Crosscurrent (Paul S. Kemp)

Star Wars books are rarely classics, but they're my literary junk food.  Crosscurrent, by Paul S. Kemp, is a tale that encompasses several eras of the Star Wars galaxy.  The book begins by oscillating between the far past (5,000 years Before the Battle of Yavin, or BBY) and present (41 years After the Battle of Yavin, or ABY).

In the past, it's a time where Sith are many and the Jedi are at war with them.  A lone Jedi has boarded a Sith ship with powerful cargo- cargo capable of turning the war in the Sith's favor.  This Jedi, Relin, sabotages the hyperdrive of the ship, but isn't able to completely destroy it.

In the present, Jedi Jaden Korr (a character from a video game series) receives a powerful force vision of someone on a distant moon in distress.  His search for the moon leads him to Khedryn and Marr, two salvagers operating in the Unknown Regions.  They help him locate the moon, and as they approach it, the aforementioned Sith ship from the past catapults 5,000 years into the future due to a botched hyperspace jump- right on top of Jaden and crew.  Several battles ensue; eventually, the Sith ship is destroyed, and Jaden finds an abandoned research station on the moon.  He unwittingly sets free a group of insane Jedi clones (created by a Thrawn-era research project), setting up a second book.

The book was okay.  I enjoyed the way it mentioned events from the past and present of the Star Wars galaxy, incorporating characters from the books, comics, and video games of years past.  I will note, though, that the author doesn't really explain any of the characters mentioned in those time periods, so he assumes you have a good knowledge of the Star Wars universe, and have immersed yourself in it for years.  On the downside, the time-traveling Sith ship didn't tie in as neatly as it could, one main character turned out to be irrelevant, and Jaden's quest for enlightenment (a theme throughout) was poorly done.  The ending of the book was also rather poor, in my opinion, and while the potential for a great story was there, in the end, it just didn't execute that well.

Rating: C