Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide 1: Onslaught [Mass Market Paperback]

But Corran aside, the general plot was good, but it was more characterization issues that got at me. Danni Quee got annoying (again, Stackpole stepping in with his "cool" visions of the Force, this time with someone learning it for the first time). Han Solo was absent entirely from this book except for a few pages in the beginning where he shows up drunk and depressed. He also made Luke seem very weak throughout the book by making the Force drain him of energy when he uses it. We've seen Luke's amazing talents using the Force before, and he was never as exhausted as Stackpole portrays him. The interactions between Luke and Mara Jade are also lacking. They constantly call each other, "My love," which annoyed me immensely. I simply cannot see Mara saying something like this. She also calls Luke, "husband," which caused the same feelings for me. Mara also loses her ship, the Jade Saber (sorry for those of you who haven't read the book), and there is absolutely nothing written about her sorrow over this. In Timothy Zahn's Hand of Thrawn duology, Mara also loses a ship (Jade's Fire) which she was very attached to, as it was really the first thing she had that belonged to her. Zahn showed that she was very sad about it, but Stackpole dismisses the matter almost immediately. Mara doesn't say a word about the loss of Jade Saber. She was just as attached to it as Jade's Fire (which we know from reading Vector Prime), but she has no regret or sorrow over losing it at all.

Stackpole also left the Yuuzhan Vong out of the story. Vector Prime was an excellent book, and one of the reasons why is because R.A. Salvatore did the exact opposite. Every other chapter had a passage told from a bad guy's (Yomin Carr, Nom Anor, Prefect Da'Gara) point of view, and Stackpole didn't do this once. The Yuuzhan Vong's POV was something that made Vector Prime very enjoyable to read and could keep things like irony going. The complete lack of this made Onslaught seem a bit boring. In my opinion, Michael A. Stackpole really should just leave Star Wars alone.

The first of his New Jedi Order books is Onslaught, which is the first of the Dark Tide subseries. The story works to show the reader more about the Yuuzhan Vong invaders. What do they want? Who are they? What are they? Why are they more threatening then anyone else? Stackpole begins to answer all of these questions, in Onslaught.

First of all, I have to say that this is a fantastic novel. Stackpole outdoes himself big time on this one. I've read through this book at least three times and is without a doubt my favorite New Jedi Order novel, after reading all but the last.
Onslaught spends much of its time talking about Luke and Jacen, and a fair amount talking about Danni Quee, the first witness to Yuuzhan Vong horrors. The book also goes into a little more depth about Mara's illness and how she is feeling because of it. Leia's jealousy of Mara's relationship with Jaina also comes into a little bit of light.

This book has so much, battles and debates, character development and you begin to develop strong dislikes for certain characters. The one drawback of this book is that it marks the beginning of the overusage of Corran Horn, who i grew deathly sick of by Balance Point.

I highly recommend this book, whether you want to read Vector Prime first or not. This is a great stand alone story; if you liked any of the X-Wing series, you will love Onslaught. This book really got me into the New Jedi Order as Vector Prime wasnt all that gripping. After reading this the first time, I started counting down the days until Ruin came out. Definitely the best New Jedi Order book to date.

Michael A. Stackpole chronically denies the reader any descriptive detail on what Yuuzhan Vong ships and weapons look like. He also denies detailed background on any major Yuuzhan Vong characters. It is as if he didn't fully understand the enemy he was writing about. He just plainly stated the name of the object or character and moved on with the story. This effect for a novel does help keep the story moving at a quick pace, but the lack of detail and description harmed the overall narrative. It prevented the reader from wanting to care about characters and situations. The author simply went through the motions so that the reader could move onto the next book. For this reason the Dark Tide books are very disappointing.