In a fit of irony, the middle book of the current Star Wars series has had the most to offer the fans I was complaining about last time, while simultaneously being the least tightly constructed of the books so far. On the one hand, wow with the events. Sacrifice contains, among other things, the pivotal moment foretold since the first book of the series in which the Sith apprentice comes into his full power as well as two more things I have typed and later deleted because they would be major spoilers. Well, one would be; the other would be if you knew it in advance, because there’s all kinds of obvious foreshadowing for it, if you know that something is coming. I know, because I knew in advance and the foreshadowing was kind of clubbing me about the head and neck. But that’s not too bad of a thing, really; I just wish I hadn’t known.

So, I’m all approval about the ongoing Skywalker-Solo family story and the ways it ties into the current galactic-scale storyline. The thing is, though, it also contains a completely separate story about Boba Fett’s efforts to rebuild the Mandalorian people into a stable civilization as well as his efforts to rebuild his life and his family ties. Which are well-written and interesting, but at no point do they really intersect with the ongoing storyline, like they did when he was last present in the second book. And if there was a theme to tie everything together where the events failed to, well, I missed it this time. To recap, there’s a lot of good storytelling, but it’s not very deep and consists of two unrelated stories. So, y’know, fun to read, but I can’t exactly call it good writing. Naturally, therefore, all of the Amazon reviews seem to be full of praise.

I can’t decide if I’m more sad for me, being attached to a fandom that doesn’t really appreciate technical skill in prose, or if I’m more sad for the authors who have to this point been putting together a solid piece of fiction (genre or otherwise), both per book and overall, but who have been derided by their nominal fans all along despite this accomplishment of something I haven’t ever seen in trademark fiction. (Well, or whatever you call it when there’s a property that’s being farmed out to multiple authors after success outside the written word.)