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| 0451486277
| 9780451486271
| 0451486277
| 3.81
| 13,505
| Feb 21, 2017
| Feb 21, 2017
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really liked it
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Well, I finally got passed another round of busy adulting to review another Star Wars Canon novel that I actually finished over a week before this. My
Well, I finally got passed another round of busy adulting to review another Star Wars Canon novel that I actually finished over a week before this. My apologies, but lets get right into the grand finale of the Aftermath Trilogy, Empires End! Chuck Wendig's Aftermath books were set up as pivotal to the lore of the new canon since the first novel was announced in 2014 leading up to the release of The Force Awakens. And booooooooy was it a controversial novel. Having been one of the earliest book releases of the rebooted canon outside of the Star Wars movies, the decision on the part of Lucasfilm to render the original Star Wars Expanded Universe non-canon (and now called "Legends") resulted in a TON of pre-release backlash towards the opening installment of this trilogy. It was billed as a vital component to understanding the state of the galaxy following Episode 6 and leading into Episode 7 even though it was actually the first book in a planned trilogy. A mixed to negative reception from readers after the book was finally released only served to greatly pronounce the already noticeable backlash that had been build up before. I myself thought the negativity toward the first Aftermath might have been overblown, but I don't think it was unwarranted (and I personally think the misleading advertising oversold this book and deserves a good portion of the blame). Overall, while the first Aftermath Book did a solid job setting up a foundation for a story and introduced a promising cast of characters, the criticisms toward Chuck Wendig's writing style was well deserved and I was really not a fan of the interludes. Then the second book in the trilogy Life Debt, came out, and things all of a sudden began to look up for this trilogy. It received a much more favorable response from fans (at least, those who either liked book 1 or were willing to give this trilogy another chance). While I agree with the general consensus that this book was a noticeable improvement from book 1, I wasn't fully won over. Wendig seemed to take many of the harsh criticisms thrown on Book 1 in stride and made a genuine effort to fix them- his writing was much better and he made great strides in developing the characters. Unfortunately, I still couldn't stand the interludes, and the story seemed to suffer from middle-chapter-limbo. So while I found the first book to be a bit underrated, I found the second book to be a bit overrated. This brings me to Book 3 of the Aftermath Trilogy, "Empire's End". Even though Life Debt wasn't the transformative novel that solved every problem these books had, it left things off on a number of intriguing cliff-hangers that left me quite excited to see how it all paid off. And while this is certainly the best book in the Aftermath Trilogy... I was still a bit disappointed. THE STORY: The continuation of the Galactic Civil War heats up as both the New Republic and our core heroes (as well as our main villain, actually) are reeling from a devastating attack on Chandrila by what remains of the dwindling Galactic Empire. The rescue of Brenton Wexley, what was seen before as a victory to his wife Nora and son Temmin respectively, now appears to have been a trick and his loyalties are now questioned- both by the New Republic and his own family. Gallius Rax, the de-facto leader of the Empire, is gathering what remains of the Imperial military on and above the remote planet of Jakku. Rae Sloane goes to Jakku herself to go after Rax and get her revenge for usurping her. Brenton stows aboard on her vessel to help her, seeking revenge of his own- and a solution to reverse what Rax had done to him. Meanwhile, Mon Mothma struggles to rally the newly reformed galactic senate to approve an attack on Jakku and stop the Empire before they can regroup and threaten the New Republic in its infancy. Nora, Temmin, Mr. Bones, Sinjir Rath Velus, and Jas Emari team up for one last mission to head to Jakku and capture Rae Sloane, who they still believe is the leader of the Empire and the architect of the Chandrila attack. But when something goes wrong, Nora, Jas, and Mr. Bones are left on the surface of Jakku while Temmin and Sinjir are forced to retreat back to New Republic territory. It's a race against time before Gallius Rax can execute his master plans, but of course it still needs to be unnaturally cut up by those interludes (even if they aren't as annoying as they were in the first two books). THE BAD: So while I did say that "Empire's End" is the best book in the trilogy and therefore does end this trilogy on a somewhat positive note, this book was far from perfect. The main problem I have with this book was how Wendig decided to split up the core cast for most of the story. At first, I