Holy crap, I never finished this: Champions of the Force (Jedi Academy # 3) by Kevin J Anderson (1994)

 Champions of the Force

Stupid cover, stupid title, stupid book

I thought I'd at least finished this trilogy before I stopped doing these blogs. Oops. Whatever, you're not missing much, KJA continues to be a garbage writer.

Summary: Kyp blows up the system an Imperial academy is in. This is apparently a bad thing, but we're never given any info that there's anything else in the system (and the population is lower than the population of some states in 1994). His brother dies in the process, which drives him even more dark side/crazy. The destruction of the planet creates a disturbance in the Force, which partially wakes Luke from his Force-com (basically leaving him as a Force Ghost). Exar Kun tries to destroy his body, but the trainees are able to protect him, and eventually banish Kun's spirit, which allows Luke to return to his body. (He was out for like half a book!)

The Imperials find out where Anakin is being hidden thanks to their control over Terpfen (Ackbar's mechanic), and attack. The attack is at no time threatening, as Winter skillfully employs the bases defenses deus ex machinas a bunch of bullshit. 

Kyp takes the Suncrusher to the core systems to blow up more Imperials, but Han stops him because...reasons... No blowing up the Empire with their own superweapon, I guess. There's room for some philosophical debate here, but Anderson can't be bothered to write it.

Wedge leads a New Republic task force to take over the Maw Installation. It doesn't go great. The base is set to self destruct, the Imperials commandeer the Death Star prototype (Anderson wastes dozens of pages writing weird parodies of bureaucrats having meetings) and Daala isn't dead (this is supposed to be a surprise, I think?). Han and co show up and sort of disable the Death Star (it's not clear why they can't just pop off a few proton torpedoes at the thing, since it's just a basic frame around the super laser). In the end, Kyp distracts them with the Sun Crusher until they accidentally fall in a black hole. Kyp escapes by breaking a bunch of bones and cramming himself in a message buoy. The Gorgon is not destroyed (again). They cure Mon Mothma of the wasting disease she's had the last book and a half.

What It Introduces:

MTAT: Mountain Terrain Armored Transport- it's like an ATAT but spidery. I'm always surprised these don't show up much in video games and stuff.

Leia is made chief of state here, I think. It might've been near the end of the last book. I can't go back and look.

Commentary:

This book didn't need to exist. None of the challenges the characters face actually matter, and most of the "action" is just undoing the stuff that happened in Dark Apprentice.

Review:

1/5 I guess? Like, not literally so bad it shouldn't exist, but it's a dumb book.

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