COPYRIGHT: 2013
SERIES: Empire and Rebellion
TIMEFRAME: Rebellion -- about 2 years after the Battle of Yavin
I read this book months ago, and I don't remember it very well. But that's part of the problem with it. It's passable, but not particularly memorable.
The story concerns Leia and Han doing a supply run for the new Hoth base. They are intercepted by pirates -- woman pirates! And to top it all off, these woman pirates just happen to be refugees from Leia's home planet of Alderaan. Now, that's a great premise to start with. But the book doesn't really follow through on that idea. Leia gets herself taken aboard as a hostage to try and talk some sense into them, and they agree if she's really who she says she is. Right away we have a curious power dynamic, as Leia is a Princess of their world and a Senator (well, former Senator I guess since there is no more Senate). It's also interesting to think about some people taking the opposite route from Leia, doing naughty things in order to survive.
But the potential of those ideas don't really go anywhere. They start to build for the first few chapters, but then most of that tension is resolved or put on hold and the story shifts focus to the real enemy: the pirates that have been exploiting these Alderaanians who they were stupid enough to trust. There's a subplot involving slave-running, with Han and Leia freeing the slaves. But none of it quite pays off the promise of the first chapter.
The writing of the book is passable, but there are times it feels a bit too much like Star Wars fan fiction. The opening sentence is Leia saying, "I have a bad feeling about this." This is the most cliché way possible to open a Star Wars novel. It doesn't feel natural, it feels like right away Martha Wells is saying, "See, this is Star Wars!" The way she writes Han Solo was weird to me, as there were times he said things I didn't think Han would say. Or it was the way he said it. I don't have the book in front of me, or I'd cite specific examples. But there were moments he sounded too much like just some 21st Century twentysomething instead of Han Solo.
I give Ms. Wells credit for a Leia-centric, and really female-centric, story concept. I just wish the ultimate execution of that idea had been more engaging. So much of it kept feeling like the first act and it never went beyond that. I mean, I don't always want some crazy Timothy Zahn plot where a bunch of different threads overlap and intersect and explode at the end. But I would like to be a little more engaged after the initial premise. For a first book in this new Empire and Rebellion series, I wasn't grabbed by it. It's maybe worth a read if you're a big fan of Leia, but beyond that there just wasn't enough there for me. Too simple, like the sort of thing that could be resolved in a 40-minute television episode. Indeed, it felt very Star Trek: Voyager to me. Oh well.
GRADE: C
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