was fully on board- I LOVED the pairings he created. The character dynamics in the first two books leaned mostly on the family drama between Temmin/Nora and the close friendship between Sinjir/Jas. This book promised to switch the pairings around and I was so excited to see Wendig change it up. Unfortunately, he pretty quickly squanders the potential with subsequent story decisions (view spoiler)[ he decides to quickly split up BOTH Nora/Jas and Temmin/Sinjir. Not only did Wendig leave me with the most intense feeling of cheated I've had in a while with a Star Wars novel, he also failed to give his core characters anyone to consistently bounce off of, except maybe Sinjir and Condor. (hide spoiler)]. This resulted in the storylines with our core heroes to be much more of a slog than I was expecting throughout much of the book's middle- and the interludes only exacerbated the effect by messing with the pacing as badly as they've been doing throughout this trilogy. Another disappointment I had was with Rax. I read complaints that he was too much like Grand Admiral Thrawn in the Original Legends Thrawn Trilogy (which Aftermath was often compared too due to it's positioning in the lore), but I actually thought there was enough different about Gallius Rax in "Life Debt" that he felt like his own character. Unfortunately in "Empires End", he comes off a lot more as a generic big bad and any defenses I had about him being his own character separate from Thrawn... yeah, they're gone now. While there is an interlude about him exploring his past, it's not enough to fix the otherwise lack of characterization he had in this book. Speaking of the interludes... yeah I still don't care for them. To be completely fair, I meant what I said earlier in that they aren't as annoying as they were in books 1 and 2. But I still can't say the improvements made were significant enough for me to forgive their inclusion throughout these three novels. They still messed with the pacing badly enough and stole enough attention from our core story and characters that I ended this book with the same feelings about them as I did the other two books- get rid of them, or collect them in a separate, supplementary collection of shorts. They don't belong in these books. I've gotten responses from others who really liked the interludes (some even called them the best parts of these books) because they offered a chance to check on familiar characters or they added to the lore and worldbuilding of the wider Star Wars Universe. While those points are valid, the interludes DO achieve those purposes, I still don't care. In the context of the core story about Nora/Temmin/Bones/Jas/Sinjir/Rae Sloane etc., the vast majority of the interludes don't serve a purpose. AT ALL. Enough context on the state of the galaxy is offered throughout the trilogy when the POV cuts to characters like Leia, Mon Mothma, and other imperial characters like Rax and Brendol Hux. So if you like the interludes, I don't get it, but more power to you. I personally prefer when Star Wars media focuses on a cohesive story and characters first rather than just shoehorn in out of place subplots or characters simply for the sake of fanservice and/or just to make lore nuts perk up (even though I AM INDEED one of those lore nuts). Ok, rant over. Let's talk about the good stuff now. THE GOOD: Like I said, this is the best book in the trilogy. It does smooth out almost all of the problems from the first two books and ended the trilogy on a satisfying note. While the middle was disappointing, the first 25% and the last 20% of the book were actually pretty strong. Wendig does a solid job tying together books 1 and 2 in a way that nicely sets up book 3 at the start, and again that moment when the party is split I was very excited. And eventually, everything does come together pretty well when we get to the Battle of Jakku, which up until this point was hyped by the Lucasfilm Story Group as the epic, momentous event that ended the Galactic Civil War on an explosive note and set the stage for the 30 years of peace and complacency that ultimately lead to the rise of the First Order in the Sequel Trilogy. While the first canonical look at the Battle of Jakku was actually in Lost Stars, that was only a glimpse- Empire's End depicts a much larger scale, more comprehensive look at the events of that fateful day in Star Wars history, and for the most part it is pretty darn epic. The action is pretty solid and it leaves room for every core character of this three-book story to fulfill their character arcs. Which brings me to my next positive point, the characters. Yes it was a slog to get there, but the book ultimately sticks the landing for everyone in our core cast both in terms of our heroes and our main villain. Everyone got a satisfying conclusion to their character arcs that was tied quite nicely both into the plot and the worldbuilding that this book introduces and teases. While I wish the buildup in the middle of the novel was stronger, I loved the ending scene with our heroes and it shows how close they have become as a surrogate family- right on brand