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A review by noah_hurts
Alphabet Squadron by Alexander Freed
3.0
I haven't read a Star Wars book since I was in middle school and I hadn't read a single one of the new Disney-era canon novels so here goes.
Alphabet Squadron captures the spirit of the Rogue Squadron rag-tag group of pilots pretty well. I cared about the characters (to a point) and (for the most part) they all felt distinctive and interesting in their own regard. Like a lot of the Star Wars EU (are we even still calling it the EU?) content the stakes here feel infinitely larger than they do in the movies, but it works to the book's credit. This book does not shy away from presenting the horrors of war as just that. One of the characters comes into contact with would-be suicide bombers, another has a degree of PTSD for witnessing the army she was a part of conduct acts that can really only be described as ethnic cleansing. One character in particular dreams about how cool it would be to die a martyr's death like the protagonist of Rogue One, Jyn Erso. It's a little slapped together and not 100% congruous with the rest of the universe it draws from, but it works and it feels like what a lot of EU content does-an extension on what fans of the original trilogy remember the films being, not what they actually are.
The characters are mostly interesting and fun. They all feel a little one-dimensional until later in the book and the constant POV shifting worked a lot but sometimes felt more like the author's voice than the character's. The biggest fault I found in regard to the characters was the book's constant insistence that there were secrets that needed to be uncovered. Star Wars loves a good plot twist, but the "plot twists" in this book felt weirdly hyped. Characters made reference to their "secret plans" or ulterior motives for them to be revealed leaving my scratching my head. But by having all original characters (save for one character I was unfamiliar with anyway due to her being from one of the TV shows I have not seen) the story feels detached enough from the movie narrative that I never have that typical Star Wars moment of sighing deeply and thinking "I'm supposed to believe they were there, too?
Beyond weird character choices the only real fault I came away from this book with was some of the messaging. It was really interesting to read from the perspective of a character that dutifully served the Empire and genuinely believed they did good for the galaxy, but seeing her grapple with whether or not this was true or molded by propaganda got to be exhausting. It got to be the very end of the book and she was still grappling with these problems with seemingly no progress. Is this realistic? Probably, yes. Is it also going to be a big part of the trilogy going forward? Also probably, leaving this to feel a little sad as a stand-alone story. Regardless, the book mostly stands on its own to the point that someone with no knowledge of Star Wars could probably enjoy a good bit of this. Mentions of the Death Star are plentiful but you can gather easily enough what that is.
Ultimately I enjoyed this a lot despite what it sounds like. It was a quick read that gave me a dose of some more grounded Star Wars content after my disappointment with Episode IX. I'm kind of bummed out that this is going to be a trilogy because I am generally wary of stories that were fun as a one-shot being extended that far, but I can only wait and see.
Alphabet Squadron captures the spirit of the Rogue Squadron rag-tag group of pilots pretty well. I cared about the characters (to a point) and (for the most part) they all felt distinctive and interesting in their own regard. Like a lot of the Star Wars EU (are we even still calling it the EU?) content the stakes here feel infinitely larger than they do in the movies, but it works to the book's credit. This book does not shy away from presenting the horrors of war as just that. One of the characters comes into contact with would-be suicide bombers, another has a degree of PTSD for witnessing the army she was a part of conduct acts that can really only be described as ethnic cleansing. One character in particular dreams about how cool it would be to die a martyr's death like the protagonist of Rogue One, Jyn Erso. It's a little slapped together and not 100% congruous with the rest of the universe it draws from, but it works and it feels like what a lot of EU content does-an extension on what fans of the original trilogy remember the films being, not what they actually are.
The characters are mostly interesting and fun. They all feel a little one-dimensional until later in the book and the constant POV shifting worked a lot but sometimes felt more like the author's voice than the character's. The biggest fault I found in regard to the characters was the book's constant insistence that there were secrets that needed to be uncovered. Star Wars loves a good plot twist, but the "plot twists" in this book felt weirdly hyped. Characters made reference to their "secret plans" or ulterior motives for them to be revealed leaving my scratching my head. But by having all original characters (save for one character I was unfamiliar with anyway due to her being from one of the TV shows I have not seen) the story feels detached enough from the movie narrative that I never have that typical Star Wars moment of sighing deeply and thinking "I'm supposed to believe they were there, too?
Beyond weird character choices the only real fault I came away from this book with was some of the messaging. It was really interesting to read from the perspective of a character that dutifully served the Empire and genuinely believed they did good for the galaxy, but seeing her grapple with whether or not this was true or molded by propaganda got to be exhausting. It got to be the very end of the book and she was still grappling with these problems with seemingly no progress. Is this realistic? Probably, yes. Is it also going to be a big part of the trilogy going forward? Also probably, leaving this to feel a little sad as a stand-alone story. Regardless, the book mostly stands on its own to the point that someone with no knowledge of Star Wars could probably enjoy a good bit of this. Mentions of the Death Star are plentiful but you can gather easily enough what that is.
Ultimately I enjoyed this a lot despite what it sounds like. It was a quick read that gave me a dose of some more grounded Star Wars content after my disappointment with Episode IX. I'm kind of bummed out that this is going to be a trilogy because I am generally wary of stories that were fun as a one-shot being extended that far, but I can only wait and see.