Month: June 2016

Dang, this book is good! This is my favorite prequel movie and the book makes it even better. I love how Stover really digs into the psyche of the major players – Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padmé, and Palpatine. It was really enjoyable to read. The final section just about killed me. I had to stop a few times and not be sad for a few minutes. 

I think my favorite part was the very last “This is Anakin Skywalker” section, which I thought were cheesy at the beginning and heart wrenching at the end. Oh my heart. 

I’m really glad I enjoyed this book so much because I am excited to get back to reading and enjoying Star Wars books! I’m really ready to get to the post-ROTJ books, so I will probably be a little more choosy about which OT books I read. And I have to keep working on War and Peace. :)

Warning: Spoilers below

I got so into The Krytos Trap that I decided not to wait for Rogue Podron to finish this arc of X-wing books.  It only took me a couple days to finish The Bacta War. I don’t usually post a lot of detail here, but I think my thoughts on the final book and the series as a whole warrant it.

Character wise – I still love Corran.  At the beginning of the series, his monologue-ing got old, but I really did like him.  I liked how he grew over the series and I’m really interested in seeing where he goes from here, especially as a Jedi.  I LOVE Mirax too.  I’m glad they got together.  I loved Wedge too.  I like that the books took a tertiary character from the movies and really built a world around him.  I loved whenever he was the focus.  I felt like this book did not have as good of a mix of secondary Rogues as the last one.  I liked what we got of Gavin, but definitely wanted more.  And more Tycho, Winter, Iella, and Ooryl.  Less Vorru and Isard.  I found myself missing Loor.  He was a better nemesis than Vorru.  I was a little meh on Booster and Talon Karrde.  I guess I need to get to know them better to really like them.

Plot wise – I liked the action in this book, though there were times when I just wanted stuff to be done, usually when we were focused on the bad guys.  I liked that there were a lot of surprises and stuff just worked out, but sometimes it was too easy.  Things just worked out perfectly in ways that almost don’t make sense if you think about it too much.  But that’s the joy of sci-fi books sometimes – you can just take them at face value and not worry too much about the actual logistics.  I did feel like this book lacked the high stakes the other books had.  Only 1 Rogue dies (and one is believed dead for a while) and that death doesn’t seem to have a big impact on the team.  No one dies in the final battle.  While I am happy about that, because I always hate when a beloved character is gone, it seemed weird when all the other books had more deaths after battles.

Also, there was a character (a droid) named Poe in one section of the book.  That was so weird to me.

I decided not to force myself to finish this book.  I don’t like it.  It’s about a chair.  I started it in September 2015 and have made little progress and have no desire to finish it.  So I am done.  It was added to the “attempted” shelf and I am moving on to the Revenge of the Sith novelization.

Wedge’s Gamble and The Krytos Trap by Michael Stackpole

Taking the lazy way out to catch up and doing one review for both of these books.  I would probably say the same thing about them anyway! :)

I really like this series.  The characters are fun and interesting.  At first, I thought I was going to be more upset by the deaths of old characters and additions of new characters, but mostly I’ve been okay with them.  I don’t dislike Corran as much as other people.  I get why he can be annoying, but it doesn’t bother me that much.  I only occasionally have to roll my eyes.  I really like the ladies in these books, especially in Krytos Trap.  Iella and Mirax especially.  I liked both storylines a lot and am getting better at keeping up with what is happening in battles instead of just skimming over the action.

I think The Krytos Trap may be one of my favorite Legends books so far.  I really like the story overall and the balance between the various plots going on at a time.  I liked that many of the plot points started in the first and second book were resolved.  I can’t wait to read the 4th book.  I read ahead of Rogue Podron, so now I need to decide if I am going to keep reading ahead or wait for them.  I started War and Peace, so that should keep me busy waiting for them.