Tyrant's Test closes out the Black Fleet Crisis, perhaps one of the more underrated Star Wars trilogies from the 1990s. While it's forgivable to overlook the book because of its languid pace and conflicting ideas, this conclusion does posit some very interesting ideas about the nature of power, about how it is to be used or not used, about how we consider conflict and what fair resolution looks like when dealing with wholly alien cultural concepts about power.

The book is really centered on three major conflicts: Leia Organa's fight to control the New Republic after her leadership is called into question; Luke's continued search for his mother's people and his interrogation of their culture; and Lando's dealings with a vagabond starship and its mysteries. Leia's role in the book and the political intrigue she faces while chasing after her kidnapped husband is really the strongest part of the book, and it's where I think the book shines the most. Luke's story is a distant second, hamstrung largely by the seeming disconnect his role has on the central plot of the novel, even if his story is thematically relevant and represents an important character arc for him. Lando's part in the novel is easily the weakest, reminiscent perhaps far too much of L. Neil Smith's adventures from the early '80s. While Lando's story does serve as the bookend to Luke's journey and represents an important, hopeful counterpoint to the story of the Falannassi, I think it's easily the weakest (and frustratingly the longest) part of the whole trilogy.

But aside from its terrible pacing issues, the trilogy has some of the strongest thematic ideas in any of the books I've read through 1996. Kube-McDowell doesn't shy away from really complex and nuanced conversations through all of the book's characters, and it feels like the most philosophical trilogy Star Wars may ever see. While I could have done with a whole lot less Lando and a whole lot more Leia, I think the book has to be seen as part of the whole trilogy, and thus serves as a necessary chapter in the trilogy's overall thesis statement. 

I honestly wish more of Star Wars were like this book, albeit perhaps better paced. The Black Fleet Crisis may not shape up as one of the more action-packed episodes in the EU saga, but it is easily the most intellectual and the most serious attempt at giving Star Wars some of the philosophical heft of other sci-fi.