Review by Darth Kondorr, Poland, 2017
Being three books into The Old Republic series I am still surprised how surprised I am at liking them so much. This time we get a big ensemble cast with characters of equal weight and importance and I am amazed how well they are handled. With two Jedi, two Sith, a Spy, a Trooper, a Smuggler and a Mando, we get eight vastly diffrent characters, which allows for comfortable reading and even though we jump quite a lot between those people it is no problem to keep up with their present place in the story. The fact, that they are modeled after the classes from the MMO is of course a big help, but I think handling so many main characters without singling anyone out as the main protagonist is still a tremendous achievement. But this has one consequence, the book is quite long for a Star Wars book, clocking in at more than 500 pages, not that I am complaining, I liked most of it, but the build up and the finale are my favorite parts.
The story itself is also really interesting, even if most of it is predicatble. The main mystery turned out to be more suited for a Star Trek story (very tech-heavy and quite a bit "out there"), but it still worked well enough within this old universe.
The great thing about this era, is that we get lots of open confrontations of the two philosophies of Jedi versus Sith. In the Clone Wars the Sith mostly operated from the background through agents, in the civil war during the reign of Palpatine's Galactic Empire there were almost no Jedi, so having open conflict without too many smoke and mirrors is really refreshing among the tales of Star Wars.
Now of course these books are not canon, but I imagine, these stories could be like the Odyssey or the Iliad for Luke. Some tales, he might read about... true legends... myths.
Rating: 4 / 5

Review by Bones, UK, 2011
Fatal Alliance has an epic feel to it, yet it is actually much simpler than one might expect from such a lengthy novel. It focuses on a quartet of characters, each seeking personal identity: a former Black-Ops soldier seeks to rebuild her life after losing everything she'd considered important; a Jedi Padawan wanting to understand his place in the universe; a Sith Apprentice confronted by a past she never knew she had; an Imperial spy struggling to reconcile his allegiances. The eponymous alliance merely serves as a background to their journeys, but is nevertheless an exciting ride in its own right.
The book is packed to the brim with mysteries to be solved, interesting and intriguing characters and bucket-loads of action. The pacing of the story is impressive, given its size, and the plot moves swiftly, yet still allowing for significant character development and in-depth action sequences. Williams keeps several key motives nicely hidden, allowing a few cracks here and there to keep ones appetite whetted and indeed some are kept until the very end of the book. The characters are extremely well written, particularly the Sith, with the Apprentice constantly scheming and the Master, whose sole goal is retaining and increasing his own personal power. I also rather like the duplicitous envoy Ula Vii, whose character seems well out of his personal comfort zone throughout much of the proceedings - some of his reactions are quite amusing.
The political and historical situation is mentioned on a few occasions to give it a temporal frame, but one thing I found slightly distracting was the similarity between the galaxy of Obi-Wan Kenobi's era and the galaxy here, more than 3000 years prior. It would have been nicer to see a few more of the differences in the eras present, but it didn't detract much from the enjoyment of the book. Also, (without giving too much away) there was a fight early on in which the cast struggled massively to overcome their foe and yet, when they later encountered the foe in significantly greater numbers, they seemed to have much less difficulty in vanquished the aforementioned enemy.
"Generally, Fatal Alliance is a great book, vast in scale and yet still intimate.
Rating: 4.5 / 5