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chappellmw90's review against another edition
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
biblioauds's review against another edition
5.0
This review will not contain story elements and will be completely spoiler free.
Alphabet Squadron started my venture of Star Wars literature, and thus I acknowledge the bias and nostalgia associated with the characters and writing itself. Since finishing the book back in the summer of 2020, I have since read plenty of other Star Wars novels, both YA and Adult, Legends and Canon. I can still say, with certainty, and certainly after finishing the trilogy recently, that Alphabet Squadron has truly left an amazing impression and that it paves the way for future Star Wars Adult literature.
Alphabet Squadron has been considered to be a direct tie-in with Star Wars: Squadrons. The video game has gained massive popularity among the starfighter niche in the community, and itches the scratch of all of those who dreamed of the scream of a TIE and yearned for the yolk of a X-Wing.
Unfortunately, due to this tie-in, I think that the community has been harsh on this book and the series as a whole. They had a vision for the book that was not the same as the author's intention. Freed was known prior for his Battlefront: Twilight Company novel, and thus had a reputation for amazing combat narrative. Having read Twilight Company myself, I can directly attest to this. However, Freed has many writing talents other than combat, which show in Alphabet Squadron fully. Freed writes of deep characterization across 5 main characters, each with their own story, struggles, and triumphs. Each unfold delicately, and in a way that helps the reader unfold another corner of the galaxy. In this book, we are able to explore morality in Star Wars, and what that looks like from different backgrounds, perspectives, species, and affiliations. This deep characterization is nothing short of infatuating, but unfortunately not what I think the audience expected. They had expected loads of combat, but instead the "dry" bits of story unraveling left them unsatisfied. This was not their niche. Alphabet Squadron is meant for those who value the perspectives of different types of people in the galaxy, value the quality of loose ended stories, and value slow burning heroes.
This book was an extremely easy read even though I had no prior experience with Star Wars literature. I highly recommend this to new readers in the Star Wars fandom and for anyone interested in the morality of Star Wars. This book will certainly turn the cogs!
Alphabet Squadron started my venture of Star Wars literature, and thus I acknowledge the bias and nostalgia associated with the characters and writing itself. Since finishing the book back in the summer of 2020, I have since read plenty of other Star Wars novels, both YA and Adult, Legends and Canon. I can still say, with certainty, and certainly after finishing the trilogy recently, that Alphabet Squadron has truly left an amazing impression and that it paves the way for future Star Wars Adult literature.
Alphabet Squadron has been considered to be a direct tie-in with Star Wars: Squadrons. The video game has gained massive popularity among the starfighter niche in the community, and itches the scratch of all of those who dreamed of the scream of a TIE and yearned for the yolk of a X-Wing.
Unfortunately, due to this tie-in, I think that the community has been harsh on this book and the series as a whole. They had a vision for the book that was not the same as the author's intention. Freed was known prior for his Battlefront: Twilight Company novel, and thus had a reputation for amazing combat narrative. Having read Twilight Company myself, I can directly attest to this. However, Freed has many writing talents other than combat, which show in Alphabet Squadron fully. Freed writes of deep characterization across 5 main characters, each with their own story, struggles, and triumphs. Each unfold delicately, and in a way that helps the reader unfold another corner of the galaxy. In this book, we are able to explore morality in Star Wars, and what that looks like from different backgrounds, perspectives, species, and affiliations. This deep characterization is nothing short of infatuating, but unfortunately not what I think the audience expected. They had expected loads of combat, but instead the "dry" bits of story unraveling left them unsatisfied. This was not their niche. Alphabet Squadron is meant for those who value the perspectives of different types of people in the galaxy, value the quality of loose ended stories, and value slow burning heroes.
This book was an extremely easy read even though I had no prior experience with Star Wars literature. I highly recommend this to new readers in the Star Wars fandom and for anyone interested in the morality of Star Wars. This book will certainly turn the cogs!
capnhist's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
galacticvampire's review
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Alphabet Squadron was ine of the most hyped additions to the Star Wars canon, so I was obviously excited for it. While it wasn't exactly disappointing, I didn't love it as much as I expected to either.
That isn't to say the the book is bad in any way. I actually think most of what I disliked were issues of personal preference other than actual execution.
The tone is very much of a war movie and is quite interesting. We have multiple scenes of tactical debate and detailed space battles, and Freed does a great job locating the reader on the chaos of action.
My main issue is that half of the book was what felt like an assembly prologue. I kept waiting for the plot to actually start and the characters to be more explored.