with one of Star Wars' core themes about found family. However, Rae Sloane was probably the best character overall- while the story with the heroes was underwhelming for significant stretches of the book, the story with her and Brenton (who got quite a memorable story arc himself) was consistently strong throughout the entire novel and the payoffs in the climax and end for her were fantastic. While the criminally underrated A New Dawn doesn't get enough credit for introducing Rae Sloane into canon, the Aftermath Trilogy does a great job taking that foundation and doing some really great character work with her- I can absolutely see why these books took her from a more-complex-than-usual-imperial-officer to one of most popular characters in the new expanded canon. I also liked what was done with familiar faces too. Wendig does a good job doing some new and interesting stuff with Wedge Antilles that is consistent with the movies but while EU purists will still probably consider it to be a downgrade from the old EU, I'm glad that Wendig didn't try to one-up it and instead took a new approach that connects with his core cast of new heroes in interesting ways. There's a scene at the end with Han and Leia that's just wonderful. Finally, there's Mon Mothma. I usually see her portrayed as this perfect, idealistic leader, but it's nice to see some new and different angles to her. She still has the good of the galaxy in mind, but I liked Wendig's slightly more complex take on her in this trilogy overall, but particularly in Empire's End.\ Lastly, let's go back to those interludes, because to this book's credit, they are better than before. While there's still a good number of them that were pointless (at this point, I'm totally fine with The Mandalorian changing Cob Vanth's/Mos Pelgo's story from these books), and I still insist that they could have worked just as well if not better in another book/collection that supplemented the Aftermath Trilogy, about half of these interludes (well, just under half, really) worked better for me this time around. They focused on some more minor characters like Rax and Chewbacca that popped in and out of the main story, and they offered either some good character development or subplot closure that probably would have felt like filler in the main story anyway. And... GODDAMMIT, that Jar Jar Binks interlude was just SO KRIFFING SWEET AND POIGNANT, I JUST CAN'T GET MAD AT IT! It was so cute and satisfying and charming and... ok, yes, it still doesn't contribute to the main story, but FINE. YOU WIN THIS TIME INTERLUDES! That one was just. SO. GOOD. The worldbuilding also works pretty well, for the most part. While admittedly this trilogy seems to be "fastracking" the more "standard" developments already covered in legends like the Imperial Remnant, Han and Leia's Marriage/childbirth(s) and the early New Republic (in that those seem to be happening on a much more abrupt and faster pace in-universe with Canon, while Legends let those developments draw themselves out over a longer time frame), it's made up for by how things are set up with the Empire at the end. Even if the intention was to set the stage for Snoke and the Sequels went in a different direction by the end, the vagueness of these books left enough open that it still works (and there's actually an exchange/line of exposition that is much more prophetic in hindsight than probably intended). And in the end, I actually like that the new canon is letting the wider galaxy actually have an extended period of peace rather than just one war after another (In the post return of the Jedi EU the galaxy didn't seem to avoid a galactic war for more than 5-10 years). Lastly, the writing. All of the improvements that Wendig has made from Book 1 to Book 2 still carry over here. There's still quite a bit of entertaining dialogue, the action scenes are exciting, and at this point the formerly jarring present-tense is barely noticeable anymore. THE AUDIO: Marc Thompson narrates this book, just like he did with "Aftermath" and "Life Debt". No surprise, another good performance as a narrator here. Same with the production values. If you looked at my reviews for the first two Aftermath books, pretty much everything I had to say about the audiobook productions in those reviews applies here. Nothing new to say with "Empire's End". THE CONCLUSION: Final rating is 3.5 stars, rounded up. While this book could have been better, I still found enough good-to-great aspects in the right places for me to consider it a satisfying culmination to the trilogy- both in-story as the plot and characters built up to the grand finale in the final 25% of Empire's End, and out-of-story as Chuck Wendig steadily smoothed out the clumsiness of book 1 throughout the course of books 2 and 3. As a whole, I thought the Aftermath Trilogy was... fine. I might be in a minority in that I have pretty much the same opinion on all three novels, and that all of them are just okay. Not bad, not great, just ok. Aftermath was nowhere near as bad as the backlash before and after the release suggested it to be, while neither Life Debt or "Empire's