Star Wars: X-Wing: Mercy Kill

The X-Wing series has been a series long beloved by Star Wars book fans.  Unlike many of the other stories, it barely features anyone from the movies and almost no use of the Force.  Before this most recent addition, the books came out over the course of three years over two different authors.  However, for more than a decade, the series laid fallow, until now...

Mercy Kill is the 10th book in a series where the 9th book came out in 1999.  It also serves as kind of an epilogue to a different 9 book series.  In other words, this book has a lot of history behind it.  Surprisingly, it doesn't really feel that way.  Despite being what is basically the 10th book in two separate series, it manages to stand on its own surprisingly well.  This book manages to require very little domain knowledge while avoiding the pitfall of explaining a bunch of previous plot points in a manner that is blatantly just filling new readers in.

Like many Aaron Allston books, this story, while being serious, has a multitude of humorous parts.  Some, especially those worked into the elaborate and stressful climax, provide such a perfect break, that they can have the reader howling with laughter. 

My biggest complaint with this book is that the title is not very accurate.  There is almost no space action in this book.  Almost everything occurs on foot.  There is not really a problem with this, I just feel that a book that has X-Wing in the title should have a little more action having to do with, well,  X-Wings.

The villain was physically not introduced until relatively late in the story but the author does a good job of making him seem like a bad guy without making him a caricature.  Just some of the little things he does really make it clear that the guy is not a paragon of virtue.

Overall, this book is surprisingly accessible and unsurprisingly funny.  I would give it a 91%.