A few notes before we begin:
Sacrifice is the fifth book in the Legacy of the Force series. It is also the 28th book published by Del Rey after they took over the publishing arm of the Expanded Universe prior to the New Jedi Order series. The book was written by Karen Traviss.
This is the book where they kill off Mara Jade Skywalker. She is probably the most beloved EU character that does not appear in any of the movies. She had been a part of the EU since being introduced in he very first EU book trilogy. She dies here and while it probably does not outweigh the death of Chewbacca I submit that it is the second most traumatic death in the entire EU. She was around much longer than Anakin Solo and for me I was much more emotionally involved with her character.
As the fifth book in a nine book series it is the middle of the Legacy of the Force series. There are four books before it and four after. In the four previous books we have seen Jacen Solo’s march to the dark side. In the previous four books we have seen Jacen struggle, and debate his dark turn. In this book he takes the final step into said darkness. First he stages what amounts to an illegal coup and topples the Galatic Alliance Government and installs himself as Co-Head of State. He also murders Mara Jade.
I like main character deaths as it raises the dramatic stakes for everyone who lives on. Think about Rogue One…those rebel sacrifices make A New Hope a much better movie. While I am not sure Mara was exactly the right character to die in certainly raises the stakes and lets us the readers know maybe no one is safe. My main complaint against the Expanded Universe as a whole is not enough main characters meet their rim fate. Of characters from the movies only Chewbacca dies, and of the main book characters Mara is the among the first to meet her grim end. Maybe Anakin Solo holds that distinction but having not read many of the Young Jedi Knights series I am not sure I count him. My main point here is that not enough main characters in the EU fave mortal peril and almost none of them fail that test…and that is just poor story telling.
The best thing about this book to me is the interactions we see between Mara and her son Ben. There is not enough of this in the EU as a whole as most of the movie heroes have families of their own. The relationship between the Solo’s and their children is not something we see a lot of…and that which we do see in the New Jedi Order Series was pretty insightful given where the authors take Jacen in the books that followed.
While I am not one to give a ton of specific spoilers in these reviews I do want to take a moment to talk about Luke Skywalker and his vengeance killing of Lumiya. This is an incredibly dark thing for the Grand Master of the Jedi order to do. While we have seen Luke fall to the dark side previous to this, this act is without a doubt the darkest thing we have seen Luke carry out. I am not sure how I feel about this but I know that this is something Luke struggles with throughout the rest of this series. I guess that makes it okay…but…
In other random notes I really wonder if Del Rey missed the boat by not publishing a book specifically about Jacen’s five-year sojourn though the Galaxy following the New Jedi Order series. I would like to see a book like that even though of the A Song of Ice and Fire style Star Wars books I am not a huge fan of any of them. I guess I would like to see more of the galaxy through Jacen’s eyes. I find his inner dialogue through the Legacy of the Force series very entertaining.
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