Huge improvement over "Aftermath", but not perfect

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

This book is an absolute recommendation to any Star Wars fan. The only problem is you'll probably have to read Aftermath first, and Chuck Wendig's writing style is difficult to get comfortable with. This book is a huge improvement over the last. It FEELS like a Star Wars book. It involves more recognizable characters. It still has "interludes", but they are better, and they are typically either germane to the principle story, or they are about something relevant that you care about.

What other book might you compare Star Wars: Life Debt - Aftermath, Book 2 to and why?

I would compare it to the Heir to the Empire series of books. It reminds of that sort of grand-scale story and feels like it may have borrowed some inspiration from those books.

Which scene was your favorite?

The events of "Liberation Day" are probably my favorite. It was very exciting, but I don't want to write too much about it else it might spoil part of the story for others.

Did Star Wars: Life Debt - Aftermath, Book 2 inspire you to do anything?

No.

Any additional comments?

Possible Spoilers::There is a problem I am beginning to see with all of these books, and this one opened my eyes to it. Many new book are coming out, in all different time periods. There is new canon being added every month or two, but there is a huge problem with consistency. Possible spoilers below: This book attempts to explain the beginnings or the First Order and the Resistance under General Leia, but that was already done in "Bloodline". It's like I am reading multiple authors all trying to explain the same thing with TOTALLY different stories. Yes they refer to Leia in this book as "General Leia", but she wasn't a General in Bloodline, which takes place 8 years later. It's like Leia forms the resistance in this book, then goes back to being a princess in time for Bloodline, then forms another resistance without any memory of what happened before? This book also talks about Leia being Pregnant - and she has visions of her son, and at another point she has visions of her having "children", as in multiple children. This was a huge problem for me, because in Bloodline she has very clearly only had one child, so if Wendig is attempting to tease the audience with the possibility that Leia has a daughter, (Rey?!) We know that is impossible because in Bloodline they talk at length about Leia and her son. Her relationship to her child (Ben) is significant in that book and if she had multiple children it would have been mentioned. And if she DOES have another child it totally invalidates the other book. And Thrawn, which was JUST revealed this past weekend as being canon.... wasn't ever mentioned. Now I realize that Wendig was likely not permitted to mention Thrawn. However, there are scenes in this book where they mention many previous Imperial Leaders, and those who were close and tight with Palpatine. It just seems to me like Thrawn would HAVE to have been included in archives like that. So Either Thrawn is going to be insignificant (which would be an absolute travesty) or he's going to die very quickly (equally tragic). Point is : He should be a HUGE deal, and if books are going to discuss significant military leaders he deserves to be included in those discussions. If Wendig wasn't allowed to mention him then I would have liked for it to be more open ended, something like "and Admiral X, Grand Moff Y, and several others were also at that meeting"... this way you could group him in with the "several others". My fear is that with Disney allowing all these books to come out like polka dots all over the timeline, they are duplicating some of the exact same consistency problems that happened in the original EU. If a book is going to reference MAJOR events that happened in the past, then you can't go back and add new events, without having to explain why they weren't ever mentioned before in the books that took place in it's future. Imagine if they released another book, called "Luke's Rise to Power", which took place a month before Episode 4, where Luke stole a B-Wing and blew up 3 more Death Stars . That is obviously an exaggeration but I feel that's almost where we are headed with the multiple explanations for the resistance and first order.

Again, this isn't a slam against this book or the author - this is something Disney needs to fix. Make your authors talk to each other - don't give each of them free reign over the same story, because then you'll have twelve different explanations for how the same event happened.

60 people found this helpful

Meh

I feel the most interesting content of the book could be distilled to an hour. So much superfluous fluff. I found myself yelling, "So what! Get to the point!" I was hoping for a story that tied in more with the core Star Wars story. Plus, the authors style was to informal for me, and he used a lot of cliche. It seemed sophomoric. But maybe that was what they were going for...

12 people found this helpful

Slightly better than the first one

I suffered through 10 hours before giving up on this completely uninspired and boring piece of tripe, which is 9 hours more than I made it through Aftermath book 1. If Marc Thompson hadn't have been reading it, I doubt I would have made it that long. Some authors write Star Wars (Gray, Luceno, Kemp), and some authors write what they think Star Wars should sound like, and unfortunately Mr. Wendig falls into the latter category. In the 10 hours I suffered through, hoping it would get better, he somehow made love triangles, rescues, ships fighting, Han Solo, and Princess Leia seem boring and plodding. The HUGE marketing of the Aftermath books makes me want to try them, but I have been sorely disappointed in the execution, perhaps Mr. Wendig's writing style just isn't for me? As much as I wanted to love this series I genuinely cannot recommend it to anyone. There are genuinely good Star Wars canon novels released over the last 2 years, but the Aftermath books are not among them, and are by far the worst of the new canon.

20 people found this helpful

It's just okay.

The epilogue is the best part of the book. That says it all. I think it's an important story but I found it hard to finish. That says a lot with Marc Thompson as the narrator. He's always fantastic.

11 people found this helpful

Still not the greatest

I read the first book in the trilogy and had a hard time following. The second one I got on audible and was a little bit better, but still do not find any of the new characters that compelling. Only appearances by the original trilogy characters made this interesting. Nor does it set up much for the Force Awakens. So far"Bloodlines" has been the best of the new cannon. I suppose I will listen to the final chapter just to see if any thing interesting comes about.

7 people found this helpful

the story does not create a sense of time

The narrator was good, but Timeline is unclear. Epilogue states 30 years ago. but 30 years from when?

10 people found this helpful

Slight improvement to an already lackluster series

An uneven narrative filled with few satisfying moments and bad dialogue from classic characters. It's only achievement is setting up an intriguing third part to a trilogy of novels that has yet to impress me.

12 people found this helpful

Great narrator, mediocre book

What was most disappointing about Chuck Wendig’s story?

His inability to write idioms and metaphors appropriate to the Star Wars universe, his use of common Terran animals/objects. His use of a racist metaphor *specific* to this planet.

Any additional comments?

I'm really curious why no editor insisted changes when Wendig failed to use universe-appropriate language and I'm extremely disappointed no one caught the whammy that Admiral Ackbar would never, ever say. Wow.

The sequel is an improvement over the first one, but I still don't think Wendig's writing style and language are suitable for Star Wars. The story wasn't interesting enough for me to not notice a large number of jarring phrases which halted the story for me and made me think of the author instead of the characters.

18 people found this helpful

Marc is a great narrator

The book itself is somewhat ok, but nothing special. The only character i really liked was Mr. Bones.

Marc's performance is great as usual, but the sound board production has some accuracy issues with the sounds used.

Sadly Chuck is one of the biggest manbaby's ever and attacks any fans who disagree's with him. Do not support this author and I really wish I could get a refund.

2 people found this helpful

yawn

bring back Michael A Stackpole and Greg bear please. Wendig can't write starwars to save his damn life.

8 people found this helpful