Buy Tales of the Jedi: The Sith War
3,996 BBY
*Oss Willum and Crado are Dark Siders now? That was fast. They must have fallen in like ten seconds flat.
*It’s that darn Sith glass again!
*And Aleema is still alive? I thought sure Exar and Ulic would have killed her after they formed their allegiance.
*Oh, I see now. She had to be alive because otherwise she couldn’t betray Ulic, now could she? I see . . . it’s all coming together now.
*I wonder if Exar, Ulic & Aleema are all coming together. And I’ll show myself out.
*God, I’ve gone downhill.
*A General Mandalore makes his appearance here, leading some shock troops. I think this will come into play later . . .
*The personal conflicts are interesting . . . Exar is loyal to Ulic and Ulic to Exar. Aleema is not loyal to Ulic, but Mandalore is loyal to her and to Ulic . . . never mind, it’s not that interesting after all.
*That’s fairly gruesome, those people being blasted to skeletons by massive explosions.
*And Exar Kun kills Crado because Crado, er, has too much respect for Exar Kun? That’s a new one.
*So, here we have just another of those stories where a guy turns himself into a tree.
*Cay goes up and tries to shoot Ulic down. Hilariously, when Ulic gets the better of him, Cay calls over his radio, “Brother! Stop, I’m going down!” Uh, given that he’s just doing what you were trying to do to him three seconds ago, I doubt he’s going to be swayed.
*My God, that’s like the third time Cay has gotten his arm cut off . . .
*And, just when we most expect it, Ulic kills Cay. I don’t know why everyone’s surprised. I saw that coming since their first scene together way back in Beast Wars of Onderon. You don’t have brothers in a saga like this one just so your main character can have someone to talk too.
*Oss Willum is back on the side of the light, by the way. Apparently turning to the light is as quick and painless as falling to the dark. Unless, of course, you’re the main character.
*Nomi cuts Ulic off from the Force and then says she didn’t know what would happen exactly or how to stop it or reverse it. Um, yeah, that’s a good thing to be using then, ain’t it?
*And, by the way, Nomi? You had the chance to pull that guy out of the Sith’s lair a little while ago. You didn’t, because you said he had to pay for his decision. I wonder if all the people he killed on Coruscant and Ossus are happy with that judgment call of yours. I wonder if Cay is.
*And also, you said he had to follow his own path and suffer the consequences. He seems to be doing that, having just suffered a nervous breakdown after having killed his own brother. And NOW, now that the damage is done and thousands are dead, NOW you’re interfering by cutting him off from the Force? Damn, woman. . . so, basically, you couldn’t interfere in any helpful way that might save lives, but you can hurt him in a completely spiteful and vindictive way now that all the damage he can do has been done? Yes, it’s no wonder the Jedi disintegrated . . .
*In short, Nomi, screw you and the Sun you rode in on. You are a vindictive, bitter, self-absorbed sociopath and if anyone really falls to the Dark Side, it’s you.
*See, here’s the problem with this whole arc. Exar Kun falls to the Dark Side because he’s intellectually interested. I don’t get that. There’s no emotion, no anger, no rage, no fear, no hate. He’s just curious. Ulic falls to the Dark Side because he wants justice. The council argues that he wants revenge, but that’s not true, because he gets to where Satal and Aleema are and kicks around for weeks, trying to learn more. If it was revenge he wanted, he’d have just killed them. He too, like Kun, is interested in learning about the Dark Side. His motives are, if anything, purer than Kun’s, since Ulic is concerned with stopping the Sith.
*Nomi, on the other hand, gives into emotions of pure rage, bitterness and hatred at the end of this story and commits a truly crippling (both physically and emotionally) act of violence on a surrendered enemy. But she, according to the other characters and herself, DOES NOT fall to the Dark Side. Nomi’s the one touching the Dark Side, not Ulic and Exar Kun. This is idiotic. When she was first introduced, I thought Nomi was a very interesting character. But at this point, she’s a truly annoyingly self-righteous sociopath.
*Not to beat a dead horse here, but these are the worst most ineffectual and anti-philosophical Jedi I’ve ever read about.
*So, Ulic agrees to lead the others to Exar Kun who has fled back to Yavin.
*So, at this point, for some reason, they can interfere? Before they said they had to let Exar Kun follow his own path. What’s changed their minds? Seriously, these guys are just annoying.
*So, Exar Kun escapes them by, I don’t know, possessing the buildings or something . . . this all leads up to the Jedi Academy Trilogy where Kun returns. And as stupid as it looked there, it looks even worse here. I mean what the hell?
*You might expect Ulic to die sacrificially defeating Exar Kun. Nope. We’ve got one more book to wring out of the poor bastard before we can let him go quietly into that good night.
*CANONICAL STATUS: The Sith War certainly occurred and some of the events depicted here certainly happened, but this narrative is filled with distortions and inaccurate fabrications. This work is NOT RECOMMENDED as a historical resource.
*Warned against. 1 star.
Kevin J. Anderson
*Next time, we’ll take a little detour to catch a short story from this time period. Join me next time for Light & Shadow.