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"The Clone Wars Gambit story concludes with Karen Miller’s Siege. Obi-Wan and Anakin are trapped together in a Lanteeban village while the Republic still works to sabotage Lok Durd’s bio-weapon.
"This book is an improvement on the previous and certainly has much to recommend it. General Durd remains a thoroughly satisfying villain, one that can easily be loathed, and Miller writes particularly well for Darth Sidious, exploring his dual personas and clearly enjoying herself doing it. The story keeps its tension levels just within tolerable levels – it threatens to stall on a couple of occasions, but mostly the pacing is good. Tryn Netzl was also an interesting character that she added – it is a shame he was relatively underused in the story.
"Sadly, there are still many of the negatives that I feel plague Miller’s writing. There are moments when characters aren’t written properly, when highly accentuated emotions lead them to do and say things that are uncharacteristic – for example, Padmé’s idea of how to resolve the siege went against her nature, I felt. This ham-fisted exaggeration extends to the clones too – in Traviss’ writing, the clones have unique personalities that come through skilled development, whereas for Miller, they all have loud and outlandish hairstyles to set them apart from each other (an annoying trait that seems to stem from the animated series). Taria Damsin returns and with her the unsavoury notion of Obi-Wan having had a lover that no-one has ever heard of before in a fairly comprehensive catalogue of his life and exploits. The scenes between them are cringe-worthy and the character in general is off-putting at best, particularly when she chivvies Ahsoka into a completely pointless Padawan challenge. Miller also has a habit of pushing characters to what she describes as their limits and then continually forcing them beyond and beyond and beyond, leaving the reader wondering why they haven’t collapsed from exhaustion. It is jarring when you read that Anakin’s tentative use of the Force to sense feelings makes his nerves scream and then on the next page he’s deflecting blaster bolts and defeating mosquito droids.
"A generally more exciting volume than its immediate predecessor, Siege still suffers from too much inconsistency and a rather anti-climactic resolution to the whole crisis.."