Still, I liked the cast and appreciated how the narrative allowed mistakes and flaws to the heroes, exploring how no government or side is purely good or completely evil.
That isn't to say the the book is bad in any way. I actually think most of what I disliked were issues of personal preference other than actual execution.
The tone is very much of a war movie and is quite interesting. We have multiple scenes of tactical debate and detailed space battles, and Freed does a great job locating the reader on the chaos of action.
My main issue is that half of the book was what felt like an assembly prologue. I kept waiting for the plot to actually start and the characters to be more explored.
Still, I liked the cast and appreciated how the narrative allowed mistakes and flaws to the heroes, exploring how no government or side is purely good or completely evil.
neilrcoulter's review against another edition
5.0
April 2021 review
This is my second time through Alphabet Squadron, as I look forward to now getting to read the whole series straight through. I loved the book the first time I read it, but I was a little worried that it might not hold up so well the second time. I shouldn’t have worried: it’s brilliant. It is by far the best SW book I’ve read, and the reread was just as great as the first time.
In addition to all that I wrote about it in the first review, below—apparently I had a lot of time to write a review that day—which I still agree with, what struck me this time was the way Alexander Freed captures small moments in the SW galaxy that most other creators overlook. There’s a scene, for example, where a pilot gets into her ship and flies it out of the carrier’s hangar and into space. Freed writes about that transition, moving through the brightly illuminated hangar exit and the feeling of suddenly being out in space. In another scene a pilot maneuvers up and down through a planet’s colorful atmosphere before continuing up into space. Scenes like this capture a wonder of being in Star Wars that hardly any creator has ever tapped into. Where most authors write scenes that go something like this—“Then they hopped into their starfighters and launched into space, where they had an awesome battle with an overwhelming number of enemy ships”—Freed intuitively feels what it would really be like to be in every moment. He makes SW real, which is something more than just making SW grittier, or more politically relevant, or tragic, or sarcastic and ironic, or any of the other tactics some authors have attempted in the new canon.
Alphabet Squadron is not only the best SW book—it’s also at the same level as my favorite SW films. Please, Books 2 and 3, please don’t ruin this...
July 2019 review
Alphabet Squadron is the best Star Wars novel I’ve read, and Alexander Freed continues to be the best Star Wars novelist—at least 12 parsecs above any other SW writer. His previous novel, Battlefront: Twilight Squadron, was the first book in the new canon that finally started to explore the potential complexities that other SW books have missed entirely. Alphabet Squadron matches that earlier story and deepens the mythology still further.
Freed is also bolder in this story: where Battlefront included cameos by Han Solo and Darth Vader, along with a new perspective on the Hoth battle from The Empire Strikes Back, the only familiar face in Alphabet Squadron is Hera Syndulla, from Rebels. Everyone else is new, and none of the locations are familiar. (Names and places from other stories are, of course, mentioned in a natural way, but the story doesn’t actually bring them in to play a role.) As with Battlefront, this means the first 50 pages or more of this book are very challenging to work through, as I was confronted with a barrage of new names, alien species that, even as a pretty knowledgeable SW fan, I often had to look up online to remember what they look like, and histories and backstories that don’t quite connect to anything I know. The difficulty is that there’s no way of knowing in those early pages which characters and details are going to be important later on. Enduring through those early chapters is worth it, however, and Alphabet Squadron is a SW book I look forward to re-reading.
As I’ve read the books in the new SW canon, what I’ve wanted is for authors to take advantage of the size of the galaxy (not everything has to connect directly to Luke, Han, and Leia), and the possible connections to real-world issues. Very few authors have been able to accomplish that—and, to be fair, that may have more to do with restrictions from Lucasfilm than with the authors’ own skills and interests. I’ve also been disappointed that no new SW stories (including The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi) seem to know what to do with the post-Endor era. The Shattered Empire graphic novel was bland, Bloodline had to avoid too many important details because of future-movie restrictions, and the less said about the Aftermath trilogy, the better.
Freed is given the right space to be able to avoid all of these pitfalls, and the story he crafts is a nuanced, complex, troubling reflection on the effects of war, even after a supposed “victory.” His characters bring backstories full of personal conflict—disloyalty to all sides, unresolved grief over fallen comrades, lack of clarity about the right path ahead, and self-doubt in almost everything. I especially resonated with a character who dreams of becoming a heroic martyr but is always denied the opportunity. The climax of this story is celebrated as a victory, but only because that’s the way the New Republic needs to spin it; the main protagonists feel it as a deeply disturbing near-catastrophe that they themselves caused. This doesn’t sound like a happy, action-movie kind of story, and it’s not—which is just what I’ve wanted in SW books.
