Flew through this at work. Perfect for spooky season. Be prepared for a few gory descriptions.


My only critique and complaint is the appearance of known characters that just felt poorly written and out of place. It just felt like a “well, it’s Star Wars so we need to throw SOMEONE they know into this story. How about them?”
If it had just been new unknown characters and story, it would have gotten a 4* from me

2.5 stars for a quick read...but was it quick 'cos it was good, or that I'm eager to move on to the next SW book?

This book was disgusting, graphic, tense, and thrilling. I really enjoyed the level of detail that Joe Schreiber put into describing things in this book, including the settings, action, and characters. His writing was very immersive, and I was never really pulled out of a scene by any out of place details or dialogue. The story, though not original, was interesting and the characters that populated it were enjoyable. I will admit the story and character development did at some points take a turn that I was not expecting but I think that’s what makes this book good. There were some clever twists, and I think that the virus itself is something very interesting. This is one of the first Star Wars books I’ve read with no Jedi, and I think that there’s definitely something special about it because it really makes you feel the sense of terrified helplessness that permeates through the very regular and human beings that make up most of the main cast of this story. I will admit, however, that the story having Han Solo and Chewbacca did add an element of comedy to it that while I think made me enjoy it more, I think that it could’ve done without any pre-established/canon characters being in the story but that’s just my opinion. It’s very comical to think that, and I know the EU isn’t always canon, Han and Chewie experienced the entire events of this book and simply never mentioned it ever again to anyone in the OT cast. Like come on, that’s fucking hilarious. The other characters I will say were nothing special really, like I enjoyed them don’t get me wrong but I think they did fulfill their role and purpose in the story. I wished Sartoris would’ve had a more present role in the latter half of the story as I felt like he would’ve provided an interesting perspective seeing as he is a pre-established Imperial officer, and also a sociopath. I’m however glad that there was a happy ending for most of the characters, like Trig and Dr. Cody were able to find happiness and Han and Chewie went off to find the Falcon and do OT stuff. RIP Kale though he didn’t deserve that.

I would not, however, read this again as I feel that this works best if you don’t know what’s going on or what’s going to happen. Glad I read it though as this has been on my TBR list for a while!

Fun but not quite as fun as it would like to be.

Death Troopers is a gory tropefest with way too much fan service for its own good that probably only manages to remain entertaining because of its very fast pace and low page count.

Dude, no. *rolls up newspaper and stares at this book I just read* "Bad book, BAD!"

I foolishly had REALLY high hopes for this book,the premise is amazing and the cover art is god tier. Those are pretty much the two stars I gave this book, the two good things about this book.

Little backstory to my history with this book, when it first came out I got it through my local library and was too busy working and in the middle of a move to actually read it, I wanted to desperately though because oh man the idea behind it, the cover art, I kept thinking "Oh man this is gonna be so awesome!"

*Morgan Freeman narration* "It was not gonna be awesome at all."

Hooboy where do I start... It feels like maybe at times the proof editors and publisher tried to make the novel shorter, like maybe Joe Schreiber pitched a really detailed back story about the main characters... How they all fit together, woven like a tapestry.

Nope, characters from earlier that clearly intersected (and had a shared history) later on didn't seem to recall each other. Ass out, complete lack of continuity in spots.

I believe the main characters could have been interesting, but were absolutely not. The story building at the beginning is just unceremoniously dropped. Like any good horror story you're gonna lose some main characters, and you do here... But I didn't care about any of them.

It honestly felt like there was a slow burn at first introducing the main characters, and that some of their motivations would become clear as the story unfolded, but it petered out and then became a chore... But then it was suddenly just abandoned when shit hit the fan... But then the story picked up and the horror element was initially really good...

Like okay yeah y'all were living your tepid little lives and shit went sideways because Evil Empire... But now it's the zombie apocalypse... Then out of the blue there's a... Cameo. Two very well known characters from Star Wars canon step into the scene...

Which hit like a proctologist with a crowbar. Cold, awkward, and you have to raise the question of "why" like a dozen times in this book.

This isn't going to appeal to Star Wars fans, this isn't going to appeal to zombie fans, or horror fans. The characters are entirely forgettable, the storyline jumps from world building and weaving intentions to reasoning out- nope just gonna switch gears here and- wait here's a cameo curve ball that makes little to no damn sense-oh no! Here's some fairly glaring continuity errors- nope here's the ending!

Even the cameo characters were like "Biiiiyyyyyyeeeeeee!" and deuced out without much ado. Much like I wished I had a quarter of the way into this hot mess.

Oh and there's a sequel/prequel that I will never be desperate enough to read.