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Review: Lost Stars Manga (Volume 1)

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You may recall the 2015 young adult Journey to the Force Awakens novel Lost Stars by Claudia Grey. You may recall Nanci recommending that you pick it up in her review of that novel. Well, guess what: it’s now a manga.

More specifically, it’s been adapted into a webcomic, published by LINE, by manga creator Yusaku Komiyama, and the world outside of Japan has finally gotten a taste of this adaptation in standard-manga-sized volume 1, published by Yen Press, and it’s…okay.

THE STORY

This is not a straight adaptation (for which I am very grateful. I strongly believe that material should be adjusted to fit the adaptation format. Would you like to see my hour-long powerpoint presentation on the Slayers NEXT anime versus the novels?). It does stick to the story but volume 1, at least, is presented as a framed story, with Thane recounting the past to his friend and snowspeeder gunner, Yendor (who I love in this). As such, it heavily focuses on Thane’s perspective of the story rather than splitting evenly between Thane and Ciena. You do occasionally get other points of view, but Thane’s thoughts are the only ones laid out explicitly on the page. Continue reading →

Review: Lost Stars by Claudia Gray

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lost starsLost Stars, the young adult entry in the Journey to the Force Awakens, reads like fanfic.

For many people, the phrases “young adult” and “fanfic” give Lost Stars two strikes before even turning to the first page. There’s a big stigma out there against YA fiction, because, and let’s not be blunt here, teenage girls read it. That’s not to say YA is all great — it can be melodramatic and poorly written — but the same is true of adult books, is it not?

Then there’s the fanfic comparison. Many people like to criticize Expanded Universe books they dislike by calling them “glorified fanfiction.” To me, though, fanfic is not an insult. Fanfic represents a land of opportunities in Star Wars literature. You can write about whoever you want, doing whatever you want, whenever you want. You can stick to canon or split into an alternate timeline. There are no rules. So you could, for example, create your own original characters and have them live through key events of the Galactic Civil War.

Lost Stars takes that common fanfic premise to the extreme, and that’s a good thing. Continue reading →