This column involves spoilers for Lost Stars. Read at your own risk.
Category Archives: Books
Review: Moving Target
There’s very little I love more in this world than a well-written Leia Organa story and Cecil Castellucci and Jason Fry have definitely delivered with their contribution to the Journey to the Force Awakens: Moving Targets. It’s a middle grade book which means the writing style is a bit more simplistic but that certainly doesn’t take away from the impact of the story nor from how much I enjoyed reading it.
Worrying reports have reached the Rebel Alliance of the construction of a second Death Star… something that absolutely no one wants to see in the hands of the Emperor. The Rebel Alliance must strike back but they’ll need time. Princess Leia volunteers to lead a decoy mission and serve as a distraction… a moving target if you will.
Review: Aftermath’s Prose
I usually hate reading present tense prose, at least in professional fiction. It’s always lent itself to fanfiction in my mind for some reason, so when I read the first excerpts of Aftermath when they were released, I wasn’t impressed.
Boy, was I wrong.
I read Aftermath in between feedings and diaper changes of our new little Jedi-in-training, and every time I set the book down, I looked forward to picking it back up again, and had the book come out before Little Jedi’s arrival, I probably would have read it all in one sitting.
Many of you know that I am, by trade and training, a professor of literature. So while the rest of our staff has reviewed Aftermath based on its content, I want to focus on the style and why it works so well for this novel.
Review: The Weapon of a Jedi by Jason Fry
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Nanci.
When Nanci was 11 years old, she saw Star Wars for the first time. And promptly fell in love with Luke Skywalker. She loved everything about him: his farm boy earnestness, his hot-shot piloting, his skills with a lightsaber. She loved that he was brash and courageous and kind and loyal and optimistic even in the face of certain death. She loved everything about him — yes, even the “Tosche Station” line.
(Yes, she did choose the name for this podcast and blog.)
People told her that one day, she’d grow up and stop loving Luke so much. That Luke was a character for kids to look up to, while Han is the character adults loved.
That never happened. Nanci stayed firmly on “Team Luke” despite all arguments to the contrary. (His relationship with Mara Jade helped solidify her lifelong devotion.)
But even so, things started going sour.
The Expanded Universe lost its luster. Luke stopped being the character Nanci believed him to be. Even amazing one-offs, like Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, weren’t enough to make Nanci happy.
She still loved Luke, even if he’d lost his way in the Expanded Universe.
Then the reboot happened.
(Spoilers for the book and some rumors about TFA under the cut.)
Review: Aftermath
It’s our first new taste of post-Return of the Jedi galaxy. Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig hit bookshelves and eagerly awaiting hands at midnight. No fear though: this review will be spoiler free.
It’s been several months since the Battle of Endor and now the Rebel Alliance is attempting to establish itself as the New Republic. Wedge Antilles goes on what should be a simple scouting mission but soon finds himself captured by the forces of Admiral Rae Sloane as he stumbles into the location of a high-level Imperial summit. The only person to hear his distress call is Norra Wexley who just wants to be reunited with her son but she can’t abandon one of her fellow Rebellion pilots no matter how dangerous this new rescue mission might be.
Go/No-Go: Under the Empyrean Sky
I was super excited earlier this month to learn Chuck Wendig would be writing the entire Aftermath trilogy, and I hadn’t even read any of this books yet. Chuck is a delight on Twitter, and his blog is super informative for writers and always full of interesting stories and commentary on current events. I grew even more excited after reading the Aftermath excerpt. His prose seemed tight and catchy, and the present tense singled it out from all the other Expanded Universe books.
I wanted to check out some of Chuck’s fiction, to get a better sense of what he’d be bringing to the Star Wars Universe. The first two books of his young adult series were recently on sale, in anticipation of the release of Book Three. And since Chuck himself has suggested that series for people wanting to see how he’d handle Star Wars, that series became the logical choice.
Brian and I both finished the first book and are onto the second. What did we think? Our opinions after the break!
Chuck Wendig to write Aftermath Trilogy
Entertainment Weekly has confirmed our suspicions: Chuck Wendig is writing the entire Aftermath Trilogy. No word yet on the other book titles or when they’ll be out, but it’s very nice to see a single author handling a series in the post-RotJ timeline again.
Also revealed earlier today is the Chewbacca comics miniseries, written by Gerry Duggan with art by the awesome Phil Noto.
Aftermath is released on September 4.
Aftermath gets a Synopsis, YA Novels get Covers
The Official Site dropped more information on Journey to the Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The big bombshell? We’ve finally got a synopsis for Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath:
As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance — now a fledgling New Republic — presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but is taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.
Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former Rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world — war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.
Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit — to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on the Norra and her newfound allies — her technical genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate.
Wedge is the damsel in distress saved by a new female protagonist? Well this sounds incredible! Just when I thought I couldn’t get more excited about this book.
Additionally, covers for the three new YA novels were shown off. We also learned that Jason Fry co-wrote the Leia novel in addition to the Luke book. Check out the link above for more information and to see those fantastic covers.
Review: Dark Disciple
The enemy of my enemy is my assassination BFF …or at least that’s the logic of the Jedi Council when it comes to teaming Master Quinlan Vos with Asajj Ventress to try and take the nefarious Count Dooku out of the picture and hopefully end the war. (No one ever said the Jedi Council was brilliant, okay?) What could possibly go wrong with this plan? And it’ll worth it if it brings the Clone Wars to an end, right? Out today, Dark Disciple by Christie Golden asks these questions as an unlikely partnership forms to take on an impossible task.
While there were things I did and did not like about the book, it was an overall enjoyable reading experience. While readers go in knowing the outcome (the mission fails, it has to fail,) Golden does a good job of building up anticipation and making you think that just maybe Vos and Ventress will succeed and Dooku will die. This is a book that’s more about the journey than the actual end result. The story is based upon unproduced episodes of The Clone Wars but Golden takes the basis of the arc and really makes it her own so well that it’s impossible to tell what was originally in those eight scripts and what wasn’t. (Dark Disciple may, however, may not be the most accessible book those who didn’t watch the show.)
Go/No-Go: Dark Disciple
Welcome back to Go/No-Go, Tosche Station’s regular feature where we offer our spoiler-free opinion as to whether or not you should spend your hard-earned money on a book, film, or other entertainment. Today on the launch pad: Star Wars: Dark Disciple. It’s our first book outside of the Episode III-V timeframe in the new canon and uses unproduced episodes from The Clone Wars show. It’s Ventress and Vos versus Dooku. But is the book worth your hard earned money? To mission control for the verdict!