#voxyn

So, like many Star Wars books, the plot of Star By Star is pretty darn straightforward: The Mission to Myrkr to kill the Voxyn Queen and it's immediate aftermath, interlaced with the fall of Coruscant to the Yuuzhan Vong. (For anyone who needs a refresher or an explanation, let me direct you to the one, the only, the wonderful Wookieepedia.)

What makes this book absolutely fucking AMAZING is a combination of the character work and worldbuilding, much of which comes to a glorious head in this book--as well it should, this is very much the turning point of the Yuuzhan Vong war. It also launches a solid half dozen long-ranging new arcs for characters that I just adore.

Normally I do my best to have coherent, organized thoughts about books, but at this point what I really want to do is just a big, messy, disorganized list of stuff I love about this book. So, in the immortal words of Captain Han Solo: Punch it!

The whole concept of the voxyn and the voxyn queen. Let's be real, predators bioengineered to hunt down and murder the crap out of jedi with their ability to sense force-users, sonic blast roars, acid saliva, retrovirous-laden paw pads, and a poisoned tail barb. These things are horrifying and genuinely felt like a threat to the jedi, which honestly got kinda hard to do sometimes in the EU. The big "they're all cloned from a single queen" is a wee bit video game weak spot/boss fight, but honestly I'm not complaining given the sheer grind that this mission becomes.

The Jedi Strike Team Dynamics. This TEAM you guys. This team is an absolute disaster from start to finish. Not only do you have all three Solo kids with their sibling fuckery dynamics--specifically Jacen and Anakin's crippling fundamental disagreement on force use ethics that ultimately is a rehash of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's debate about the living vs. unifying force but in an apocalyptic combat zone--but almost every member of this team is potentially a disaster. You have Tenel Ka, Tahiri Veila, and Zekk on the team, who are collective love interests for the Solo siblings, and I'm pretty sure that sending siblings and couples on life-and-death missions is not a good idea because instincts and motivations get all sorts of fucky and tangled. Then you have Alema Rar, whose sister gets acid-in-the-faced-to-death by a voxyn in chapter 1 of this book, which is just a disaster waiting to happen. Then you have the friendship dynamics with Raynar Thul, Lowbacca, and Tesar Sebatyne, which arguably carries over some of the young jedi knights dynamics that never got solved. This team was a TIME BOMB, and frankly the fact that they managed to pull this mission off is a miracle.

The Battle/Force/Jedi Meld. So, not only do we have a team full of hideously complicated and unstable relationships, but they spend the entire goddamn mission in a meld that basically lets them all be in each other's thoughts and feelings and share extreme physical sensations, including pain. Which like...The Vong are major pain fans, so this might have been a poor life choice. Plus, it sets up some of the complicated stuff with Raynar and Jaina and Zekk in the Killick War later. *weird telepathic forearm rubbing* That said, I love the idea of the battle meld, and it really is just a great ride to watch this shred the team.

The Yuuzhan Vong Worldbuilding. Literally the worldbuilding for the Vong in this whole series is A+ horrifying and fascinating. We just get a lot of it here, and it's used to excellent effect.

Anakin's Death. Ok, so this was fucking heartbreaking, and it might seem like a weird thing to put on a list of things I love about this book. But what makes this death just an incredible read is the quality of the writing, the impact on the mission, and the fact that this death sets Jacen on the path to becoming a Sith Lord, pushes Tahiri into becoming the badass she grows into, fundamentally changes how we think about the unifying and living force, and honestly adds some stakes because if the Solo kids aren't safe, then literally ANYONE could die here. This death is so critical and changed so much and was done with respect and weight.

Borsk Fey'lya's Death. We don't love this Bothan. He's kind of a dick. But uh...I will give him credit for buying time for people to get off-planet during the fall of Coruscant, and for blowing 25,000 Vong to hell along with him.

Lando Calrissian Being the Only Adult in the Room With Eyes. Lando delivers the strike team to the Vong, but before he does, he starts a fight. Lando Calrissian HAS EYES IN HIS HEAD and can clearly see the lines along which the strike team is destined to fissure. He tries so hard to get them to air it out before the mission and to clear the air. It doesn't work, but he TRIED, and that's more than Luke or Han did. I guess that's what happens when you're a farmboy who has never had to lead a pre-fractured team and a gruff loner who did everything himself. Lando though...Lando understands that even Jedi have fracture points and conflict points. Give this man more credit.