Betrayal

So just a moment ago, I finished Betrayal by Aaron Allston.

I've been waiting to read this book for a while. This kicks off a new Star Wars series of novels. The last one, The New Jedi Order, was such a rip-roaring, holy cow, gasp fest that I was holding out high hopes for this one. I eagerly watched as more and more books from this series were released in paperback, but I wanted to wait until this, the first book in the series, came out in paperback as well (as they sometimes do, Bantam released this book as a hardcover first).

I'm not sure it was worth the wait and that disappoints me.

For starters, I accidentally learned what happened at the end of the book. So what should have been a big surprise ... well, it wasn't.

Second, we have Allston's writing. I love Aaron Allston's other Star Wars novels. Allston has a wit and sense of humor that shines through no matter what he's writing. For example, his Wraith Squadron books were golden (especially the running joke about the Ewok pilot; trust me, you have to read it to believe it). Even in the midst of the Vong invasion, Allston's wit shone through.

But not so much in this book. There were glimmers of it, sure, but they fell kind of flat.

Third, we have what I suspect was supposed to be a "holy cow" revelation but fizzled for me. The reason? I had no idea what Allston was talking about. I had to look up the information on Wikipedia and even after I learned what I had to, I wasn't that impressed.

I'll keep reading the other books in the series; I mean, given what's happened, I'm curious to see how things shake out. If you've read the book, you know what I mean. If not, well, you can take a look for yourself. Just don't expect tremendous things.