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paulviebranz 's review for:
Aftermath
by Chuck Wendig
Aftermath is an impressively uneven book. Wendig's writing style, with its staccato lines of prose and dialogue and it's freakish overuse of amateurish figurative language, is an ill fit for the Star Wars galaxy. Contemporary idioms, poorly cobbled-together metaphor, and "curses" torn from Battlestar Galactica, rip you right out of the story time and again. And if his writing itself doesn't, the numerous and often pointless "Interludes" will, regularly inerrupting the narrative to update you on... mostly random stuff that's happening someplace else. How all of this managed to get past an editor is beyond me, especially as it is among the first new Star Wars canon novels.
Enough of the bad, though-- there is actually a lot to like here, as well. Coming to this story long after the release of The Force Awakens, I wasn't disappointed by it's lack of direct connection to that story, and despite all of the flaws, I found myself still growing to like the characters, and by the end to be genuinely interested in where their story goes from here. Norra and Sloane in particular are engaging fresh faces, and while the dialogue written for Sinjir, Temmin, Jom, and Jas was frequently eye-rollingly "edgy," they too eventually became engaging enough to truly warrant their sequel stories. Mister Bones' merits go without saying: more of him, please.
In the end, the positives outweigh the negatives, and although shockingly inappropriately-written and generally underwhelming, Aftermath did win me over. The only interlude I cared about in this story was the one with Han and Chewie, and considering the title and cover art of the next installment, I assume we will explore that storyline in much greater detail, which I sincerely greatly look forward to. And though I'll be taking a break from Wendig to catch up on Journey to The Last Jedi titles, I'll certainly come back for Life Debt sometime in the near future.
Enough of the bad, though-- there is actually a lot to like here, as well. Coming to this story long after the release of The Force Awakens, I wasn't disappointed by it's lack of direct connection to that story, and despite all of the flaws, I found myself still growing to like the characters, and by the end to be genuinely interested in where their story goes from here. Norra and Sloane in particular are engaging fresh faces, and while the dialogue written for Sinjir, Temmin, Jom, and Jas was frequently eye-rollingly "edgy," they too eventually became engaging enough to truly warrant their sequel stories. Mister Bones' merits go without saying: more of him, please.
In the end, the positives outweigh the negatives, and although shockingly inappropriately-written and generally underwhelming, Aftermath did win me over. The only interlude I cared about in this story was the one with Han and Chewie, and considering the title and cover art of the next installment, I assume we will explore that storyline in much greater detail, which I sincerely greatly look forward to. And though I'll be taking a break from Wendig to catch up on Journey to The Last Jedi titles, I'll certainly come back for Life Debt sometime in the near future.