A question woven throughout the book is: How does a guerilla rebel group defeat tyranny and then, believing themselves to be in the right, rebuild a galactic government without perpetuating the same tyranny all over again? We see repeatedly that the New Republic struggles to comprehend the fact that they won—they’re no longer the underdog that has to use questionable tactics to achieve victory. In the final battle, we see that from a certain point of view, the New Republic looks a lot like the Empire in how they achieve peace. Freed also shows us Imperials in more close-up detail than we’ve seen before, allowing us to understand them as real people with motivations that make sense and valid reasons for despising the New Republic.
This may sound similar to conflicts portrayed in Rogue One (Freed wrote the novelization), and it is, but the tension is a little different in this story, because it’s not about the ones who fall in battle, but about those who survive past the victory.
I can tell Freed shares my admiration of Rogue One, as he sets up Jyn Erso as a martyr whose example continues to inspire people, even after Endor:
Sometimes SW authors (and filmmakers) allow themselves to have too much fun being clever and referencing elements of other SW stories. Freed’s writing is serious and focused, but he occasionally has some verbal fun, and it always worked for me. For example, this is the first novel I’ve read that suggests the title “Star Wars” itself (“In the stars, Chass saw war” (262)), and the opening line of every trilogy movie:
In the Acknowledgements, Freed says that this is the first book in a series of three. Yes! I hope the next books continue to probe the issue of what it means for there to be a galactic government, whether a galactic government is even necessary or right, and how a rebel faction could bring order after years of war. (Which we know they don’t, because the First Order still seems to have the upper hand some years after the events in Alphabet Squadron; which is sad.) I look forward to re-reading this book before the next one is published. I hope this is the direction (or at least a direction) SW moves from this point on. Books like this, movies like Rogue One, series like Rebels, and the early glimpses of The Mandalorian are reasons for optimism.
This is my second time through Alphabet Squadron, as I look forward to now getting to read the whole series straight through. I loved the book the first time I read it, but I was a little worried that it might not hold up so well the second time. I shouldn’t have worried: it’s brilliant. It is by far the best SW book I’ve read, and the reread was just as great as the first time.
In addition to all that I wrote about it in the first review, below—apparently I had a lot of time to write a review that day—which I still agree with, what struck me this time was the way Alexander Freed captures small moments in the SW galaxy that most other creators overlook. There’s a scene, for example, where a pilot gets into her ship and flies it out of the carrier’s hangar and into space. Freed writes about that transition, moving through the brightly illuminated hangar exit and the feeling of suddenly being out in space. In another scene a pilot maneuvers up and down through a planet’s colorful atmosphere before continuing up into space. Scenes like this capture a wonder of being in Star Wars that hardly any creator has ever tapped into. Where most authors write scenes that go something like this—“Then they hopped into their starfighters and launched into space, where they had an awesome battle with an overwhelming number of enemy ships”—Freed intuitively feels what it would really be like to be in every moment. He makes SW real, which is something more than just making SW grittier, or more politically relevant, or tragic, or sarcastic and ironic, or any of the other tactics some authors have attempted in the new canon.
Alphabet Squadron is not only the best SW book—it’s also at the same level as my favorite SW films. Please, Books 2 and 3, please don’t ruin this...
July 2019 review
Alphabet Squadron is the best Star Wars novel I’ve read, and Alexander Freed continues to be the best Star Wars novelist—at least 12 parsecs above any other SW writer. His previous novel, Battlefront: Twilight Squadron, was the first book in the new canon that finally started to explore the potential complexities that other SW books have missed entirely. Alphabet Squadron matches that earlier story and deepens the mythology still further.
Freed is also bolder in this story: where Battlefront included cameos by Han Solo and Darth Vader, along with a new perspective on the Hoth battle from The Empire Strikes Back, the only familiar face in Alphabet Squadron is Hera Syndulla, from Rebels. Everyone else is new, and none of the locations are familiar. (Names and places from other stories are, of course, mentioned in a natural way, but the story doesn’t actually bring them in to play a role.) As with Battlefront, this means the first 50 pages or more of this book are very challenging to work through, as I was confronted with a barrage of new names, alien species that, even as a pretty knowledgeable SW fan, I often had to look up online to remember what they look like, and histories and backstories that don’t quite connect to anything I know. The difficulty is that there’s no way of knowing in those early pages which characters and details are going to be important later on. Enduring through those early chapters is worth it, however, and Alphabet Squadron is a SW book I look forward to re-reading.
