Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime

By: R. A. Salvatore

Narrated by: Anthony Heald

Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Twenty-one years after the Battle of Endor, the New Republic will face an even darker enemy....

More than two decades after the heroes of the Rebel Alliance destroyed the Death Star and broke the power of the Emperor, the New Republic has struggled to maintain peace and prosperity among the peoples of the galaxy. But unrest has begun to spread and threatens to destroy the Republic’s tenuous reign.

Into this volatile atmosphere comes Nom Anor, a charismatic firebrand who heats passions to the boiling point, sowing seeds of dissent for his own dark motives. And as the Jedi and the Republic focus on internal struggles, a new threat surfaces from beyond the farthest reaches of the Outer Rim - an enemy bearing weapons and technology unlike anything New Republic scientists have ever seen.

Suddenly, Luke Skywalker; his wife, Mara; Han Solo; Leia Organa Solo; and Chewbacca - along with the Solo children - are thrust again into battle, to defend the freedom so many have fought and died for. But this time, the power of the Force itself may not be enough....

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Turn the speed to 80% and it’s much better.

Look, all the other reviews make valid points. Yes, I wish it was unabridged. Yes, I wish it was Marc Thompson. However, I enjoyed this audiobook. Anthony Heald is one the greatest narrators I’ve ever heard, but he doesn’t bring that level of talent to Star Wars. His voices for Han and Lando are particularly bad. I wonder if he has ever even seen Star Wars. Otherwise, I think he does a pretty decent job of reading the material. Slow it down to 80% speed and it sounds like a grandfather warmly reading you a bed time story. As far as the abridged story, yes it is jarring at times. You can tell that Luke and Mara or Jacen and Anakin did more than what is presented. Likewise, I know from having read the book before that entire sections and side characters were omitted. That being said, the story is understandable and rather enjoyable in my opinion. I approach these abridged Star Wars titles as audio dramas instead of audiobooks. That’s the mindset you should have if you want to give them a try. I do hope that Disney does an unabridged version of this book and many others. However, if a 19 book series is something your never going to read on your own, I think this is an enjoyable way to find out what the NJO was all about.

The Yuuzhan Vong come to the Galaxy.

Great story. The beginning of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. There is so many adventures in the Star Wars Universe. I have listened to many of the audio books and read many books and ebooks and can't wait to continue with this series.

The Start of a Different Kind of Star Wars Saga

Any additional comments?

This book starts a new series for Star Wars. It is a long series, about 18 books long. It begins with a novel idea: The SW galaxy is invaded by beings from another galaxy, the Youzhon Vong, who have a militaristic culture. They shun technology and have managed to develop, or "shape", living things to do what humans use machines for. They consider the inhabitants of the SW galaxy to be infidels who are only fit to be enslaved or sacrificed to their gods.

This book introduces the series. It has the first invasion and encounter with the Vong, who appear to be very powerful. It is an engaging story, but SW will suffer a great loss in this story. It is clearly a set-up story and leaves a lot of loose ends. It is good to have read the prior post-Return of the Jedi stories to really understand the Jedi personalities in this series.

A few words about the series. This is different from prior stories. It is decidely darker in tone. Also, because the series is so long, the pace within each story is slow regarding resolving the long term thread of the Vong invasion. There are multiple authors, and so the writing is uneven. Some stories are great but others are so-so. There are also some inconsistencies where one author seems to be bringing the story in one direction and then the next ignores some of that and goes in another direction. There certainly could have been better coordination among the authors.

If you love SW, you should read this series. But be warned, these stories are darker, and in certain of the stories you will want to throw your iPod at the wall and you will swear you want to quit SW forever. Stick with it. There are good stories here. True, I would have advanced SW in a different direction after Zahn's "Hand of Thrawn" duology, but no one asked me for my opinion. If you want SW, this is where it is at.

As time permits I will review each story.

Great story bad narrator

The story was awesome and well written my only complaint was the narrator. The way he read it was just unpleasant the “different” voices for the characters were all practically the same. After saying that don’t let that discourage you from purchasing this book the story makes it easy to look past the bad narration.

To much left out

There is so much detail that was left out. It's really a shame this is such a great book.

poor sound quality

The action sound effects were too loud, I couldn't hear the story over the ship noises and droid screams.

bad voice

the va was terrible compared to marc thinpson. all of his voices sound the same, and a little irratating. also wish there were unabridged versions

Great but..

The performance is terrible, he made han sound like a cracked out meth head needing to get more smack. but the story is great for $11

too short for one credit compared to every other

most Star Wars books are vastly longer, and though this story is interesting, it's so short in comparison to other books that it should be joined with the second book to cost one credit together.

Abridged sucks

I want this book unabridged. Abridge jumps around too much and can hardly keep up with what’s happening in the story.