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hhndoll 's review for:
Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel
by James Luceno
A build up to the events and characters featured in Rogue One, I found this book to be pleasurable but also very mediocre.
It gives us the backstory to Galen Erso, father to Jyn, and his work. It ties the connections between Galen, the Empire and the death star. It explains why he needed to be forced into service.
It gives us character development on Orson Krennic. A character who in this book has reason and drive but seems to be glossed over in the film.
It also gives us repetitiveness on how the Empire worked. It shows the corruption and the deviousness of the government and driving dark force. It brings us even more planets that have no basis than to show how the "Empire doesn't care." This has become a trend in the new canon books. They like to show how evil the evil is and forget about the ying and yang. You need to show how good the good are.
If you are looking for more to Rogue One than this is it. If you want more Star Wars, than this will give you a taste (but I could recommend some great reads in the Legends storylines). What this will not give you is more rebellion, more Jedi, more galaxy building. This ends abruptly and still a ways off from the timeline placed in the film. In a small way that is what I expected.
The writing is good but has a tendency to be a slight repetitive, but that could be a style choice for this story. I have grown to love James Luceno's work with the Star Wars Universe (legends and canon) but this is not a favorite of mine.
It gives us the backstory to Galen Erso, father to Jyn, and his work. It ties the connections between Galen, the Empire and the death star. It explains why he needed to be forced into service.
It gives us character development on Orson Krennic. A character who in this book has reason and drive but seems to be glossed over in the film.
It also gives us repetitiveness on how the Empire worked. It shows the corruption and the deviousness of the government and driving dark force. It brings us even more planets that have no basis than to show how the "Empire doesn't care." This has become a trend in the new canon books. They like to show how evil the evil is and forget about the ying and yang. You need to show how good the good are.
If you are looking for more to Rogue One than this is it. If you want more Star Wars, than this will give you a taste (but I could recommend some great reads in the Legends storylines). What this will not give you is more rebellion, more Jedi, more galaxy building. This ends abruptly and still a ways off from the timeline placed in the film. In a small way that is what I expected.
The writing is good but has a tendency to be a slight repetitive, but that could be a style choice for this story. I have grown to love James Luceno's work with the Star Wars Universe (legends and canon) but this is not a favorite of mine.