen is starting to follow his Grandfather's footsteps. That's neat. But... something just wasn't full, wasn't fleshed out.

The Ugly - The Jedi Masters Needing Naptime - I am visiting some friends who have children. There are several kids between the ages of 1-3 and they all play together rather well, until they get tired. Then you need a parent to corral them in and maybe make them take a nap.

I think that when Troy Denning decided to write the Jedi Masters and needed inspiration, he visited a Day Care Center. I mean... okay, they aren't "Luke Skywalker" - but these other guys are Jedi "Masters". They are people who have spent their life mastering themselves, their awareness of the world around them.

Would they really be that cranky? Or petulant? I mean -- really, Luke isn't there to tell them to behave or what to do and suddenly they sound like a bunch of Junior High Students? Really? Really really?

See, I thought part of the whole job of the New Jedi Order was to introduce some new heroes into the mix - other people who could do exciting and heroic things, who could take some of the story lines. Then why is Corran Horn in this book less mature than he was in "I, Jedi" before he's even a Jedi? Or Kyle Katarn less disciplined than he was when I was playing him with the "LAPOSTAL" code and lobbing thermal detonators at every storm trooper in sight? This is just really lousy and foolish.

But I think that's part of the problem -- the Jedi have just become sort of... foolish.

And yes, the combat was entertaining, and the grammar and flow was good... but I don't like stupidity in my characters. I don't want stupid villains, I don't want stupid heroes. It's like Troy Denning saw the "for dummies" series, and thought it was a great idea, but had miss read the series title and thus decided to write "Star Wars *of* Dummies" instead.

Final Grade - D+ -- Really, just blow average. Not a lot of tension, not a lot of action, not a lot of wisdom... not a lot of a grade.