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ethana 's review for:
Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel
by James Luceno
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It may just be that my attention span has been struggling lately so it felt harder than usual to actually process the audiobook version, but this book felt like an absolute slog to get through. The characters felt bland and the plot seemed to move at an agonizingly slow meandering pace.
There are so many things that just sort of happen that left me wondering what was the point. For example,there's a whole scene with Galen's wife, Lyra, trying to go for a jog on Coruscant and thinks she's being followed. The twist? It's two salesmen who want to sell her jewelry. For the life of me, I can't figure out why this scene exists except to fill space.
For a book that gave me the impression that it was going to be about Galen's involvement in the development of the Death Star, shockingly little of the book seems to deal with the actual development and/or construction of the Death Star. Galen remains an unwitting participant until the final few chapters, so he never actually directly engages with the Death Star project, which we only occasionally get glimpses into from Krennic's point of view. These chapters dealing directly with the Death Star construction were for me by far the most interesting parts of the book, which is a shame given there were so few of them.
The most frustrating part is that where this book ends is right around where the most interesting part of the Erso's story (at least, in my opinion) begins- being on the run from the Empire and then recruited by force to work on the Death Star, forcing him to find a way to sabotage it in secret. The story this book tells feels like it should take place as the first 25% of a far more interesting story. I can understand the desire to have a story that expands on events that haven't been touched on in the films, but why then ignore developing the most interesting parts of that established story?
There are so many things that just sort of happen that left me wondering what was the point. For example,
For a book that gave me the impression that it was going to be about Galen's involvement in the development of the Death Star, shockingly little of the book seems to deal with the actual development and/or construction of the Death Star. Galen remains an unwitting participant until the final few chapters, so he never actually directly engages with the Death Star project, which we only occasionally get glimpses into from Krennic's point of view. These chapters dealing directly with the Death Star construction were for me by far the most interesting parts of the book, which is a shame given there were so few of them.
The most frustrating part is that where this book ends is right around where the most interesting part of the Erso's story (at least, in my opinion) begins- being on the run from the Empire and then recruited by force to work on the Death Star, forcing him to find a way to sabotage it in secret. The story this book tells feels like it should take place as the first 25% of a far more interesting story. I can understand the desire to have a story that expands on events that haven't been touched on in the films, but why then ignore developing the most interesting parts of that established story?