Black Fleet Crisis 3: Tyrant's Test by Michael P. Kube-McDowell (1996)
Three plots wasn't enough, let's get Chewie and Lumpy in here too!
Summary: Leia ducks a no confidence motion by declaring war. Luke finds out his whole mom finding quest was bullshit. Han gets beaten up and tortured. Lando makes it home. The good guys win!
Commentary/Review: I don't know how the hell Kube-McDowell got a three book deal out of this mess. As previously established, this trilogy broadly follows three main plots:
1. Luke meeting with the Fallanassi and trying to find his mother.
2. Han and Leia dealing with the political and military issue of the Yevetha.
3. Lando being stuck on "The Vagabond"
There are a couple other plots that pop in and out throughout the series. Book 2 has a substantial amount of page space dedicated to Plat Mallar, a survivor of the Yevetha attacks and New Republic pilot. He's in this one a bit, but he has to share the "extra" space w/ Lumpy, Chewie, and some other Wookies, along with archeologists.
Most of the subplots more or less hook onto plot 2 above. Leia's near impeachment, pilots fighting in the war, etc. #2 is definitely the main plot of the series. Which would be fine, except for the Yevetha themselves. They have two issues: First, they're just so absurdly evil. They make Palpatine seem, if not good, at least not so completely awful. Fascistic, bad sexy, executing each other left and right, taking civilians hostage, omnicidal... I'm not saying you can't get really evil to work, but you can't do it and also have them be "interesting" POV characters. Second, they're apparently super geniuses (but not really). In the span of a couple decades they go from isolated backwater to having better tech than the New Republic, and manage to come up with a competent navy with crews officers, etc. They're so good that a fleet smaller than the ones used by Thrawn or Daala is given a good chance against the largest New Republic and most advanced fleet to date with Force support.
Fortunately, the surviving/enslaved Imperials manage to hack all the Imperial ships and jump out just before the final battle. The New Republic wins, but at terrible cost.
Plot 1 is pointless all around. Like I said before, Luke can't actually find his mom, and the White Current sect are super pacifists who largely refuse to interact with the universe at large (except when it's convenient to the plot). They have vaguely defined powers that allow them to magically create/fix plot holes, and ass pull deus ex machina.
Perhaps dumbest of all is when they create an illusory fleet to help draw fire away from the real New Republic ships (who are, again, outmatched by the GLORIOUS YEVETHA!)
There's a great opportunity for some character work here, with Luke going with Battle Meditation (Zahn established, if not fully defined it way back in HttE) while the White Current refuses. Instead, Luke stands around drooling while the Fallanassi leader gives herself a Force stroke.
Plot 3 is just so far out on it's own. It could probably run a full novel on its own, but it's always going to be the weird D plot in this series. Kube-McDowell can't even figure out how/if he wants to integrate it.
I was hoping this series would go somewhere, but it's just a total mess. It also basically never comes up again. Complete waste of time 1/5.
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