End" succeeded in transforming this trilogy into something really amazing. I really liked the classic adventure feel of the story that was told and I formed strong connections to the core characters, but I feel like this story would have benefitted greatly had lucasfilm picked a different writer. I'm not saying that an established, fan-favorite author like Timothy Zahn or James Luceno was required (Lost Stars came out on the same day as the first Aftermath Book, so Claudia Gray hadn't cemented her name in the fanbase yet); I'm perfectly fine with giving opportunities for new creatives to put their stamp on Star Wars (in fact, I ENCOURAGE it). However, I don't think Chuck Wendig was right for the job on this one, especially for a story that was set up to be so important to the wider lore that the New Canon has been working to build up (especially between 2015-2017 when so little was firmly established and this trilogy was being written). I can forgive the awkward prose because it was quickly smoothed out after book 1, but the interludes bothered me throughout the trilogy. The editors at Del Rey should have just had Wendig cut them out so he could give more development to the characters of the actual story (and if Wendig was asked by Lucasfilm/Del Rey/etc. to put the interludes in the books, they made an ENORMOUS miscalculation). If Chuck Wendig and/or Del Rey really wanted these interludes, he should have just written a short story collection. Either that, or just let Wendig write both the main book trilogy and said short story collection. Some readers already compared them unfavorably to The Thrawn Trilogy of Legends, but honestly, it's not really fair. The Thrawn Trilogy is a direct sequel to the original film trilogy with all of the main characters coming back in starring roles, and it came out at a time when it was assumed that there would be no more Star Wars movies taking place after Return of the Jedi. Aftermath focuses on brand new characters (aside from non-movie character Rae Sloane) with the familiar faces from the movies appearing in side roles- and Wendig couldn't do much with the film characters because those were going to be saved for the Sequel Trilogy. So while yes, the Thrawn Trilogy is certainly better, directly comparing Aftermath is erroneous in my eyes. So what would my recommendation be? I may have finished the series feeling consistently ambivalent, but if you are interested in the new Canon but don't want to just get spoiled by reading wookieepedia summaries, try these books out. They're rather divisive, so my best suggestion is to give them a shot and form your own opinion. I would strongly suggest going with the audiobooks instead of the print versions, but that's my only concrete advice here. Otherwise, take it for what it is. I personally think these books should have been better than they are due to their pivotal place in the Canon, but I didn't outright dislike them either. I don't think I will read or listen to the Aftermath Trilogy again, but I'm very happy that I checked them out. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 09, 2021
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Jun 15, 2021
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Oct 05, 2017
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| 0451486161
| 9780451486165
| unknown
| 3.73
| 15,867
| Jul 12, 2016
| May 31, 2016
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really liked it
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As I alternate between Timothy Zahn's first 3 canon Thrawn novels and Chuck Wendig's Aftermath Trilogy, here we go with the second installment of the
As I alternate between Timothy Zahn's first 3 canon Thrawn novels and Chuck Wendig's Aftermath Trilogy, here we go with the second installment of the latter! I will be reviewing another entry from the former in the coming days! The Aftermath Trilogy had a... turbulent release, to put it lightly. The first Aftermath faced a severe prerelease backlash from the Star Wars fandom, particularly from disgruntled EU/Legends purists (including an avalanche of 1-star reviews on Amazon). Things weren't much better when the book actually came out, when the book received a mixed to negative response from readers, including those who were actually on board with the canon reset. Then Aftermath: Life Debt came out, and got a much more favorable reception, as well as its followup, Empire's End. Empire's End will be for another time, but for now, what do I think of the series so far? I didn't think the first Aftermath book was all that great, but it definitely wasn't the total disaster the backlash at the time suggested. There was a decent story and character foundation somewhere in there, but the book also suffered from Wendig's awkward prose and the misguided use of interludes. Needless to say, it was still a rocky start to the trilogy. Life Debt is definitely an improvement, as the general reception to this novel suggests- but I'm not sure if I agree with other readers on the extent of that improvement. THE STORY: Following their success on Akiva, Norra Wexley's team of mercenaries