Let's begin by stating the obvious. I am a pretty big Star Wars fan. As I talked about in a previous post, about two years ago, I began serious delving into the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the series of books, stories, comics, and more that ran from 1978 until Disney decided to discontinue it in 2014, replacing it with their own canon (which stinks. For more backstory, read my post titled "May The Force Be With The EU.") There is a lot of material in the EU, but, I decided to start after the end of Return of the Jedi and proceed from there. The first big trilogy was The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. I was blown away. These were the sequel stories I wanted to see! The next trilogy to conquer was The Jedi Academy trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson. I was familiar with his writing from the Young Jedi Knights series, tales of the Solo twins and their companions as they study at their Uncle Luke's Jedi Academy (I skipped ahead a few years. OOPS!) From what I read in reviews online and from the back of the book itself, I didn't know exactly what to expect from Jedi Search. I am glad to say that I was pleasantly surprised.
There are dual stories in Jedi Search that end up being tied together. As one can surmise from the title, one storlyine in the quest of Luke Skywalker to rebuild the Jedi Knights and his search for candidates that show Force-sensitivity potential. The other, and the one I became most interested in, involves Han Solo and Chewbacca, who are sent on a diplomatic mission of sorts to the planet of Kessel on behalf of the New Republic. There, they are captured and forced to work in the infamous spice mines. Upon their escape, they end up at a secret Imperial installation so secluded that it hasn't received any news from the outside in over a decade. The base is run by Admiral Daala, a female officer hand-picked by Grand Moff Tarkin for the assignment. The purpose of the installation is to develop a super weapon that will bring an end to the Rebellion once and for all.
I won't spoil the plot twists or the ending. I hate it when that happens to me. I will say that Han's odyssey to get from the mines of Kessel back home to Leia and kids kept me up reading much later than I should have been. (I think it was 2:45 a.m. when I finished and finally put my book down.) Luke's hunt for new Jedi actually held my interest, too. Since I am not a huge Luke Skywalker fan, that can be hard to do, but, this book does it. Kevin Anderson did a good job of introducing characters that I look forward to reading more about, especially Kyp Durron (a young boy whom Han befriended in the mines) and Qwi Xux (a scientist taken from her home world as a child and made to develop weapons for the Empire). Even the part that was a little on the campy side (Lando traveling to the blob races to track down a possible candidate for Luke) wasn't too much of a distraction.
The story flowed well and didn't get bogged down too much with one certain storyline. I look forward to reading more of the Jedi Academy trilogy. Jedi Search was a good beginning.
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