Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force
by Michael Reaves

Published by Del Rey

Adrick's Rating:   2 out of 4

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After the Empire’s bloody purge of the Jedi, one lone Knight still fights for those who cannot, unaware that he’s about to be swept into a cataclysmic battle against the Master of Darkness himself.

Throughout the galaxy, a captured Jedi is a dead Jedi, even in Coruscant’s most foul subterranean slums, where Jedi Knight Jax Pavan champions the causes of the oppressed with the help of hard-nosed reporter Den Dhur and the wisecracking droid I-5YQ. But Jax is also involved in another struggle–to unlock the secrets of his father’s death and his own past.

While Jax believes that I-5YQ holds some of those answers, he never imagines that the truth could be shocking enough to catapult him to the frontlines of a plot to kill Emperor Palpatine. Worse yet, Darth Vader’s relentless search for Jax is about to end . . . in triumph.

The future looming over the valiant Jedi and his staunch pals promises to be dark and brief, because there’s no secret whatsoever about the harshest truth of all: Few indeed are those who tangle with Darth Vader . . . and live to tell the tale.

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Adrick:

    If you enjoyed the previous installments of the Coruscant Nights series as much as I did, you’ll also like Patterns of Force. In this book, Jax and the gang discover a young man with incredible potential in the Force, and must decide what to do with him as Darth Vader’s agents come closer to uncovering their existence. Reaves continues to do what he does best: creating unique characters struggling to do what they can in a hostile environment.

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Adrick:

    Like Street of Shadows, Patterns of Force has the kind of continuity errors that don’t just conflict with information from other sources; they work to undermine the narrative and dramatic thrust of the story. Indeed, the climax of the story hinges on events from previous novels by the same author happening nearly twenty years before they did on the timeline. There’s also not much of a conclusion…no sacrifices are made, no large battles are won, and no particularly big revelations are made. It feels like an ongoing series that was cancelled after three installments.

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Adrick:

    Tripping on bota. Stay off the bota, younglings—if Sith Lords can’t handle it, you certainly can’t.

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