Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Unifying Force

At last I have finished the 19 books of the New Jedi Order. It ends big. James Luceno does his usual good job as he wraps things up in The Unifying Force. Mr. Luceno is one of the best, and I knew he wouldn’t let us down. He ties things together and reaches a conclusion while at the same time reminding us of happenings from other books.

As expected, the war with the Yuuzhan Vong ends with a huge battle. The sentient planet of Zonama Sekot has a major role as do the Shamed Ones, the oppressed members of the Yuuzhan Vong society. The Jedi reach a clearer understanding of the Force with the help of Vergere and Zonama Sekot. Everybody seems to work together until things begin to make sense.

A key player in all of this is the Vong’s Supreme Overlord Shimmra. He is somewhat of a mysterious leader through the series, and his fortunes take an unexpected direction during the twists and turns at the end of the book. Just remember that everything is not as it seems. Keep a close eye on Nom Anor. The final battle is huge and very satisfying. Jacen Solo is a key contributor here.

I admit to being somewhat relieved that my journey through the New Jedi Order has finally come to an end. I felt bogged down many times. However, the overall journey was worth it. The Yuuzhan Vong were fascinating, mysterious aliens. The ability of the Republic and the Jedi to deal with them was in doubt many times. For the most part the various authors in the series wrote well and kept us as readers on our toes. The New Jedi Order and The Unifying Force are worthwhile parts of the Star Wars saga. In particular, I look forward to reading more of Mr. Luceno’s books.

There are few regular authors in the Star Wars Expanded Universe whose books I anticipate more eagerly than a new release penned by James Luceno. Mr. Luceno has an amazing grasp of the intricate details of the galaxy far, far away, and at his best is able to weave disparate elements from many sources into a cohesive and rich tapestry. I can’t imagine a better choice for an author to pick up the many threads laid down in the eighteen prior New Jedi Order books and somehow make sense of them as a whole. In The Unifying Force, Mr. Luceno accomplishes not only this daunting task but adds numerous nods and updates to older material as well. To experience this book at its best, a reader would not only want to have read the New Jedi Order leading up to it but have as much exposure as possible to the Bantam Spectra novels set prior chronologically.

The Unifying Force brings the forces at work together in one final massive conflict. The storyline begun in Greg Keyes’ Edge of Victory duology comes to a head as the Shamed Ones of Yuuzhan Vong society cast off their yoke of oppression and open new possibilities in the power dynamics of the culture. Zonama Sekot returns to the known galaxy in spectacular fashion but manages to remain enigmatic until the last few chapters. Various final solutions to the Vong invasion are put forward and addressed. Lastly, per the title, the disparate views of the Force posited throughout the New Jedi Order, in particular those put forward by Vergere and those surfaced by the absence of the Vong in the Force, are smashed together and forged to create a new vision of the future for the Jedi.

The opening of the book is surprising, as several chapters are set in a prison camp that reminded me strongly of scenes from The Bridge over the River Kwai and a few other war films. These serve to ease the reader into the larger story and set the stage for the Galactic Alliance’s final push to retake Coruscant and stop the invasion. The prison chapters and the space conflict they eventually lead to are well-written and fundamental to the story, but I admit I was chafing to get back to two main plotlines: the return of Zonama Sekot to the galaxy and the churning evolution of Yuuzhan Vong society taking place on Coruscant.

Mr. Luceno deftly paints the crumbling foundations of Yuuzhan Vong culture and manages to spend significant time detailing Supreme Overlord Shimmra’s actions and words without revealing too much of the underlying mystery of this character. Shimmra’s desperation and confusion shines through clearly, as the Vong turn to more epic sacrifices and even to denying their gods in an effort to reconcile what went wrong with their invasion. Nom Anor provides a shadow storyline to that of Shimmra and to the end proves a wild-card character: the most memorable Vong of the entire series.

The final battle with Shimmra is quite satisfying and cinematic. Sprawling over many chapters as the Jedi and Galactic Alliance forces attempt to reach him, there’s a desperate sense of urgency to the proceedings and some genuine fear for the fate of the heroes. A twist ending in this battle didn’t come as a particular shock but it is an interesting new perspective on the true leadership of the Vong culture. There is a beautifully poignant moment for Jacen Solo, a character who has grown increasingly murky over the series, when he experiences something absolutely sublime and at the same moment knows he will spend the rest of his life attempting and failing to recapture it.

Looking over my reviews of the New Jedi Order, there are many individual books I gave high marks to. What intrigues me is my overall impression of the series is lower than the average of my ratings would suggest. There is no question that it overstays its welcome and that rotating so many authors through its doors did little good for the consistency of the story. That said, it’s books like Matthew Stover’s Traitor, Troy Denning’s Star by Star, and The Unifying Force that save this series. They make it worthwhile reading for fans of the Star Wars Expanded Universe that have gotten to Timothy Zahn’s Vision of the Future and wish there was more story to go. While I disagree with some of the foundational elements of the New Jedi Order, here Mr. Luceno deftly wraps up the whole thing in a beautiful shiny package: truly a job well done.

New Jedi Order was probably the hardest Star Wars series ever to conclude. There were a lot of characters and plots that needed resolution, as well as the war. Moreover, it needed to be convincing. Fortunately, James Luceno proved up to the task and made Unifying Force not only an epic conclusion to the series, but one of the best novels in the series. He manages to keep the suspense and drama of the war whilst providing a believable resolution to the conflict. I thought everything fit together well in retrospect, but not in ways I’d predicted!

The best parts of the novel are the character dialogues. Unlike some books in the series (I’m looking at Star by Star), Unifying Force provides ample time for dialogue. All of our favorite Star Wars characters really sound like themselves, but with the added toll of years and constant fighting. I love Han’s reaction to the proposal that somebody should erect a statue in his honor. The best bits come after the war’s conclusion, a 60 or so page denouement that really evoked war weariness and hope for the future (sadly, spoiled by my knowledge that there were more Star Wars books published after NJO destroying that illusory sense of peace).

My only complaint – if I have one – is that Luceno spends a lot of time early in the book with relatively minor characters like Pash Cracken, Judder Page, and even Yuuzhan Vong commander Malik Carr, but all these are forced to take a back seat midway through. The grande finale of the NJO series just isn’t the time to introduce too many new characters. It’s almost like Luceno started writing another NJO book, then realized he needed to focus on the main characters for the grand finale. Overall, this doesn’t hurt the book much at all, and in times helps, but I worry that time spent with some of those characters would have been better spent with Nom Anor or Lando Calrissian (who, incidentally, seemed almost absent throughout the whole NJO series).

Overall, I’m glad NJO ended with such a bang. Unifying Force captures the best in character development and action, as well as drama, in the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Great use of the famous characters we know and love, facing a chillingly different threat.

May the force be with you, but not with them.

Fabulous read. Very good value.