World Famous Comics: The Swarm War (Star Wars: Dark Nest, Book 3)
The Swarm War (Star Wars: Dark Nest, Book 3)
By: Troy Denning Publisher: Del Rey Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Del Rey Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 384 Publication Date: December 27, 2005 Release Date: December 27, 2005
Product Description: In the explosive conclusion to the Dark Nest trilogy, Luke Skywalker summons the heroes of the New Jedi Order from near and far, as the Star Wars galaxy teeters on the edge of eternal war. Yet even the combined powers of the formidable Jedi may not be enough to vanquish the deadly perils confronting them. The Chiss-Killik border war is threatening to engulf the entire galaxy and raising the awful specter of Killiks sweeping across space to absorb all living creatures into a single hive mind. The only hope for peace lies with the Jedi–and only if they can not only end the bloodshed between two fierce enemies but also combat the insidious evil spread by the elusive Dark Nest and its unseen queen.
Leia’s newly acquired Jedi skills will be put to the ultimate test in the coming life-and-death battle. As for Luke, he will have to prove, in a lightning display of Force strength and swordplay, that he is– beyond a shadow of a doubt–the greatest Jedi Master in the galaxy.
Dark Nest III: Revenge of the Palindromes In this third outing of Denning's palindrome bug aliens, we get little more than Star Wars meets Starship Troopers (the movie). The Chiss have again developed a biological weapon to wipe out their enemy (similar to the one they developed to eliminate the Yuuzhan Vong) only to be foiled by our heroes. There's a huge mess of going back and forth as to whether Leia, Han, Saba, & company are helping or opposing the Killik, Chiss, or Galactic Alliance. It was poorly played double agent-ry.
Meanwhile, Luke is continually manipulated by Jacen who is still apparently beyond the Force and gets nonstop special consideration in reguards to the Jedi Order. Luke must also place himself in a position of Grand Master Jedi to rein in the division of other masters & the order as a whole. He also must deal with the enemy of Raynor 'Unu' Thul, Lomi Plo, Alema Rar, and the Dark Nest itself. With all Luke's powers and training, we never hear the end that Raynor and Lomi are both more powerful than he is. Possibly one of the worst annoyances for me is the constant "[name any Jedi here] pouring of [insert random emotion here] into the Force to alter the thoughts of [enter designated person here]"; this happened far far too often in the whole trilogy and you will actual groan and roll your eyes at how repetitive and non-sensical it is. Wasn't this supposed to work on the weak-minded and not everyone, it really was sickening.
Overall, an uninspiring, non-climactic end to a mediocre trilogy that could have been reduced to a duology if not a single book. A saving grace for this series is that many people are complaining that it takes place five years after the Yuuzhan Vong War leaving too big of a gap in the stories, but in actuality, that does help the believablity of this story rather than jumping from one overwhelming force directly into another consuming enemy. That was part of the problem with the jump from Return of the Jedi to the Ssi-ruuk infested The Truce at Bakura (Star Wars). Anyway, I found the whole Dark Nest trilogy to be lackluster but readable none-the-less.
Just Awful This series has to be the worst since The Jedi Academy Trilogy. Totally destroyed Jainas character. She is the Sword of the Jedi and Denning turns her into a punk joiner. Come on, wheres the continuity in that. Plus, a trilogy about bugs.Boring!!! Especially after something as ambitious as the NJO story arc. Lomi Plo and Raynar Thul should have stayed dead. hopefully LOTF will be better.
It's no "Tatooine Ghost" I may be a bit biased in this, but plotwise this entire series was about the same caliber as the notorious "Starship Troopers". Bug-stories are often like that and this one was no different. Further, the trio of Dark Jedi from the Myrkr mission during the Vong War were better kept dead as they had nothing interesting to offer to the SW EU. After a whole trilogy, I realized that they still don't =P. By the end of the first book, I had lost all sympathy for the main characters (the Kilik sympathetic band of Jedi) and cannot for the life of me figure out their motivations in light of their established personalities upto this point in the EU. In other words, Denning has written about well-established characters such as Jaina and Tahiri and even Jag Fel (who gets an insultingly short mention) as if they were fresh new characters that he can mold any way he wants to. I did NOT appreciate the meaningless and unnecessary loss of continuity in the characters because of this. Luckily, Aaron Allston rectifies this gross oversight in the first of the Legacy of the Force series where the characters "come back to normal" =P. Pity. I really like "Tatooine Ghost". Perhaps, Denning's next book will be more to his standards than this entire trilogy was :(
great book only one complaint since dark nest one lowie and tahiri were left out even in dark nest one they did not play key roles lowie was left in a cell the whoole book ,left out in the NJO series too, lowie was not mentioned much i seriously would like a book were there was a lowie luke team up because that would be so cool i am a true fan of lowie and chewie even though he died.
A dramatic uniformity to the Star Wars listening experience Troy Denning's THE SWARM WAR: DARK NEST III receives Jonathan Davis' fine voice also, lending a satisfying, dramatic uniformity to the Star Wars listening experience overall. Here a border war threatens to engulf the galaxy, unless the Jedi can end bloodshed and combat the evil spread by the Dark Nest and its hidden queen. Leia's new Jedi skills will be the difference between life and death in this confrontation.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
