Death Star

[General Soontir Fel]

Slightly OT, I was reading the book and came across this little gem:

By creating a false identi-tab he became Teh Roxxor, and inspector employed by a civilian contractor who built storage bins for recycling stations, which gave him a reason to be in such places.

I can just see a planet somewhere where 1337 speak is the language and people walk around with names like "leet pwnage" and "Super Snpr 16"

I laughed at that. In the context of the SW universe, it could actually be a real name.

Now, the necessary mini-review.

Without a doubt, one of the best SW novels out there. Certainly better than almost all the post-ROTJ stuff.

I liked the characters, especially Nova Stihl.

It does reject most of the minimalism that appeared earlier. 100 TIE fighters seems to be a typo (in the ANH novelization, Leia says the Imperials could have easily launched 100 fighters after the Falcon, implying there'd be plenty more.

As far as "hyperspace transition", that was clearly put in to explain the ring effect when Alderaan blows up. It apparently only happens in the full power blast, since neither the Rebel carrier nor Despayre exibit that.

Two problems I do have:
1. What was Vil Dance's rank? He's inconsistently referred to as a Lieutenant and a Lieutenant Commander. Out of universe, Reaves probably wrote one rank and Perry another, and the editor didn't catch it. In universe... man, does that guy get promoted and demoted often.

2. The quarter of a million or so pilots to which Dance compares himself. If it's the entire Imperial Navy, the number is too small, and if it's just the Death Star, it's too large (at least, with the incomplete staffing at that point). I suppose you could rationalize it to the self-selected sample of pilots who a)ran that particular simulation, and b)actually released their results (assuming that is not mandatory), but still...

Daala's memory loss as an explanation for her later failures was great. And on the plus side of things, Qwi Xux didn't appear at all (I always hated her.)

The only bad thing about this... who wants to bet that Vil Dance, Memah Roothes, Teela Kaarz, Uli Divini, and Celot Ratua Dil will appear again, in works of much lower quality?