Let’s get this out of the way. Yes, Omen by Christie Golden, the second book in this new Fate of the Jedi series, is short. Here’s the good news, it’s also a fantastic entry in the Star Wars book series, and a great debut for this author in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Golden’s style seems like a continuation of Allston, and I didn’t catch anything missed from Outcast to Omen. Golden introduces us to a new threat, brings back all of the major characters from Outcast, and manages to give an exciting, well paced, and informative story in those short pages. I highly recommend this book, and if you’d like to read more of my thoughts, click on the link to read a more detailed, spoiler filled review.

 I’ve read Golden’s Star Trek Voyager books Homecoming and The Farther Shore, and thought they were both good; not great but not bad. In Omen, I thought she did great. As I expected, she handled the female characters very well, like Jaina and Leia. I was also pleasantly surprised by how well she handled not only Luke, Ben and Han, but also used other existing characters, like Jag, Tahiri, Corran, and Kenth, and they seemed to act exactly as I’d imagine their characters would. Then Golden brought in her own creations and I found them all to be well realized and well integrated into the story.

At a high level, most Star Wars books have three plots; the Luke plot, the Han/Leia plot, and the villain plot. Perhaps part of my issue with Outcast was it broke away and didn’t really have a villain plot, but instead had a Jaina plot, meaning there was no real antagonist point of view (and no real threat other than the virus or the world of Kessel itself). Omen gets us back to the more typical plot structure by introducing us to a lost Sith Tribe, the ‘villains’ of the piece.

This Sith Tribe is descended from the Sith of Tales of the Jedi/Knights of the Old Republic era - essentially one of their large cruisers (named Omen) was damaged in battle and crashed on this pre-industrial world in the Maw. Now after 5000 years, Ship has found them and given them the ability to escape this world and reclaim their right to rule the galaxy, and destroy the Jedi. This entire section is told through flashback, going back to the time right after Ship disappears in Fury and bringing this plot up to the current time (two years later).

I loved everything about the Sith Tribe. All the descriptions, their hierarchy, their whole civilization. It was all well developed in this book, giving us insight into the Sith that I only ever remember seeing in the Bane novels, and making me care about the Sith just like that book did as well. I feel like I understand them, they’re not just cardboard villains, they’re real people with real dreams and desires and families. We follow all of this through Vestara, equivalent of a Sith youngling who hasn’t yet proven herself worthy of being made an apprentice to a Master. When Ship singles her out as someone it/he wants to train though, suddenly the other Sith Masters sit up and take notice of her. I can’t help but notice that Vestara’s age is exactly the same as Ben’s. With the ending of Jaina’s soap opera of love interests, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Ben’s begin, and Vestara might be a potential love interest for him.

I felt the Luke/Ben story was shorter in Omen than it had been in Outcast, but it was also tighter and in some ways it was more interesting to deal with the Ang Tii than the Kel Dor Force group was. The Ang Tii are so alien, and their culture is in upheaval. Yes, it could be looked at as another ‘Luke and Ben save the force group of the week’, but honestly the story was interesting enough that that didn’t bother me. They really don’t solve the Ang Tii’s problems anyway, and in fact, Luke winds up alerting the Tribe to his presence by handling some of the Ang Tii sacred objects. This sets up the story for Abyss, as the Sith Tribe are now gunning for someone with the name Skywalker.

The Han/Leia plot is now tied into the Jaina/Jedi plot on Coruscant. Here we see some more Jedi fall to the force disease, Allana brought to an exhibition (part zoo, part pet store) and the manipulations of both Daala and her staff as well as the Moffs. Jaina and Jag continue to try and steal time alone, dodging the reporters who seem to be hounding them by using doubles and calling upon the Darkmeld team from Outcast to help. It’s a little extreme the lengths they go to, but I was glad to see Tahiri used again so soon after Outcast, so I can’t complain too much.

Speaking of Jaina, I have to say I really loved the engagement scene - yes, I’ve said it. Golden nailed Jag pretty well in that scene, and I thought it was pretty funny how clueless Jaina was when I had figured out what Jag was doing before she did.

Even though I really really liked Omen, there is one criticism I have, there’s still no ’space battles’ in Omen. Now, Golden’s definitely set it up so that there probably will be in future novels; after all the Sith are amassing an armada. It’s just an awesome concept, bringing us back to that Tales of the Jedi era type Sith and I love it. At the same time, she missed an opportunity to ’show us’ instead of ‘tell us’ towards the end of this novel. The Sith scenes were some of the best in the novel, and I wouldn’t have complained if there were even more (especially considering the book’s length). I would have liked to have seen at least one of the Sith raids on space faring vessels - see Vestara make her first kill, that kind of thing. It could have been a great action scene - space battle, followed by close action raid onboard the ship. An opportunity to see these new Sith in action, knowing this is what’s in store for our heroes later. Instead, we’re told how they’ve raided many ships, Vestara’s made many kills, etc. It felt like a missed opportunity.

But , there’s so much good in this novel that I can easily overlook that one criticism. No one seemed out of character to me; frankly, Christie Golden writes Star Wars like she’s been doing it for years. She’s got the potential to be one of the best Star Wars authors, depending on how her next couple of novels play out. I’m definitely excited to see more from her. She did well with the battles she presented (pretty much the two ‘disease events’ - with Jysella at the beginning and then later at the livestock exchange), and she even managed to do some Han humor that was actually funny (I thought only Allston could write the Star Wars humor). In general, I’m really much more excited for this series after reading Omen, and I think you will be too. As I said near the beginning of this review, this book is highly recommended.