Here we have Veitch's second effort, sequel to the first Dark Empire, that picks up shortly after the first. The Emperor is finally dead... whoop, spoke too soon. A lazy plot point gets even lazier. One thing I really enjoyed about the Thrawn trilogy was seeing someone OTHER than the Emperor threaten the burgeoning New Republic, and Veitch seems to have taken a huge step backwards. In fact, the further into the Dark Empire story, the less of Zahn's work seems to be recognized. General Bel Iblis? Nowhere to be found, even though he became a huge part of the Republic by the end. The Bothans? Relegated back to spy duty, apparently. It strains my suspension of disbelief to see so much of the progress made by the Republic in Zahn's trilogy just get completely erased by the return of the Emperor (which, again, seems lazy to me).

Then we see Luke start to rebuild the Jedi order, which is probably the very best part of these stories. Except for his immediate fall for the young Jem. "I feel like we've known each other for thousands of years." Really, Luke? Really? And to make matters worse, Veitch immediately takes her out of the picture. Did an editor realize he was screwing up the Luke/Mara potential and give him a swift kick in the pants?

Again, these stories are enjoyable, but from a standpoint of the larger expanded universe, they seem not to take into account anything else from any other writers (minus the Tales of the Jedi: Sith War storyline which Veitch was a part of crafting along with Kevin J. Anderson). ( )