YMMV / I, Jedi

• Broken Base: I, Jedi was better received by fans than the Jedi Academy Trilogy, but tends to include a contingent among them who think it was disrespectful for Michael Stackpole to fix Kevin J. Anderson's work. And then there are the fans who love it because it fixes what they see as a very problematic entry in the Legends continuity. For his part, Stackpole said on his blog that it was just intended to just be a Hero of Another Story entry: he and Anderson are friends in real life and any indications that he was trying to fix flaws in the Jedi Academy novels were unintentional.
• Canon Fodder: Who is Desertwind, the third Jedi who fought the Jensaarai in Ylenic It'kla's memory of Nejaa Halcyon's death? Stackpole probably intended for him to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, but it might also be Anakin Skywalker or someone else entirely. This was muddied extensively by the prequels: I, Jedi states that the scene took place between the end of the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire, but like most pre-Phantom Menace novels, it assumed that there had been a gap of about twenty years between the Clone Wars and the Jedi Purge. If one assumes it takes place during Revenge of the Sith between General Grievous's death and Order 66 going out, then Desertwind definitely can't be Obi-Wan (who was on Utapau) or Anakin (who was on Coruscant). Absent ROTS, Anakin could fit given that he and Nejaa Halcyon were partnered during the campaign to liberate Praesitlyn in the book Jedi Trial. The 2015 short story "Lone Wolf" by Abel G. Peña confirms it to be Obi-Wan (he was wearing a Tatooine-crafted robe that was a gift from Anakin), but as it wasn't released until after the changeover to Disney canon, its canonicity in the Legends continuity is a bit suspect.
• Nightmare Fuel: I Jedi gives us a first person perspective of what a "great disturbance in the Force" feels like. It's pretty brutal.
  [Corran wants to say something at dinner, has to swallow first, and manages] Just in time for me to scream.
  Luke Skywalker had told us that at the moment of Alderaan's destruction, his master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, had said he felt 'a disturbance in the Force'. Anyone who could label what I felt a 'disturbance' could think of Hutts as cuddly. The hollow shock one feels when told of a close friend's sudden death slammed into me at lightspeed. My conscious mind searched in vain for an identity to attach to that feeling, finding a way to contain it, but the hollowness opened into a bottomless void. Not only did I not know who had died, but I would never have a chance to know them, and that seemed the greatest tragedy possible.
  Flashes of faces, snippets of dreams, laughter aborted and the sweet scent of a newborn's flesh undergoing a greasy transformation into roast meat all roared through me. Thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions, these images and impressions came in a whirlwind that screwed itself down into my belly. Hope melted into fear, wonder into terror, innocence into nothingness. Bright futures, all planned, proved the ultimate in morphability when a fundamental truth in these lives proved wrong. For these people there had never been a question of whether or not the sun would rise tomorrow, and yet in an instant they were proved wrong, as the sun reached out and devoured their world.
  I heard Streen screaming that there were too many voices to handle before he slumped to the floor. I envied him in that moment. The same clarity of recall I cherished seconds before meant I watched a vast parade of dead flicker through my consciousness. A mother, acting on instinct, shielded her child in the nanosecond before both of them were vaporized. Young lovers, lying together in the the afterglow of the moment, hoping what they felt would never end, got their wish as they were torn into their constituent atoms. Criminals, triumphant in some small success, were reduced to fearful puling animals as their world evaporated.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The original Jedi Academy Trilogy is generally considered middling schlock among Star Wars Legends fans. Though it has its detractors, I, Jedi is consistently ranked as one of the best single books in the entire continuity, competing with The Thrawn Trilogy and Matt Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelization.

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