I have been a closeted reader of STAR WARS novels for about a year now. I am honestly embarrassed to admit to people how much I enjoy them. Sure, there are a few duds in the bunch, but for the most part, they are pretty fun books. So I have decided to come out of the closet by starting a series of reviews here at BOOKGASM that will attempt to review all of them. This may be crazy, because at this point, I don’t even know how many of them there are.

First up is VECTOR PRIME, the first book in the NEW JEDI ORDER series. This series is set nearly 30 years after the events of the first STAR WARS movie. This means a lot of stuff has happened. The Empire and all its little spin-off factions have finally been crushed. Han Solo and Leia are married with three kids. Luke Skywalker has started up a Jedi Academy and has been training new Jedi as well as studying Jedi history trying to figure out what the fuck the midichlorians were all about. So our main characters are now pushing 50 and are looking forward to moving in some new directions. Leia has resigned her government duties. Luke is thinking about starting a New Jedi Council. Han is looking forward to taking it easy.

Fortunately, there is trouble brewing in the outer rim of the galaxy. There’s a mysterious race of extragalactic aliens who are planning a galactic invasion. The Yuuzhan Vong are unlike any race we have seen in STAR WARS so far. They are a technophobic, humanoid warrior race who are very into self-mutilation (they rip out their own eyeballs and fill the eyesockets with venom spitting creatures — that type of thing). I am simplifying things here, but writer R.A. Salvatore does a great job of setting up this new threat and fleshing out their very brutal and very alien culture. The first wave of their invasion is being conducted with utmost secrecy - to give them time to build up their forces.

As our heroes set to take care of a few seemingly easy missions, they begin to uncover clues that something bad is going down. In true Star Wars fashion they split up into several groups and the action commences. Salvatore makes this book really FEEL like one of the classic STAR WARS films. It’s action-packed without losing sight of the characters that make these stories so important. He nails the dialogue, structure and most importantly the pacing. This book was damn near impossible for me to put down. There are also a lot of new non-movie characters that are pretty compelling as well. These include Han and Leia’s kids who are about the age Luke and Leia were in the original trilogy.

One of the highlights of the book for me was the return of Lando Calrissian, who has a new mining operation that put Bespin to shame. I love how Lando is presented here as a pretty shady but sometimes heroic character. Han still doesn’t seem to trust him and true to character, Lando manages to let him down yet again. In fact, it is due to one of Lando’s schemes that the story takes a pretty dark turn, which I won’t spoil for you here.

One of the things that’s really interesting about how this story is developing is the way it comments on the storyline in the prequel trilogy. There is quite a bit of debate between Luke and other Jedi about his plans to re-establish the Jedi Council. History is beginning to repeat itself as the government is taken over by Jedi-hating politicians and many Jedi Knights are starting to go renegade.

This book is darker, grittier and more intense than any of the STAR WARS novels to date. Honestly, I don’t know how the rest of the series can live up to this one (I am particularly dreading the fact that the last novel in the series is written by James Luceno, who wrote the dreadful, damn near unreadable STAR WARS: LABYRINTH OF EVIL). I expect that the NEW JEDI ORDER will have it’s ups and downs but if the rest of the series even comes close to the potential glimpsed here, it will be one hell of a fun read.