Overall, I'd say it was a fun book. Good characterizations of the main people we love spending time with: Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, R2, 3PO. Even Mara Jade and Kaarde show up. It's a New Republic era book, taking place after the Thrawn trilogy (approx. 17 ABY). It heavily references many books that come before it, including the Thrawn series. At least one of the characters is a hold-over from 1995's Young Jedi Knights series of books. I may look into those at some point.
The good: a nice plot (not too crazy, but grand enough to matter), good character work (actually seems like our friends talking and acting), a huge number of new alien species added to the lexicon (some of them weirder than others). In fact, the Wookieepedia article says 22 alien species have their origins in this book as well as a dozen new creatures. Nice! The opening dedication mentions a group of friends who joined the author in a theater in Duluth, MN way back for their first viewing of Star Wars. Maybe Nate was there, too. Also great: the cover art.
The not-so-good: a bit weak on some details of the shared world (droids don't all come from a single factory, for instance), some names are silly-sounding (the worst being perhaps "Nandreeson", a "Glottalphib" crime lord on Smuggler's Run), a strange usage of Jawas in space, lots of graphic injuries are described herein; lost limbs, crushed torsos, etc. Not very Star Wars.
A nice enough book; primarily. Who couldn't be won over (or run over) by a stampede of astromechs?
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