Jacen Solo continues his progress toward becoming a Sith Lord, alienating friends and family alike, and has dispatched his cousin and apprentice Ben Skywalker on a test mission— which his ally Lumiya, sometime Dark Lady of the Sith, has arranged to be quite the gauntlet indeed. The rest of the Skywalker clan are continuing to try to track down how Lumiya is influencing the conflict while in turn being hunted by an unhinged ex-Jedi who is herself a tool of Lumiya’s. The nascent galactic civil war continues to roil; the big plot advance is that Ben Skywalker gets to find out if he has the stuff that Sith are made of. ( )

Solid entertainment. ( )

I love Aaran Allston's writing. Gives the storylines al lot more adventure for some reason. ( )

Exile was a fun book, playing to Aaron Allston's strengths as well as solidifying the Confederation as an equal to the Galactic Alliance.

Allston did a good job of maintaining a balance of both "his" characters and Denning's, continuing Alema Rar's hunt while bringing the Solos together with the Antilles and the Terriks—together, the titular exiles. Their plotline is filled with the good-natured humor I've come to expect from Allston's novels, without going overboard against the dark backdrop of Jacen's turn and the galactic war.

Ben, meanwhile, has a significant storyline of his own; Jacen tries to test his suitability as a Sith apprentice. Fortunately, he fails; Ben proves that he isn't willing to put himself ahead of the lives of others, something Jacen does daily.

Jacen also has to deal with the expanding war; by the end of the book, not just Corellia is arrayed against him. It doesn't help that Mara and Luke are chasing after Lumiya; they've found evidence of her involvement with Jacen. Allston does a good job of playing the two off of Jacen; even though the reader knows what's going on, he makes sure Jacen isn't just relying on his ability to outright lie in order to escape suspicion.

While the "exiles" and "Sith" plotlines don't really intersect, Allston does a good job of advancing both from where Tempest left off. While the climax that will be Sacrifice isn't obviously set up, Exile is still an fun and interesting piece of the Legacy of the Force story. ( )