have stayed together to hunt down other renegade imperial officials for the fledgling New Republic. Han Solo has traveled to Kashyyk to help Chewbacca liberate the Wookiees from the Empire, but he has fallen out of contact. Leia hires Norra and her team to find Han Solo. Meanwhile, Admiral Rae Sloane reconvenes with the one man who is higher than her in the imperial heirarchy- Gallius Rax, a tactical genius planning an attack on Chandrila where the New Republic is currently headquartered. THE BAD: This book may be better than the first book, but it still has problems- whether they carried over from book 1 or they are new problems of their own. Starting with the problem that carried over, I still am not a fan of the interludes. Even if some of them are interesting on their own, they don't contribute to the main story and once again I wish they were just released in a supplementary short story/novella compilation instead of shoehorned into this book. Because just like before, the interludes ground the pacing to a halt, and often happened when a chapter with the heroes or villains ended on a fun, exciting cliffhanger. The other problem is the story, which suffers from that middle chapter slump that plagues many stories that utilize the trilogy format. Aftermath Life Debt doesn't have the benefit of introducing a bunch of new characters and elements, but it also doesn't lead to very many payoffs either. This is particularly noticeable with the subplot of Norra/Temmin/Bones/Sinjir/Jas going one way and the subplot with Rae Sloane/Rax going in a different one. Again, I fully understand that this is a trilogy and I expect all the payoff was being saved for Empire's End, but again, it resulted in Chuck Wendig falling in the familiar middle-chapter-limbo trap that not all trilogies can escape from. THE GOOD: Despite the problems, I did enjoy this book, and I am very excited to finish the trilogy next week. The first aspect I want to praise is Chuck Wendig's writing- something I was very critical of in the first book, but is vastly improved here. While the present tense is still a bit strange, the rest feels pretty natural. One of my friends on this site, Mogsy, pointed out in her review that the first book felt like Chuck Wendig was trying to warp Star Wars to fit his writing style, while Aftermath Life Debt was Wendig adapting his style to fit Star Wars- and I can fully agree with that. Life Debt flows much more smoothly as a Star Wars novel than the first Aftermath did, making the segments both with the heroes and with the villains more enjoyable to read/listen too. The other high point with Life Debt is the character development. Rae Sloane was cool to see as a prominent villain in the first book after her debut in A New Dawn, but now Chuck Wendig has developed her to the point she can carry the villains' side of the story completely on her own. I was surprised at how much Wendig was able to get out of the familial dynamic between Norra and Temmin Wexley (with Wedge adding another interesting curveball to all of it, along with (view spoiler)[ the return of Temmin's father (hide spoiler)]). Of course, Mr. Bones remains a delight, even if most of that comes from Marc Thompson's narration and the layering of dialogue/sound effects (more on that later). The characters that took the biggest step forward from the first book were Jas Emari and Sinjir Rath Velus. I didn't hate these two in the first book, but they felt a bit tacked on in Aftermath 1, as a way to add 2 more quirky personalities to our core team. Now, however, they are much more realized. I found Jas's plight with her debts much easier to sympathize with here, and Sinjir was just entertaining as hell with all the funny dialogue he got. I look forward to see where his character arc goes in Empire's End, as well as Jas. I was pretty happy with how the familiar characters were handled too. I liked what Wendig did with Han and Leia, willing to show them as flawed, imperfect human beings. They make mistakes but ultimately Wendig keeps their OT characterizations intact. (view spoiler)[ and the goodbye between Han and Chewie towards the end was also a poignant, but compelling surprise (hide spoiler)]. And I liked how Wedge was handled too, both with his relationship with Norra and the mentor role he plays to Temmin. Maybe it will still be a bit of something that fans of the X-Wing books may not be able to get used too, but hey, not everyone has read those (myself included), and he is still consistent with what little we see of Wedge in the original trilogy. And finally, lets touch on Gallius Rax. I liked him more than I thought I would. He was cool. I can see the comparisons people made to Thrawn due to his high intelligence and ability to predict every move his enemies make, but there was enough of a difference in that the connection with Opera... it just seems like he likes opera. Thrawn studied art because that was how he learned about his enemies. Rax just watches opera because it's classy. Is he as good of a character as thrawn? not even close. Is is role in the story fairly reminiscent of Thrawn in the original Thrawn