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Jacen Solo has only one final hurdle to complete before he can finally be the Sith Lord that he longs to be, but he isn’t sure if he can do it. It requires a sacrifice. He must kill someone that he loves.

Karen Traviss’s “Sacrifice�� is the fifth book in the nine-book Legacy of the Force series. It is the pivotal book in the series, the one that we have been anticipating, as it finally answers the question: Who will Jacen kill? Will it be one of his parents? His sister Jaina? His cousin Ben? His secret love, Tenel Ka, or their secret love-child?

Traviss takes an awful long way to get to the answer, and a lot of other stuff happens in the interim.

Indeed, my biggest complaint with this book is that Traviss spends a lot of time dodging the issue. Very little action happens in this book. What does happen tends to be somewhat uneventful: lots of talking heads stuff and political machinations, along with the other soap-opera stuff that seems to be de rigueur for the SWEU.

There is even a subplot involving Boba Fett, who is attempting to resurrect the Mandalorians from their slump after the Yuuzhan Vong war nearly wiped out half the population of Mandalore. It’s interesting, but it seems to have a very slim connection to the rest of the story.

Thankfully, Traviss is a good writer. In the hands of a lesser writer, all this might have become boring. To some, it might be, but all the political and soap-opera stuff serves its purpose. It ultimately builds up to the exciting climax.

And, yes, the final death match scene between Jacen and ———��- is worth the wait.