Star Wars: The Bacta War, book four in the X-Wing Series, was written by New York Times Bestselling Author, Michael A Stackpole. This Expanded Universe tale takes place during the New Republic Era, seven ABY (7 years after the battle of Yavin).
SUMMARY
Rogue Squadron has gone… rogue! In the previous novel, The Krytos Trap, each member resigned from the New Republic. As the New Republic turns its focus to fighting Warlord Zsinj, Rogue Squadron is dead set on putting an end to Isard. Had the group stayed with the New Republic, they would have had to follow orders and forget about Isard and her reign of terror, at least for the immediate future.
It’s up to Rogue Squadron to seek out its own ships, weapons, fuel, docking, and much more in order act alone. While Isard’s pride swells, her new right hand man – Fliry Vorru – keeps her grounded; reminding her that the empire is no longer limitless, and that it has its restrictions.
Isard has taken control of the wold – Thyferra and has the monopoly on Bacta, but she’s having trouble with the distribution of the much needed product. Rogue Squadron has been disrupting her plans as the feisty rebels pick off the freighters making their delivery runs. The war on controlling Bacta has begun!
OVERALL THOUGHTS
There’s no doubt that the X-Wing series is progressing, each story pushes new bounds. I wish I could say the same about the entertainment value. I found myself getting bored with this instalment. The last book felt more contained with a plot that was easy to follow. This one is all over the place with loads of character perspectives. Unlike the previous story, where we focused a bit more on the character development on Corran Horn, this one lacked that sort of character focus.
I got excited when something I really enjoyed from the Rise of the Republic era was mentioned, the very book that got me out of a Star Wars reading fatigue; The squadron sits around discussing the challenges they face, when someone says, “We can hope the Outbound Flight project finally produces results, with a host of non-human jedi knights coming from outside the galaxy to help us.” I loved the reference.
In the last book, we found out that Corran Horn has some Jedi blood. I accept this. In this book, I couldn’t stand it when Corran Horn was faced with an obstacle, and to get out of it he just had to think about a story he’d once heard about the Jedi (mind-trick), and uses the force (though not fully successful) on his enemy. I think there would need to be some sort of an “awakening” (epiphany might be a better word – I don’t want to cause a canon war because of my choice of words). Some sort of mentoring from Luke should have been ongoing for this force ability to be used… not just recall some story and say yeah I can do that because I found out I might have the force.
Overall, the story was a bit of a blur and not as focused as I would have liked. It is nice though that Michael A Stackpole is putting a lot of culture in these books with all the different characters.
Do I recommend you read Star Wars: The Bacta War? Sure, why not, if you’ve read up to book 3, give this one a go as well.
RATING
I will give this story 3/5 stars, or a C for the letter grade.