Trilogy? sure. but he was different enough from Thrawn and intimidating enough in this story for me to give it a pass. THE AUDIO: Marc Thompson does it again- another solid audiobook performance with Aftermath Life Debt. I praised him and the audiobook production team for salvaging something decent from the awkward prose that was Wendig's writing in the first Aftermath; but now that Wendig has improved his writing with Life Debt, it's easier on the audiobook team too. With Thompson's character voices, the sound effects, and the music (with Rax's opera scenes adding some fresh changes in that regard), this feels almost as immersive as other Star Wars audiobooks- even the present tense is really easy to get adjusted too here. THE CONCLUSION: Final rating is 3.5 Stars, rounded up because of how excited it got me for Empire's End. If I thought Aftermath 1 wasn't as bad as the backlash leading up to an after its release, I though Aftermath: Life Debt was a bit overhyped. While it's a definite improvement from the first book, it wasn't as big of an improvement as the hype lead me to think it would be. While again, this book does develop the characters and the writing is a lot better, there's still problems. I can see why readers were inclined to give more praise to this book due to the improvements and the much more accurate marketing (Life Debt was was exactly as advertised at the time- a sequel to the first Aftermath book), but for me I thought this novel was good but not great. I need to finish the trilogy before I can make a final judgement on whether or not it will all be worth it- because I'm not sure this book makes enough of an improvement to forgive the choppiness of the first novel. I'm definitely invested in this story, and I'm sure people that liked the first one will like this one too. And while I know some readers who didn't like the first one seemed to enjoy Life Debt, I understand the hesitation. Once again, it will take me until I finish Empire's End to make a final verdict on my recommendation- because I need to see where everything ultimately goes and how effective the payoff will be. ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 25, 2021
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May 27, 2021
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Oct 05, 2017
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| B011PVTT1S
| 3.30
| 33,160
| Sep 04, 2015
| Sep 04, 2015
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liked it
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While my original plan was to read Timothy Zahn's first three canon thrawn books before moving on to Aftermath, I had to put Thrawn: Alliances on hold
While my original plan was to read Timothy Zahn's first three canon thrawn books before moving on to Aftermath, I had to put Thrawn: Alliances on hold- until I was conveniently able to secure a copy on the Libby App after finishing this book. Either way, I checked out the first novel in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy after finishing Thrawn- so lets get right into it! This book was released in 2015, leading up to The Force Awakens- and one of the earlier novels to come out when Lucasfilm relaunched the continuity outside of Episodes 1-6 and The Clone Wars animated series. Whether you want to put it on Disney, Lucasfilm, or Del Rey, one thing is for certain- this book got a heavy marketing push, advertised as THE quintessential novel in the Canon that would prepare fans for the pending release of The Force Awakens. Consequently, at the time the controversial relaunch of the Expanded Universe was still fresh in the collective minds of the fanbase- and this book got a ton of prelease backlash from EU purists still upset over the discontinuation of the continuity they followed for decades. To make matters worse, the first Aftermath book ended up getting mixed to negative reviews once it finally hit bookstores on September 4th, 2015. So this brings me to my background going into "Aftermath 1"- while I vividly remember the negativity in the fandom surrounding this book before and when it was released, I didn't get around to actually reading it until the initial hype (and/or anti-hype) died down years later. And I think this turned out to be beneficial for me- while I ultimately consider the initial backlash to Aftermath to have been overblown in retrospect, this book is very flawed and I can see why it received a lukewarm response at best. THE STORY: Just as advertised, the first Aftermath book takes place shortly after the events of Return of the Jedi- but this is where the similarities to what was advertised end (more on that later) The main story that we actually get opens as a group of high-ranking imperial officials who are still alive and at large, lead by Admiral Rae Sloane, get together on the jungle world of Akiva to figure out how to carry forward now that both Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader are gone (insert HAHA JUST KIDDING palpatine jokes here). Meanwhile, they capture Wedge Antilles, who was scouting in the area for remnant imperial activity. Temmin Wexley (who