Review: Han and Leia reunited and Barabel Jedi introduced
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 15, 2012
Troy Denning's novella Recovery was originally published in e-book form and is a short tale set after the events of Kathy Tyers' Balance Point. Han and Leia Solo's relationship was fractured early in the Yuuzhan Vong invasion by the death of someone in the family, and the books prior to Recovery, notably the Agents of Chaos duology, spent time exploring Han's journey to reclaim himself from his demons and Leia's efforts to be patient with the process.  Ms. Tyers reunited the couple in Balance Point as the battle for Duros commenced, but it is in this short story that they truly begin the emotional healing process.We start on Corellia with a battle in a hospital and an appearance from Han's rogue cousin Thracken Sal-Solo. It's good to touch base on what Sal-Solo has been up to since he fired the Centerpoint weapon earlier in the New Jedi Order. Mr. Denning uses this story to introduce a group of his preferred characters, a tight-knit group of saurian Barabel Jedi. Here they are accompanied by an entertainingly non-conventional, salt-addicted Arcona Jedi as well as a human Jedi, Master Eelysa, known for her lengthy and complicated solo missions. The Barabel come into full play in Mr. Denning's own Star by Star and are memorable characters: it's welcome, if certainly not essential, to have their background more fully fleshed out here.In fact, the Jedi provide the most entertaining aspect of Recovery. The Solo reactions to the explicitly non-human worldview of the Barabel are genuinely funny, especially as they struggle to comprehend Barabel humor. Mr. Denning handles the evolution of their relationship and concurrent healing capably enough, although no aspect of this jumps out at me as especially memorable. The final two chapters take the story on a race to Coruscant to stop a potentially disastrous Senate vote. This portion feels rushed, as if it was constrained by the limitations of being a short e-book, but it brings events to a satisfying close nevertheless.Certainly not an essential read, Recovery does flesh out aspects of the New Jedi Order and it worth a look to anyone reading that part of the saga, especially if you are a fan of Mr. Denning's later novels and want to get a bit more insight into the origin of a couple of his preferred Jedi characters.