It was decent, good. It was not the best I've ever read. But it was the best starting book I have ever read. It turned me on to the New Jedi Order series and I just finished Traitor recently. It was good of Salvatore to kill off a main character because not only does it show the main characters of Star Wars (Luke, Leia, Han, CHEWIE, and the next generation of Solos, etc.) are not immortal (note R2 and 3PO are excluding because they are I think supposed to never be killed, they are somewhat like narrators). I do feel bad to lose Chewie and I felt like I had lost my best friend but I felt it was good for the SW Universe because it also shows how powerful and deadly the Vong will be.