Star Wars: Aftermath

[Selena Halcyon]

Alright so this book dropped last friday and is the FIRST book to take place after Return of the Jedi in the current canon. It follows a ragtag group of individuals with varied backgrounds and histories who get caught up trying to disrupt an Imperial Summit.

So the book is a little weird to read. Honestly, it is a little awkward. Very short sentences and all in the present tense. I have not read a book like this one in terms of style in a long time. However, if one can get over that the story is fun. For what it is worth, I have heard that as an audio book the style actually shines really brightly.

One of the more interesting tidbits, to me at least, were at various points in the book the author wrote these interludes that took place in different parts of the galaxy. I am not 100% sure what some of them have to do with anything aside from add perspective concerning the change in times though some certainly have interesting ramifications. For instance, one of the interludes directly ties into the upcoming mobile game Star Wars: Uprising. There is another fantastic one that hints at a story about Han Solo that absolutely must get told at some point.

The ending offers so many questions though. It is obvious that those with probably the most power in the Empire intend to pull back and relinquish the galaxy over to the newly reformed Republic. However, who knows! The picture is still hazy. The mystery in the epilogue is soooo good. I think I need to read the young adult book that also came out which evidently features the battle over Jakku as I believe it will provide even further insight into what is to come.

 

[Connor Harrison]

I will be sure to read this before 'TFA' drops. Thanks for the interesting view on it. That writing style certainly sounds...different.

 

[Selena Halcyon]

If anything it deserves the moniker of "Journey to the Force Awakens" because it is clearly trying to set things up. I do dislike how to some degree they are skirting around the issue and not revealing anything at all. Little frustrating to say the least. Especially the epilogue...

 

[Nyxie]

It sounds like they BioWare'd it. It also does sound like the sort of thing that would make a perfect audio book.

 

[Rusty]

Honestly, I didn't like it. Wendig is an amazing author, but the chains of Disney proved to be too much. If you've read any Star Wars books at all, you'll know exactly where the plot is going within fifty pages. The characters might be mostly new, but you've seen them all before, just with a different coat of paint. It was all so boring and predictable that whatever sparks of Wendig's usual maniacal charm that might have shone through were smothered under a wet blanket.

 

[Selena Halcyon]

Wendig seems like a terrible author stylistically through and through. I do not know if his other books tend to have other things going for them that carry them but in terms of style he is just dreadful.

The story is fine. People need to stop talking about Disney like they are the ones controlling these things. It is the LucasFilms Story Group which was not chosen by Disney but by the heads in LucasFilm that existed there before Disney. The only theoretical "chains" are the ones that exist because the book is trying to set things up without revealing much.

 

[Rusty]

Okay, let's put it like this.

Turning Chuck Wendig loose with Star Wars should have been a lot like turning Quentin Tarantino loose as the director of Toy Story 4.

Yes, he has his quirks, but his books are usually insanely dark and violent and gut bustingly hilarious. The man is an artist with creative profanity, and even as jaded as we all are today, can still make violence shocking without resorting to low blows.

The chains I referred to turned that into something that could have been picked up off a bad fanfic site.

 

[Selena Halcyon]

Ah, seems like an odd author to grab for a Star Wars story. However, I think those "chains" are entirely just the constraints of writing a star wars story, which is not a violent or profane universe.

 

[Rusty]

The Jedi have laser swords that can chop a man in half. They're the good guys.

Nope, not violent at all.

As for the profanity, there's always been lots of it. They just made up most of it as they went along, so as not to offend delicate sensibilities.

 

[Malia Afredane]

Basically Chuck tweeted some time last year that he wanted to write a Star Wars book. Since his Miriam Black books were putting him on the radar of urban fantasy, Lucasfilms/Whoevertheheckisincharge got in touch and bam, Aftermath.

 

[Grima Volitu]

Does anyone know when Dark Disciple is suppose to be released?

 

[Selena Halcyon]

Dark Disciple has been out for a few months now.

The Jedi have laser swords that can chop a man in half. They're the good guys. Nope, not violent at all. As for the profanity, there's always been lots of it. They just made up most of it as they went along, so as not to offend delicate sensibilities.

Completely different degree of violence and profane than Tarentino which you likened Chuck to. Be serious.

 

[Rusty]

I'm dead serious. Read the New Jedi Order. Or any of the Republic Commando books. Or the Fate of the Jedi books.

 

[Selena Halcyon]

Once again whole different level of violence and profaneness.

 

[Grima Volitu]

I must have missed that then. Thankies.

 

[Rusty]

Yeah, not so much. Mandalorians swear like actual people who kill for a living. A really large portion of what we know of their language is swearing, when it comes down to it, and the Republic Commando books are chock full of people getting all kinds of muderized.

The finale for Fate of the Jedi puts Inglorious Basterds to shame.

The enemy in the New Jedi Order can't sit in a chair without it quite literally biting them in the backside. Characters are graphically killed in all manner of unpleasant ways. They're tortured, again, in graphic detail.

Sorry, what were you saying?

 

[Selena Halcyon]

Read all of NJO and violence was never overly portrayed in the series. Yes, it did have a torture fetish at time, but all around not a gorefest. Fate of the Jedi had such a worthless plotline riddled with stupidity that I could not even stomach the idea of actually reading more than the first book and just catching summaries which made me thankful for not reading it. Republic Commando was a warzone but once again NOTHING near a gorefest. You confuse people dying with a gorefest, and I think that speaks more to your imagination than the actual style of the book.

In the end, all of these are still HUGE outliers in terms of story and content when compared to anything else SW.

 

[Rusty]

NJO was very graphic. I'm not sure which version you read.

And it's hard to claim they're outliers, what with all the other stuff out there that's just as violent. I used a few easy examples, without ever breaching the subject of Death Troopers, or Darth Bane, or Shatterpoint, or Red Harvest, or anything ever written with the words Star Wars on the cover.

 

[Selena Halcyon]

Death Troopers and Red Harvest should be declared massive outliers as they are freakin' zombie novels.

But once more the existence of violence, death, combat, navel combat does not make something Tarentino levels of gorefest. You get that right? Like you understand the large difference there? Cause I do not think that you do.

 

[Rusty]

https://youtu.be/Izxjiipkof0

Nope, no violence here.