As I’ve read the books in the new SW canon, what I’ve wanted is for authors to take advantage of the size of the galaxy (not everything has to connect directly to Luke, Han, and Leia), and the possible connections to real-world issues. Very few authors have been able to accomplish that—and, to be fair, that may have more to do with restrictions from Lucasfilm than with the authors’ own skills and interests. I’ve also been disappointed that no new SW stories (including The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi) seem to know what to do with the post-Endor era. The Shattered Empire graphic novel was bland, Bloodline had to avoid too many important details because of future-movie restrictions, and the less said about the Aftermath trilogy, the better.
Freed is given the right space to be able to avoid all of these pitfalls, and the story he crafts is a nuanced, complex, troubling reflection on the effects of war, even after a supposed “victory.” His characters bring backstories full of personal conflict—disloyalty to all sides, unresolved grief over fallen comrades, lack of clarity about the right path ahead, and self-doubt in almost everything. I especially resonated with a character who dreams of becoming a heroic martyr but is always denied the opportunity. The climax of this story is celebrated as a victory, but only because that’s the way the New Republic needs to spin it; the main protagonists feel it as a deeply disturbing near-catastrophe that they themselves caused. This doesn’t sound like a happy, action-movie kind of story, and it’s not—which is just what I’ve wanted in SW books.
A question woven throughout the book is: How does a guerilla rebel group defeat tyranny and then, believing themselves to be in the right, rebuild a galactic government without perpetuating the same tyranny all over again? We see repeatedly that the New Republic struggles to comprehend the fact that they won—they’re no longer the underdog that has to use questionable tactics to achieve victory. In the final battle, we see that from a certain point of view, the New Republic looks a lot like the Empire in how they achieve peace. Freed also shows us Imperials in more close-up detail than we’ve seen before, allowing us to understand them as real people with motivations that make sense and valid reasons for despising the New Republic.
This may sound similar to conflicts portrayed in Rogue One (Freed wrote the novelization), and it is, but the tension is a little different in this story, because it’s not about the ones who fall in battle, but about those who survive past the victory.
I can tell Freed shares my admiration of Rogue One, as he sets up Jyn Erso as a martyr whose example continues to inspire people, even after Endor:
“You know Jyn Erso?” she began, because if they didn’t the rest of the story would be meaningless. “The woman who started it all and destroyed the Death Star? The first one, the real one, I mean.”Amen. You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a grumpy old guy surrounded by porgs.”General Skywalker and Red Squadron destroyed the Death Star,” Nath said.
”Skywalker fired the last shot, was all. Jyn did everything that mattered.” (259)
Sometimes SW authors (and filmmakers) allow themselves to have too much fun being clever and referencing elements of other SW stories. Freed’s writing is serious and focused, but he occasionally has some verbal fun, and it always worked for me. For example, this is the first novel I’ve read that suggests the title “Star Wars” itself (“In the stars, Chass saw war” (262)), and the opening line of every trilogy movie:
His voice dropped in pitch and volume. He told the story like a prayer, and Chass listened.Very fun!“It feels like a long time ago now, far away from here” (96).
In the Acknowledgements, Freed says that this is the first book in a series of three. Yes! I hope the next books continue to probe the issue of what it means for there to be a galactic government, whether a galactic government is even necessary or right, and how a rebel faction could bring order after years of war. (Which we know they don’t, because the First Order still seems to have the upper hand some years after the events in Alphabet Squadron; which is sad.) I look forward to re-reading this book before the next one is published. I hope this is the direction (or at least a direction) SW moves from this point on. Books like this, movies like Rogue One, series like Rebels, and the early glimpses of The Mandalorian are reasons for optimism.
mmorrisohio's review against another edition
4.0
A really interesting glimpse into an era of the new Star Wars canon that I know very little about. Complex characters, suspenseful scenes, and a twisting plot made this an enjoyable read. Excited to continue reading the series.
banjo_hammer's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
raptorimperator's review
4.0
I enjoyed this far more than I was expecting, seeing how all the main characters are brand new, with General Hera Syndulla (from Star Wars: Rebels) being the only established character to appear in the book. I look forward to reading more about Yrica Quell and her Alphabet Squadron in the other books of this series.
nknitsch's review against another edition
4.0
Alphabet Squadron
Good read. Nice picture of soldiers during war, not the legendary heroes, but those conflicted, interested individuals each with a story of their own, brought together for a purpose.
Good read. Nice picture of soldiers during war, not the legendary heroes, but those conflicted, interested individuals each with a story of their own, brought together for a purpose.