Star Wars: The New Rebellion in The Expanded Universe

Apr 06, 2008 Keith rated it liked it

Shelves: star-wars

Stars: 3 (The first 2/3 is 4 stars and last 1/3 1 star)
Re-read: Yes
Recommend to: This one is worth including in the reading list for most SW fans. It's toward the bottom end of what I consider worth reading..

I thought I would rate this book 4-stars for about 1/2-2/3 of the book, but there ended up being too many problems. Contrary to some other EU books I've recently read, this book was competently written and was entertaining in spite of many flaws.

The good:
- Within the first five pages of the Stars: 3 (The first 2/3 is 4 stars and last 1/3 1 star)
Re-read: Yes
Recommend to: This one is worth including in the reading list for most SW fans. It's toward the bottom end of what I consider worth reading..

I thought I would rate this book 4-stars for about 1/2-2/3 of the book, but there ended up being too many problems. Contrary to some other EU books I've recently read, this book was competently written and was entertaining in spite of many flaws.

The good:
- Within the first five pages of the book, Luke is already a far better teacher than he was in all of the previous books. Previous books had Luke be a complete moron who had no plans and no idea what he was doing. Rusch made a superior version of Luke who understands basic psychology, has a plan to teach his students, and has a functioning brain.
- Every branch of the plot is pretty interesting, so there were rarely times when the focus would shift and make me groan in annoyance. They didn't all pan out, but it generally worked.
- I'm conflicted on Rusch's inclusion of a handful of characters from the Hutt Gambit (Han Solo Trilogy). (view spoiler)

The Bad:
- The biggest problem by far was how little foundation major portions of plot had. I was expecting to look some of these details up after finishing and finding out that these characters were fleshed out in comics or something like that, but no. (view spoiler)
- A kid from Tatooine joins the Republic because Luke is his idol. But he doesn't recognize Luke when he sees him and doesn't even know who R2D2 is. Why do this?
- (view spoiler)
- One large part of the plot is completely incomprehensible to me. (view spoiler)
- There is a silly scene where (view spoiler)
- Force powers are very subjective. (view spoiler)
- (view spoiler)
- I don't know why the author acts like Han and Lando don't get along. She writes many scenes like they still are angry about what happened in ESB, and it just doesn't make sense.
- (view spoiler)
- The climactic battle is a mess. (view spoiler)
- The way the New Republic treats famous heroic characters in this book is crazy. (view spoiler)

First Reads: 4 Stars (2001/2007) ...more

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