would grow up to be Snap Wexley, the pilot in The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker played by Greg Grunberg) is living as a mechanic's shop owner on Akiva while this is happening. His mother Norra, a Rebel Alliance fighter, arrives on Akiva to respond to a distress call sent out by Wedge, but she also works to get her son offworld before the Emprie cracks down. Through a string of events, Norra and Temmin are joined by Jas Emari (a bounty hunter going after one of the officials attending the imperial conference) and Sinjir Rath Velus (a former imperial loyalty officer who deserted after the Battle of Endor), along with Temmin's droid companion "Mr. Bones". They work together to rescue Wedge, aid the locals in their newly initiated uprising against the imperial occupation, and to try and take down the officials partaking in the conference. THE BAD: I can definitely understand how the highly misleading advertising contributed to the backlash that this book got upon release- marketed as *the* bridge between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, people probably expected to see the story focus on the continuing adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2/C-3PO, and all of the other classic characters from the Original Trilogy- so I wouldn't be surprised if some readers disliked this book simply because that's not what this book is. There were also plenty of not-unwaranted comparisons to Timothy Zahn's classic Thrawn Trilogy- and when you're being pitted against one of the most beloved Star Wars authors and some of the most popular Star Wars novels of all time, you're going to suffer unless you can match those books (and this book definitely does not). Finally, I wouldn't be surprised if some readers who love the X-Wing books (which also happen to be some of the most beloved SW books ever written) saw Aftermath's handling of Wedge Antilles as character assassination because of how he spends this entire story captured. So while some could argue that those old EU novels shouldn't matter here because this is a different timeline, you can't just not expect fans to compare this heavily marketed post RotJ novel to the novels from legends taking place in the same time frame (that again, are some of the most beloved novels in the old EU). In the end, I probably could have written off all of those fan expectations at the time if this book was actually great on its own- unfortunately, it is not. The first major problem is Chuck Wendig's writing style. I heard all of the complaints, and I REALLY WANTED to have an open mind with the use of present tense, but... it just doesn't feel right for Star Wars. Everything we see in the films, TV shows, books, comics, video games, and other material takes place A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY- this franchise tells its stories like they are myths and legends passed down through time- so the present tense just doesn't fit. The only time I saw it work well was in the new Thrawn books- and it was specifically used when describing Thrawn's thought process- it worked perfectly there because Thrawn is an alien with intelligence that far surpasses almost everyone. Present tense in Star Wars works when it is used to show Thrawn making deductions in "real-time" and its juxtaposed against the more standard past tense. But when the present tense is used to tell the entire story, it feels to jarring for me to ever get fully invested in what's going on. The other problem I had was the interludes. I understand what Chuck Wendig was trying to do here- the destruction of the second death star and the deaths of the Empire's most important figures is a monumental event in galactic history. It makes sense to show how people around the galaxy from the common citizen to the characters we know the most closely reacted to and dealt with these events. Thematically, it fits-and some of the stories occuring in these interludes are interesting on their own (including some portrayals of familiar characters that were done quite well). Unfortunately, it doesn't fit with the rest of the story being told, which is smaller in scale and focuses on one core team of heroes and one core group of villains. While I probably would have loved these interludes as a collection of vignettes that I could have seen published as a supplement/companion to this novel unified by a similar thematic motif, as part of this novel they badly mess with the pacing and grind it to a halt. If Wendig's awkward prose wasn't enough, the interludes only serve further in taking me out of this story. THE GOOD: This book frustrated me because there's actually some really good stuff in here. The plot itself on paper is honestly great. While the book didn't actually give us what the marketing promised (much like Lords of the Sith, I like the adventure story that we ended up getting. Once I got used to Wendig's prose (to an extent), and when it wasn't cutting away to an interlude, this is as classic of a Star Wars adventure story as you can get- an eclectic group of heroes with differing motives and backgrounds coming together to achieve a