The Bacta War (Star Wars: X-Wing, #4) in The Expanded Universe

Apr 06, 2008 Keith rated it really liked it

Shelves: star-wars

Stars: 3.5
Re-read: Yes
Recommend to: Any SW fan assuming you've read books 1-3.

This is another pretty strong installment in the X-Wing series and is a worthwhile read for Star Wars fans. My only real complaint is that Stackpole is losing focus on the relative strength of various ships, so some of the events are getting more over the top than they need to be. It's nowhere near as bad as the terrible Disney Star Wars movies of course, but more consistency would be better. The crux of the matter com Stars: 3.5
Re-read: Yes
Recommend to: Any SW fan assuming you've read books 1-3.

This is another pretty strong installment in the X-Wing series and is a worthwhile read for Star Wars fans. My only real complaint is that Stackpole is losing focus on the relative strength of various ships, so some of the events are getting more over the top than they need to be. It's nowhere near as bad as the terrible Disney Star Wars movies of course, but more consistency would be better. The crux of the matter comes down to (view spoiler).

The other problem with the book is the lessening of the villain character. (view spoiler)

I had some other minor complaints/comments: (view spoiler)[...
- Corran and Mirax are in a bar and some goons try and intimidate them. Corran, a veteran of the battle between the law and the criminal world immediately buckles under, apologizes, and offers to buy them a drink. This is all done so that Mirax can look hardcore and tell them to go jump off a cliff. They find out who her dad is and they scurry away. This is not how an experienced and confidant Corran would act.
- In the same vein, Corran acts like a rookie again when they are in the airport infiltrating Thyferra. A stormtrooper walks out of a bathroom and he freezes. Then, he continues to act suspiscious when questioned. Then, he cuts the freakin stormtroopers head of with his freakin lightsaber. Smart Corran. Way to keep a low profile. You wouldn't want to broadcast to the entire planet who you are. Isard would know that his escape from the Lusankya coincided with multiple people being killed by lightsaber wounds, so you announced to your enemy that you are here.
- Why would the Rogues set up their base on the space station from the previous book. They wave it away by saying they'll tell people they destroyed it. The problem is that it is in a habited system, so this will immediately be seen as false by thousands or tens of thousands of ships a day. Pair that with the fact that x-wings are always flying around and this secret wouldn't last nearly as long as it did in the book. Isard, the spy master, wasn't able to find it until Wedge wanted her to.
- Jace has been alive all along. It's gotten to the point that there are too many fake-out deaths. Jace "died" in the first book. Tycho and Corran "died" in the second book. Mirax "died" in either the third or fourth book. Gavin "died" in this book. Now, the reader assumes that it isn't real when a character dies.
- I always feel for the droids in Star Wars. Wedge's version of R2 was a likeable droid named Mynock. Great name. Wedge basically gets annoyed that it makes too much noise so he wipes the memory and now it is named Gate. That's cold Wedge. Can you imagine Luke wiping R2's memory?
- Way too much of the plan to destroy the Lusankya relied on the Imperial captain of the Star Destroyer to be willing to sacrifice his ship for them. If he wasn't willing to do that, they would have all died. That doesn't seem like a smart risk to me.
- The money is pretty wild in this book. They are short on funds and all that but are regularly stealing billions or at least hundreds of millions of credits worth of bacta. Seems like that should solve their problem, but they make it much more difficult on themselves.
- The Vratix are non-gendered semi hive mind creatures that refer to themselves as they/them. It made me shudder.
- Corran has no clue what Booster Terik looks like. How in the world is this possible? He is the father of the woman he loves. Even worse, he was the archenemy of his father. They opposed each other with a passion. You're telling me Corran never looked up his file or anything like that?
- I think the most absurd thing is that the New Republic actually played it straight and didn't help Rogue Squadron under the table. That's just not what governments do. Every government in the world would be secretly helping the Rogues achieve their goals, but the New Republic essentially says good luck and walks away other than Pash Cracken at the very end.
(hide spoiler)]

It is interesting to note that the author's note makes it seem like this was the planned ending for the series. I'm laughing at some reviews congratulating him on closing out a series in only four books when there ended up being 10 (even though he only wrote one more).
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