Joe Johnson Writer

Tag: Book Reviews

  • Star Wars: Rebel Dawn

    Star Wars: Rebel Dawn

    Who would have thought the best book in the Han Solo trilogy would also have the least amount of Han Solo in it?

    I’m getting ahead of myself. “Rebel Dawn” opens with Han down to his last credits after losing his ship, the Bria, in the battle of Nar Shaddaa. Never one for subtlety, Han decides to wager it all and enters a Sabacc gambling tournament.

    Elsewhere, Bria Tharen — the namesake of Han’s lost ship — is now a commander in the Rebel Alliance. She wants to attack Ylesia, the slave colony Han rescued her from two books ago. Taking over the illegal spice mining operation would give the Alliance money and troops to use in their fight against the Empire.

    Opposing her is Teroenza, the fake priest who runs Ylesia. He’s still annoyed that Han and Bria escaped all those years ago and stole treasures from his prized collection. He’s hired Boba Fett to capture them. Also, as a side hustle, he’s plotting against Durga the Hutt, who bankrolls the drug operation, because who doesn’t want to be their own boss?

    But wait, there’s more. Durga is obsessed with finding out who poisoned his father. Readers of the last book will know it was Jabba the Hutt and his uncle, Jiliac, who were plotting with Teroenza to overthrow the rival Hutt clan. Durga’s fixation draws the attention of Black Sun, a rival criminal syndicate which would love to get a foothold in Hutt space. Jabba, meanwhile, is bristling under his uncle’s stewardship, and seeks a way to become the new head of his clan.

    Whew! As you can see, there’s a lot going on in this book. Where the last two novels kept the stakes low and the focus limited, “Rebel Dawn” is epic in scale, shifting between a variety of vivid characters as the story barrels toward “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.” As the capper to a trilogy, it’s a doozy.

    What amazed me was how neatly the story beats all clicked into place. A. C. Crispin ends the book about one minute before Han meets Luke and Obi-Wan in the Mos Eisley Cantina. It never feels rushed or forced, but a natural progression of the story that just happens to end right before the movies begin. It’s deftly done and a credit to the author’s ability (for the opposite effect, just watch “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” which is about as subtle as a rocket propelled grenade).

    Best of all, we see the events that harden Han’s heart and turn him into the “mercenary” of the films. As George Carlin famously said, “Inside every cynic is a disappointed idealist.” Seeing how this plays out adds a great layer to an already great character. Even though we spend less time with him, we learn more, and that makes for a better read.

    Speaking of spending little time with someone: One final note. Han and Chewie visit Kashyyyk, where the Wookiee gets married, leaves, comes back, discovers he has a son, then leaves again. So, I guess Chewbacca is a deadbeat dad? Or his wife is just one understanding lady. “But,” I imagine him growling, “I owe the guy a life debt.”

    Yeah, nice try. That excuse never worked for me, either.

  • Wool

    Wool

    An unspecified event hundreds of years ago forced humanity underground. To go out on the surface now is a death sentence, reserved only for those who commit the most terrible of crimes: Asking to leave.

    This is called being “sent out to clean.” The individual is dressed in a protective suit and given a wool cloth. They are asked to wipe off the sensors that give the Silo’s inhabitants a view of the desolate outside world. It’s a mystery why every cleaner follows through with this before they succumb and die.

    Juliette is a mechanic in the bowels of the Silo. She is too busy keeping the power on to worry about the outside world. Then, one day, the mayor of the silo descends all 144 floors of the grand staircase to make Juliette an offer: Replace the last Sheriff who went out to clean.

    As a girl from the down-deeps, Juliette has no idea about the politics at play in the floors above. No sooner does she pin on her star then she finds herself embroiled in a high-profile murder case, targeted by department heads who want her gone, and unraveling the mystery of what happened to her predecessor.

    This is a fantastic setup for a mystery story that the author, Hugh Howey, clearly has no interest in. Everything is either spelled out right away or is so heavily signposted that you can’t help but immediately connect the dots before the characters do. Then the author dumps all this and takes the story in a totally different direction.

    After doing a little digging, I discovered that Wool originally began life as a short story. The author then kept expanding it, first into a series of novellas and then finally into a novel. This makes a lot of sense and explains some of the lumpy story structure.

    More problematic are the characters, who all feel paper thin when they aren’t acting like weepy, melodramatic teenagers. There’s never any subtlety. The players pound their chests and wail and moan, their inner dialogue a seething turmoil of pithy emotions.

    I think if you took a shot of alcohol every time one of the characters starts crying, you’d be dead or comatose before the final chapter. It’s almost funny, later in the book, when they introduce a new character who is described as a stunted child in a man’s body. He acts just like everyone else.

    It doesn’t feel like anyone grows or changes. Most of the players exist simply as a plot function. You know everything about each character in just a few lines because there is nothing else to discover. The villain is so laughably obvious that he might as well appear twirling his moustache and cackling.

    This will sound like blasphemy to some, but I actually prefer what the TV adaptation is doing at this point. I feel like the writers there took these bare character sketches and breathed life into them, expanding the plot and embelishing the worldbuilding that mostly sits in the margins here.

    As something that inspired some great television, I have to give this book some grudging respect. I wouldn’t say I regret reading it. I didn’t hate it. But Wool reads like a rough draft that the show’s creators wisely edited into a great story. As such, I think I’ll stick with the show for now and give the two follow-up novels a pass.