Hey, cool, another book-in-a-day event. Okay, it was an airport day to some reasonable extent, but still, it’s a rare thing, and I always have to groove on it when it occurs. So, yeah, another second book in a trilogy, too, this time Star Wars’ Dark Nest (which I was yesterday given to understand bridges the gap between the New Jedi Order series and a forthcoming new multi-book sequence).

The Unseen Queen picks up a year after the last book. The Jedi are in as precarious a position relative to the government as they ever were under the Old Republic (except for not being hunted down and murdered, I suppose), due to a combination of bad press over their defense of the hive-mind insects from that book and a certain moral looseness within their own ranks. And then, of course, the Dark Nest starts to make a new move that could threaten the galaxy forever. (I feel like that ought to have been exclaimed rather than stated, but: no.)

It felt like quite a bit better of a book than the last one. Luke’s discoveries about his lineage that kept me interested last time were doled out more sparingly here, but the storyline was substantially better and the Joiner aggravation reduced, so on the whole I’m happy with proceeding toward the end. (I guess the book is out already?) This is good, because it would kind of suck to dislike the bridge to an entire sequence. Contrariwise, I hope it isn’t actually about all the insect hive folks, because they’ll have about outlived their interestingness by then. I’m pretty sure it will be about something a lot better, though, if I’ve properly gauged where the recent releases are going these days, though. Something rather more Chiss, say.