You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.24 AVERAGE
3.24 AVERAGE
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
It was ok? I liked some of the characters but struggled to care about the kid. I miss the old Star Wars books.
Meh...fun to be in the Star Wars Universe, but characters so unremarkable it was often difficult to figure out who was who from chapter to chapter and story overly simplistic. Some depth would have been nice.
So: a return to reading Star Wars novels begins with a novel that's... OK.
The plot isn't extreme, not designed to rock the franchise's boat particularly, but there's some interesting characters and a lot of people, places and aliens that will no doubt long-term readers be very excited by but sort've passed me by.
It did seem in places that Chuck was trying to use up as many terms in the Star Wars Reference Guide * as possible.
Having said that, the book's easy enough to follow without too much effort. A fast, easy, breezy read, that begins to deal with that issue: What happens after the revolution?
I'll probably read the next!
*(I made this up.)
The plot isn't extreme, not designed to rock the franchise's boat particularly, but there's some interesting characters and a lot of people, places and aliens that will no doubt long-term readers be very excited by but sort've passed me by.
It did seem in places that Chuck was trying to use up as many terms in the Star Wars Reference Guide * as possible.
Having said that, the book's easy enough to follow without too much effort. A fast, easy, breezy read, that begins to deal with that issue: What happens after the revolution?
I'll probably read the next!
*(I made this up.)
This book was a waste of time. There were short interludes throughout the book that seemed to be setting up much more interesting stories than the one that was actually told. There were a lot of characters and it was confusingly written.
I listened to the audiobook for this title, and really enjoyed the production of the story. From sound effects, to different voices for each character, I was very impressed.
The story itself on the other hand...
It had a lot of new things I liked. I enjoyed the interludes the most. It added more depth to the story than the story itself. While I enjoyed the new characters, especially Mr. Bones, I found the narrative a bit dry. Toward the end, it did build enough intrigue that I am interested in reading/ listening to the next one.
The story itself on the other hand...
It had a lot of new things I liked. I enjoyed the interludes the most. It added more depth to the story than the story itself. While I enjoyed the new characters, especially Mr. Bones, I found the narrative a bit dry. Toward the end, it did build enough intrigue that I am interested in reading/ listening to the next one.
Part of me wanted to give this five stars just to counterbalance the homophobic trolls who had a field day giving it one stars for *gasp* having a gay character but that's just not who I am. I wanted to love this. I follow Mr. Wendig's blog and saw his excitement in writing this but even three stars is a gift.
This was...dull. Sorry but it was. First off, I will say I know franchises like this often dictate to the author what characters can/cannot be used and what needs to happen in the book but I have no way of knowing just how much of that happened here. I can't fathom why the only name characters from canon used are Wedge Antilles and Admiral Ackbar. Was it a contest to find characters people wouldn't give a damn about because if so, this wins.
Worse, Wedge doesn't DO much. This whole story could have happened without him and for that matter Ackbar too. Yes, thanks for trying to make the Mon Calamari (Shudders, Lucas can't name for crap) have a culture but just doesn't make Ackbar interesting.
This is just a few months out from the end of Palpatine and Vader. I know it was meant to show that the New Republic didn't just take over instantly and that the war went on longer than that. Fine. What the problem was we had five main point of view characters which was too many. There is Wedge but all he does is get captured and we see him for a few torture scenes and at the end he signals the Republic to come out to Akiva, some forgotten Outer Rim planet. Whoopie. Not worth the time it took. It was a waste of character.
The real story concentrated on the other four, Norra, Rebel pilot returning to Akiva to retrieve her son, Temmin, her long abandoned son turned minor pawn artist/droid repair/street rat, who doesn't want to leave the planet with his mother, Jas, the bounty hunter there to kill/capture a high ranking Imperial and Sinjir, formal Imperial Loyalty office/burgeoning alcoholic/gay man.
By the time we get their story lines we're nearly 150 pages in before they all come together. The story is @ 360 pages so almost half way in before that happens and then the story gets more readable.
Intermixed with this are a group of Imperials whose names I'm already forgetting less than a day after finishing this but they're all high ranking and trying to hold the empire together. They're having a summit meeting that spans the book and if there's anything more boring than a real summit meeting it's a fictional one. I started skimming this.
To make matters worse every other chapter is an 'interlude' with characters you might never see again in this story (maybe in the next who honestly who the hell cares?). So you have all these wild names who show up for 4 pages and are never seen again. There are only two of them worth much, one with a character that joins the above mentioned rebels and then one that's a set up for a different book with Han and Chewie (so yeah they take up less than 5 pages in this whole book).
