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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
informative
slow-paced
It was a little dry, but the backstory to Rogue One was really interesting.
adventurous
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
2.5 Stars
The problem with knowing the beginning and ending of a story means the middle needs to be exciting. Exciting this was not, boring it was. Galen is nearly insufferable - he’s perfect and oh so smart and is even good at dream journals (wut?). He is so naive it’s painful, I hurt myself rolling my eyes.
Krennic’s character is more interesting but he’s overly obsessed with Galen like Harry/Draco book six obsessed. The Krennic/Tarkin power struggle melded well with Rogue One.
By the end of the book, I was at 1.75x - way above my normal audiobook speed. I wanted it to be over, Galen and Lyra’s flight wasn’t even suspenseful! The audiobook itself was fine, I always enjoy the music and sound effects of Star Wars audiobooks.
I’d recommend Rebel Rising instead.
The problem with knowing the beginning and ending of a story means the middle needs to be exciting. Exciting this was not, boring it was. Galen is nearly insufferable - he’s perfect and oh so smart and is even good at dream journals (wut?). He is so naive it’s painful, I hurt myself rolling my eyes.
Krennic’s character is more interesting but he’s overly obsessed with Galen like Harry/Draco book six obsessed. The Krennic/Tarkin power struggle melded well with Rogue One.
By the end of the book, I was at 1.75x - way above my normal audiobook speed. I wanted it to be over, Galen and Lyra’s flight wasn’t even suspenseful! The audiobook itself was fine, I always enjoy the music and sound effects of Star Wars audiobooks.
I’d recommend Rebel Rising instead.
Good solid entry in the Star Wars canon, although it seemed to be a book written around a slim premise; it really only exists to give background for four characters from the movie Rogue One, and not enough background, in my opinion, for the character I most wanted to read more about, Jyn Erso. This is the story of her parents, so of course she's only a baby and small child in the book. Anyway, I liked it, but it doesn't have the sweeping galaxywide epic feel of most Star Wars books, where action takes place on many planets simultaneously. This one was more sequential, doggedly advancing towards an endpoint. It was interesting to get more insight into Krennic's character, and his rivalry with Tarkin. And now that I've read this version of how the Death Star was created, I need to read [b:Death Star|786729|Death Star (Star Wars)|Michael Reaves|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320503718s/786729.jpg|772725] by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry, to compare what the "old canon" (now called "Legends") had to say on this topic. I meant to read that one years ago, darn it! But just because the new movies are changing the expanded universe timeline, I'm not going to throw out all the Legends stories; I like quite a lot of them. I'll just have to keep two different storylines in my head.
Aside from the phrases "with purpose" and "he waved [his hand/her hand] negligently" and the word "pregnant" as an adjective, which are all terrible examples of writing that showed up at least five times each (I'd actually attribute this more to bad editing), this was the greatest Star Wars book ever written. It's like if Charles Dickens wrote a novel about D-list Star Wars characters manipulating each other into studying force crystals.
Like other reviewers have mentioned, this book wasn't particularly useful on its own. It serves as a nice prelude to Rogue One, but other than that I have a hard time saying that this one can stand on its own. That being said, if you're a die-hard fan, I couldn't recommend this one more. It's a really intensely fascinating tale of how some of the "science" (let's play fast and loose with that word here) of the Death Star came to be, and how deceptive Krennic had to be in order to get Galen to do any of the research.
I thoroughly enjoyed the segments where the book delved more into Krennic, who tended to be more cunning than he initially seemed to be in the film. I also appreciated his rivalry with Grand Moff Tarkin, which although evident in the movie, was expanded greatly by Luceno's excellent writing.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It was very well written, had an interesting plot (though admittedly not very exciting), and fit in like a puzzle piece with other canon works I've read. If you're a Die-Hard, pick it up. If not, well you probably won't like this one much.
I thoroughly enjoyed the segments where the book delved more into Krennic, who tended to be more cunning than he initially seemed to be in the film. I also appreciated his rivalry with Grand Moff Tarkin, which although evident in the movie, was expanded greatly by Luceno's excellent writing.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It was very well written, had an interesting plot (though admittedly not very exciting), and fit in like a puzzle piece with other canon works I've read. If you're a Die-Hard, pick it up. If not, well you probably won't like this one much.