The New Jedi Order  

'Agents of Chaos 1 - Hero's Trial' by James Luceno  

A Del Rey Book, published 2000 (paperback)  

Set 21 years after RotJ, 6 months after 'Vector Prime' 

 book cover
Story -- the Yuuzhan Vong are still pressing ahead with their plans for galactic domination, and are particularly intent on destroying the Jedi. Han, meanwhile, has finished his 6-month long alcohol-induced bender, and now wants serious revenge! And if that means leaving his wife and disappearing off on his own, then so be it. This is mostly a Han book, with brief appearances by Leia, Luke, Mara, Anakin, and a few others.

Characterisations -- a pretty good characterisation of Han Solo, bearing in mind what he has been through; Leia is still putting the galaxy before herself; I particularly liked the physical descriptions of Luke (in his few scenes); Mara's not in this book much, and she's very ill. Very little of the Solo kids, but C-3PO gets centre-stage a couple of times, giving voice to droid philosophy. No Rogue Squadron. :-(

New characters -- the return of Belindi Kalenda (hands up if you've read the Corellian trilogy), as well as Roa (last seen 30 years previously, during the Han Solo trilogy), and Nom Anor. Introduction of several Yuzzies, including a female priestess called Elan - the Yuzzies are still real icky, but more differences between them are becoming apparent. Another new character is Droma (rather odd, in an interesting kinda way...)
 
Cover art -- (by Rick Berry). After some debate on the internet, I can confirm that that is indeed Han (wearing the Solo-patented disguise - grow a beard and no-one will recognise me). The other two are new characters.

Chicks -- Leia and Mara's appearances are rather brief, but we do finally get to meet a female Yuuzhan Vong! Elan is a very interesting, unpredictable character, as is her 'familiar', Vergere (also female).

Any good? -- Luceno writes beautifully; the man has a real command of the English language, and his descriptions of the characters and locations of the SW universe are some of the best I've read. However, he does have a tendency to use 'unusual' words where simpler ones would do (eg. 'prognathous', 'coterie', 'discombobulated',...); this is fine if it's done for a purpose, and I'm all for 'writing as art', but I felt it was a little overdone, especially when it detracted from the story. Something else I felt was slightly overdone were the references to previous novels. BIG thumbs up for actually reading some of the previous novels (I love it when an author does his/her homework!), but I found some of the references a bit irritating and unnecessary, particularly when they recounted the events of the previous NJO novels - is there anyone reading this book that hasn't read VP, Onslaught and Ruin? Having said all that, this is an excellent book, particularly if you like characterisation rather than action scenes. There are still one or two battle scenes, but they are described rather than acted out using dialogue. And there is still the feeling of true danger - I keep telling myself that they wouldn't dare kill off Han, Luke, Leia, etc., but these books are written so that you're not 100% certain.

Read it? -- definitely recommended, especially for all the poor Han fans who have suffered through the previous three novels.

Rating -- 8 out of 10
 

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