So those rebels/streetpunk/bounty hunter/drunk characters are the point of view characters and they're trying to basically get the imperials, signal the rebels and get off the planet.
I think one of the real problems with this is it tried to do way too much. If the summit meetings were trimmed down, and all those interludes tossed out this would have been much more readable. It was really mostly a 2 star read but I'm feeling a tad generous.
And one of the worst parts is for me, the whole gay thing was really unnecessary. Don't get me wrong. I'm fine with Sinjir being gay. The scene, however, was pointless and added absolutely nothing to the story and was slightly creepy. Jas basically decides Sinjir isn't too useless so yes he may screw her if he wants. It was put pretty much like that and it's like wow, make it sound like a prostitute picking up a john. Way to treat your kick ass bounty hunter.
I'm not sure I'll follow the rest of the series.
This was...dull. Sorry but it was. First off, I will say I know franchises like this often dictate to the author what characters can/cannot be used and what needs to happen in the book but I have no way of knowing just how much of that happened here. I can't fathom why the only name characters from canon used are Wedge Antilles and Admiral Ackbar. Was it a contest to find characters people wouldn't give a damn about because if so, this wins.
Worse, Wedge doesn't DO much. This whole story could have happened without him and for that matter Ackbar too. Yes, thanks for trying to make the Mon Calamari (Shudders, Lucas can't name for crap) have a culture but just doesn't make Ackbar interesting.
This is just a few months out from the end of Palpatine and Vader. I know it was meant to show that the New Republic didn't just take over instantly and that the war went on longer than that. Fine. What the problem was we had five main point of view characters which was too many. There is Wedge but all he does is get captured and we see him for a few torture scenes and at the end he signals the Republic to come out to Akiva, some forgotten Outer Rim planet. Whoopie. Not worth the time it took. It was a waste of character.
The real story concentrated on the other four, Norra, Rebel pilot returning to Akiva to retrieve her son, Temmin, her long abandoned son turned minor pawn artist/droid repair/street rat, who doesn't want to leave the planet with his mother, Jas, the bounty hunter there to kill/capture a high ranking Imperial and Sinjir, formal Imperial Loyalty office/burgeoning alcoholic/gay man.
By the time we get their story lines we're nearly 150 pages in before they all come together. The story is @ 360 pages so almost half way in before that happens and then the story gets more readable.
Intermixed with this are a group of Imperials whose names I'm already forgetting less than a day after finishing this but they're all high ranking and trying to hold the empire together. They're having a summit meeting that spans the book and if there's anything more boring than a real summit meeting it's a fictional one. I started skimming this.
To make matters worse every other chapter is an 'interlude' with characters you might never see again in this story (maybe in the next who honestly who the hell cares?). So you have all these wild names who show up for 4 pages and are never seen again. There are only two of them worth much, one with a character that joins the above mentioned rebels and then one that's a set up for a different book with Han and Chewie (so yeah they take up less than 5 pages in this whole book).
So those rebels/streetpunk/bounty hunter/drunk characters are the point of view characters and they're trying to basically get the imperials, signal the rebels and get off the planet.
I think one of the real problems with this is it tried to do way too much. If the summit meetings were trimmed down, and all those interludes tossed out this would have been much more readable. It was really mostly a 2 star read but I'm feeling a tad generous.
And one of the worst parts is for me, the whole gay thing was really unnecessary. Don't get me wrong. I'm fine with Sinjir being gay. The scene, however, was pointless and added absolutely nothing to the story and was slightly creepy. Jas basically decides Sinjir isn't too useless so yes he may screw her if he wants. It was put pretty much like that and it's like wow, make it sound like a prostitute picking up a john. Way to treat your kick ass bounty hunter.
I'm not sure I'll follow the rest of the series.
Very entertaining to listen to. So hard to keep track of all the characters. Enjoyed it.
Fantastic book! My favorite thing about it is the cast of characters. They are diverse and interesting in all sorts of ways. There's a likable villain, and a great storyline to keep you interested. This was my second read-through, and I think I enjoyed it more than the first time.
I love Star Wars. I really enjoy the universe. Did I love or enjoy this book? Meh... First off and this isn't a critique of the actual story but the audio book which features iconic sound effects and a narrator that I couldn't get behind. Please leave that to the movies/shows. I just couldn't get into the story with laser and droid effects every two minutes. As far as the story, I feel like Wendig tried to cover too much. If he only went through this small cast, then we might have had something. But the flow of the story is constantly interrupted with these interludes that take us all around the galaxy to for these little snippets that set up the new movie and walk us away from Return of the Jedi. In my humble opinion, they should have done either a story with a new cast or a "catch up" story. Not both, because it suffers for it.