Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great Audio Book!
Comment: This review covers the audio cassette book (2 tapes, 2.5+ hours). The music score was great, the sound effects terrific, and the acting very good. The plot...well that could take some time finding, but remember episdoe IV! Anyway, I really enjoyed this story. It takes place at about the same time as Ep. IV, and covers things more from the perspective of the Empire. Well worth the purchase price. I will have to see about getting the next two in the series. I want to see what happens!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Reads like a bullet, and leaves nothing out.
Comment: I had this book for a year before I actually read it. Since I primarily bought it for the great, poster quality, painted, full page illustrations it didn't matter. Besides I was under the impression that it was a "juvenile", a kid's book. Yeah, right, this is about as much a juvenile as is Heilein's _Starship Troopers_. There are some very gritty combat scenes here- and very well developed characters of depth. This is amazing in a novella of less than 120 pages (after you subtract the illustration pages.) There are hack writers out there that would have told this same story in 300 or 400, or more, pages, but Dietz does it in less than 120 without ommitting any detail, atmosphere, or continuity. That's the mark of a very skilled writer. Combined with the cover quality illustrations this book is practically a cinema quality experience all by itself. Moreover, I had not read the first two books of the trilogy, nor played the games, yet the book held together on its own.
Another thing, for a book that is so good on the combat and technical atmosphere, the metaphysics are also very satisfying. The tale of Lord Hoth and the Army of Light is truly worthy of the best of the Star Wars mythos. Indeed, it could almost be a grand finale in itself.
As a measure of how "in" to this I got, I finally ordered that universal remote shaped like a light saber for the TV. Hey, I needed a new remote anyway....
Customer Rating: 
Summary: D2 Difference�
Comment: In this final installment of the trilogy, just as the contributors changed from the first to the second book, a change was again made, and this makes the final installment the superior of the 3. Artist David Dorman was selected to illustrate this book; since he is a fixture in the Star Wars Realm he brings more credibility to the work. Mr. Dorman, or one of the other long-term illustrators should have been involved in this project from beginning to end.The other basic change was the involvement of core characters from Star Wars that everybody who is a fan is familiar with. The role-playing games and the video games are widely played and very popular. However the audience is smaller, and as this series found out, it is not large enough to support a stand-alone series of novellas, which are overpriced, and repetitive.
The problem with this series is there is just too much of a gap between the Star Wars Universe as we know it as moviegoers and book readers, and these adaptations from the role-playing and video experiences. There is a way to greatly improve the readability of this series if you want to make it part of your collection.
"Mastadge" has a great list of some of the illustrated soft cover books that cover the background and the ancient portions of the Jedi and Sith Histories. They cover material you will find nowhere else, and they will add a new dimension to your library, and to your understanding of this ongoing epic.
Some of the titles to check out are, "Knights Of The Old Republic", "Dark Lords Of The Sith", and "The Sith War". They are all available through Amazon, and while I have enjoyed many of them, I have never reviewed the works. But as I said, Mastadge has reviewed almost all the varieties of Star Wars writing, and the list he has put together is well done.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Out Of Step
Comment: It has been years since I originally read this series, this particular episode, "Rebel Agent", is the second in a three-part cycle. This trilogy is based upon the role-playing games and I believe some of the video experiences. However they are out of synch with the rest of "Star Wars", and this is an issue.Previously I have commented on how seamlessly the books that now approach 200 in number have fit together, how all were worth the reading time, for bits and pieces of history were to be gleaned from their review. This particular cycle offered full-page paintings by a noted artist of the Science Fiction Genre, and while some readers would have preferred their mind's eye, I think they are good, if inconsistent. Specifically the image that is supposed to portray Princess Leia looks like her less than attractive sister. There is no sister, and there should not have been this image.
At 128 pages in length, backtracking the story as if the reader decided to start in the middle is simply wrong. Star Wars readers tend to read everything, and if the story is weak, or too brief, then perhaps there should be a different story.
Characters like Boba Fett have developed their personalities over the decades, and the version of Fett in this book reads as though the writer never read a word about this character before. Fett sounds like a bad lounge act. Fett actually sounds like someone else dressed in the Mandalorian Armor. This caricature speaks more in this book, than in a dozen other novels, and trite is being kind as to the dialogue.
If someone were to start with this series after viewing the movies, they would be correct in feeling lost. These books populate the galaxy with Dark Side Jedi at every turn. They must have been hiding in the movies.
There is one interesting bit as to Yoda's history, and it may sound strange to some, but if you are as addicted to this world of George Lucas as I am, it nearly justifies the balance.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The best of the Trilogy
Comment: This book continues the adventures of Kyle Katarn, a young man who is training to become a Jedi. It is by far the best of the trilogy, which began with Soldier for the Empire. The novella is generally pretty good, connecting chapters (levels in the game) pretty well, and developing on Jan and Kyle properly. The plot is not too bad, and the illustrations are great. The drawings alone make this the best of the series, but the plot thickens as a bonus. Still, the novella fails to improve on some of the other books failings. The long and drawn out lightsaber battles in the movies and the game are shortened to just a few paragraphs in length, if that. Maw's duel with the young Kyle lasted no more than three sentences, and Selonia somehow manages to lose a battle she clearly has the upper hand in. While not quite as dissappointing (or as humorous) as Gorc's demise in Rebel Agent, the battles are still far too short for their own good, and a character who ends up dying early is developed almost as fully as Jan and Kyle are. Still, this is probably the best of the series, and a fine ending the trilogy. If you don't have the other two, buy this one first to see if this is the kind of book you want. It won't be very hard to catch on to what happened in the others, and the money you save if you don't like it will be worth it.
