Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron
by Alexander Freed (Century, 2019)
Inevitably fans will judge this against the Rogue Squadron books (now Star Wars Legends), and many will find it wanting. Rogue Squadron offered escapism, pure and simple. Alphabet Squadron is serious-minded and morose, and notably lacking in wisecracking adventure heroes. Both work.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
dir. J. J. Abrams (2019)
Star Wars was trailblazing in its use of special effects. Fittingly, this final instalment in the trilogy of trilogies sees a return to visual pioneering, its currency begetting not mindless action scenes but rather moody end-of-days backdrops and crackling, red-sulphurous Sith imagery.
Star Wars: Thrawn – Alliances
by Timothy Zahn (Century, 2018)
Zahn’s big picture storytelling doesn’t amount to much but Thrawn remains good value in the moment – a military virtuoso with Sherlockian powers of observation and deduction. Here the chronologically removed but intertwined narratives pair him with both Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader.
Star Wars: Last Shot
by Daniel José Older (Del Rey, 2018); audiobook read by Marc Thompson with Daniel José Older & January LaVoy (Random House, 2018)
The audiobook reading of Last Shot gives fervent and overly dramatic voice to everyday situations. This exposes not only the mundaneness of Older’s writing but also the more general propensity (Star Wars house style?) for self-indulgent character moments and laboriously scripted banter.
Star Wars: The New Rebellion
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Bantam, 1996)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch was one of few authors who managed to tell a proper Star Wars story without bemiring herself in the minutiae of that universe. Granted, the dénouement leaves something to be desired, but the preceding narrative is hard to fault.
Star Wars – Aftermath: Empire’s End
by Chuck Wendig (Century, 2017)
His penchant for the present tense notwithstanding, Wendig writes Star Wars much in the Legends (née Expanded Universe) vein of overblown military ops and political infighting. Ultimately, though, he does succeed in bridging some of the gap between Episodes VI and VII.
Star Wars: Aftermath
by Chuck Wendig (Century, 2015)
Wendig writes informally but in a manner somehow not out of keeping with the original Star Wars films. The story, though broken by a series of semi-relevant, mostly unrelated vignettes (‘interludes’), kicks along nicely. Bones, the deranged battle droid, is a highlight.
Solo: A Star Wars Story
dir. Ron Howard (2018)
Origin stories are inherently problematic. Star Wars fans already know how Han Solo turns out, while his younger self is unlikely to equal the original (in characterisation or portrayal). Nevertheless, Solo presents a coherent narrative and does about as well as possible.
Star Wars: Tarkin
by James Luceno (Del Rey, 2014)
A relatively slim Star Wars volume, sketching out Tarkin’s formative years in flashback while teaming him up with Vader for a runabout battle of wits against anti-Imperial dissidents. Luceno provides constructive character development for Tarkin, Vader and the Emperor pre Episode IV.
Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View
(Del Rey, 2017)
Star Wars fanatics may enjoy reconstructing A New Hope from this collection of short stories, each moving a peripheral character to centre stage. Mostly, though, background characters have been placed there for a reason. Some of these tales are truly, epically pointless.