Star Wars: Crucible

This book marks the end of an era.  This is almost certainly the furthest ahead in the timeline Star Wars publishing will go before Episode VII comes out.  As someone who is pretty invested in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the concept of Episode VII destroying all of the canon that I have come to love (warts and all) worries me.

Before Episode VII was announced, this book was intended to be a passing of the torch novel.  Luke, Han, and Leia (and Lando!) would fight one last big fight and then at least move a little into the background.  However, when Episode VII was announced Troy Denning actually rewrote the end of the novel so that it was less blatant who the characters were passing the torch to.

Denning obviously felt that he needed more than just the characters advanced age to retire them.  I won't spoil which, if any, of the characters survive the book but basically every single character takes a beating.  Jedi healing trances are pushed almost beyond belief and while there is not that high of a body count, there is a very high injury count.

The book is almost a direct sequel to the last Fate of the Jedi book and it starts in a galaxy that is sort of in a unique position in Star Wars.  There are many Sith throughout, the Jedi are not a part of the government at all, and there are multiple other independent states but still only one big government.  It is a shame that this political situation is (probably) about to get plowed under by the new movie.

There have been some complaints that the villains of this book do not make for a fitting last hurrah for the big three, and maybe that is true.  However, considering all that they have faced, it would be hard to do something so galaxy shatteringly intense that hasn't already been done.  However, these antagonists are different than the vast majority of previous antagonists and that makes them interesting.

Overall, I would give this book a 87%.