common goal. And the sequence of events in the primary plot work pretty well- both on their own and as a setup for the following books in the trilogy. Not every character was well realized, but there were a few genuine standouts. Mr. Bones was a delight (although I'm sure Mark Thompson's voicework had alot to do with that- more on it later). And I also loved Rae Sloane- not only was it a treat to see her show up again in a more prominent role after her introduction of one of my favorite canon novels (John Jackson Miller's underrated A New Dawn), but Wendig does a really good job setting her up as an intimidating villain. Her characterization is also consistent with what it was in her prior appearances, making it quite rewarding to finally experience her again. However, my favorite characters in the book were Norra and Temmin Wexley. Both had multidimensional personalities and well defined motivations, and the mother-son relationship they have in this book was highly endearing. While neither Jas and Sinjir were all that fleshed out here, I'm interested to see where Wendig takes them as the trilogy progresses. Finally, there are prominent side appearances in the main story from Wedge Antilles and Admiral Ackbar. While I can understand if those who fell in love with Wedge through X-Wing are disappointed with his portrayal here, it is consistent with the little we saw of him in the original trilogy. Same goes for Ackbar. The worldbuilding is pretty much what you would expect, but it's compelling and works to set up the larger story that this trilogy is trying to tell. Nothing to write home about, but no complaints either. THE AUDIO: Just like many of the audiobooks produced for Star Wars books (especially the bigger releases), Marc Thompson was recruited to narrate this one. And even by Thompson standards, this is one of his better performances. While most of his character voices are just as good as you would expect, he did a particularly spectacular job bringing Mr. Bones to... optimal function? I don't know if "life" is the right term here ;) The voice he goes with is hilarious and kudos to the production team for layering recordings of Thompson singing/humming but the most important thing to mention is that he works wonders in making this text more palatable. Between Thompson's narration and the great-as-expected use of Star Wars sound effects and John Williams' themes, the audiobook production team deserves tons of praise for salvaging something fun and somewhat immersive from the otherwise non-immersive novel that they were given the task of producing. This is absolutely a novel that should be experienced as an audiobook as possible. THE CONCLUSION: Final rating is 3 stars. While I think the harsh backlash this book received when it first came out was overblown in retrospect, I can understand why it got a mixed to negative reception from fans even despite not having read it until over 5 years later. In the end, I would definitely put most of the blame for said backlash on the advertising push from Disney/Lucasfilm/Del Rey- the marketing suggested a transformative bridge novel that would reveal all the important developments that would bridge the gap between RotJ and TFA. Chuck Wendig, on the other hand, was writing a more traditional adventure story (despite the non-traditional writing style) with a cast of characters who are by and large freshly introduced in this novel. Furthermore, while the marketing suggested that this would be a standalone, Wendig was writing it as the first in a trilogy from the start. And speaking of that trilogy, I'm ambivalent about the prospects for Life Debt and Empire's End. I plan on giving them a chance eventually, but I'm not all that excited to check them out. One the one hand, Wendig does lay a solid story/character foundation here and the following entries did get a much more positive reception from readers (even from many who disliked this one). On the other hand, Wendig's prose and those interludes severely hindered my enjoyment of this book- and from what I understand neither of the next two novels do away with those elements (not that I would expect such an overhaul). Overall, take this book for what it is (and definitely NOT what was promised by the advertising back in 2014-2015). While again, this book isn't all that bad, I couldn't find enough to defend that would leave me saying that you should ignore all that backlash. I can't definitively recommend it, but I don't want to go so far as to saying it should be skipped either. Maybe my opinion will change when I finish the rest of the trilogy, but for now my verdict is this: if you still haven't read Aftermath and decide to give it read, just make sure you don't go in with any expectations if possible-for good or bad (but seriously, please take the audiobook route). ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 17, 2021
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May 19, 2021
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Oct 11, 2015
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Audible Audio
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