Crucible by Troy DenningMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This novel, one of the few in the later books in the EU series to focus almost exclusively on Luke, Leia, Han, and to a lesser extant, Lando, has its ups and downs. The story moves at a brisk pace, there are some thrilling and amazingly well-written action scenes, and it goes a long way towards reminding us why we love these characters and why they are the ones who are always saving that galaxy far, far away. One of the downs, however, is that in order to make these characters look as formidable as they are, characters that for the last dozen or so books we've been told are truly threats to be taking seriously are pretty much nerfed. Mandalorians are reduced to redshirts; sure, the characters say they should be feared, but then they're easily dismissed like they're nothing more formidable than ROTJ-style stormtroopers. Worse than that, though, is the surprise return of a character (I won't say who to avoid real spoilers) that ties this book more tightly to the overall story than I expected whose character is pretty damaged by showing some cowardice never displayed before. Overall, though, this is a decent enough adventure meant to take the "Big Three" off the board for awhile so upcoming novels (not that there are any scheduled at the moment as far as I know, despite interesting seeds being planted) can focus fully on the next generation.
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