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alphaalexis's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
wynwicket's review against another edition
5.0
Wedge Antilles and the adventures of his Rogue Squadron are some of the best that Star Wars has ever inspired. This book was was an absolute delight.
rhubarb1608's review against another edition
2.25
This week on According to Wedge, Ernest P. Worrell joins the diplomatic corps! Or Everybody Loves Jensen. Or The Fresh Prince of Adumar. I'm trying to say that Allston writes everything like it's the script for a cheesy 90s sitcom guest starring Jim Varney. And I mean, I like cheese. And I don't mind Ernest. I'd say I just don't want him in Star Wars, but that isn't true because I don't even mind Jar Jar Binks. It's just like the penne I had for lunch -- it's just too much cheese. And maybe you think there's no such thing, but believe me, there is when it overwhelms all the other flavors and you've just got a mouthful of chewy goo.
I have to say that anybody who ever gushed about how awesome and funny Aaron Allston is has lost their right to ever complain about Jar Jar again. Goofy overdone accents? Check. Implausible clumsy escapades? Check. Trying way too hard to be funny one-liners? Double check. All of Aaron "Heavy Handed" Allston's trademarks are here -- but really it is his best one, a huge improvement over the first three, and I give it a fair rating.
Stylistically, it is leaps and bounds ahead of the other three. No more machine-gun section breaks. Aaron Allston still solidly belongs to the speechmaking camp of storytelling: "Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em; tell 'em; and then tell 'em what you told 'em." He's a bit better about showing rather than telling . . . now he tells me, sort of shows me, and then tells me twice, rather than just straight up telling me. Also, I've seen episodes of Say Yes to the Dress that obsess about clothes less than this book does.
Enough with style. On to the plot. It's 01151, or 13 ABY, and Allston starts with a break up scene. This scene was to prove nothing but hitting delete on one of my favorite characters whom Allston apparently can't abide. But once he was done trying to play Stackpole and got on his own feet, chapter 2, he did much better. So: Wedge wants to take a vacation, but instead ends up heading up a diplomatic task force toEarth um Adumar. Because it's a planet whose entire culture is built from Top Gun, and they will only listen to fighter pilots, and they have awesome weapons technology the Republic wants. Wedge, not as enslaved to duty as Leia, but still easily extorted into the whims of the Republic, agrees to go and takes those men who have been through the most with him and whom he trusts the most -- Tycho, Wes, and Hobbie.
At first I was cringing in anticipation of Tycho's portrayal by Allston, but fair is fair and he did a good job. In and among the incessant outfit-describing. Dear lord, man, they wear clothes; we know. Let's get to the point. Everybody ontotally not Earth even though it's obviously Earth Adumar is obsessed with dueling and slaughtering one another for honor like it's 18th century Russia with lasers. There's wires everywhere; and "flatscreens" instead of holos; there's a whole bunch of fractured "nations" instead of a one-world government; and I'm surprised there weren't any sly backhanded jabs about pollution. And yet, even though I was annoyed that he was self-inserting our planet and doing so in a completely not-subtle way, this made for a good plot -- and a good plot that he didn't butcher as he did in Iron Fist.
Wedge ends up being in the thick of some geopolitical intrigue; not only does the Empire already have some agents courting the same planet for the same weapons technology -- technology that could still reasonably turn things around for the dying Empire -- but then Wedge inadvertently triggers a planetary coup. There's an assassination attempt, and a New Republic politician more annoying than Borsk Fey'lya, and some atmospheric dogfights that I've seen praised highly (though to me, all battle scenes are boring, and even more pointless in print than they are on screen. In the wise words of my mother, "Nothing ever happens in a car chase." Or any non-lightsaber-duel battle).
In all, Starfighters is a decent contribution to realcanon, if a tad on the repetitive side, and a little overwhelmingly preoccupied with telling me what everyone is wearing every time they walk in the door. In honor of this, allow me to close the review by saying I read this book while wearing blue jeans, super fuzzy polka dot socks, a gray long sleeved t-shirt, and a black Star Wars t-shirt with Boba Fett and the caption Poker Face on it. Now, wasn't that just thrilling and add so much to heighten the drama of the review?
This review via The RebeLibarian.
I have to say that anybody who ever gushed about how awesome and funny Aaron Allston is has lost their right to ever complain about Jar Jar again. Goofy overdone accents? Check. Implausible clumsy escapades? Check. Trying way too hard to be funny one-liners? Double check. All of Aaron "Heavy Handed" Allston's trademarks are here -- but really it is his best one, a huge improvement over the first three, and I give it a fair rating.
Stylistically, it is leaps and bounds ahead of the other three. No more machine-gun section breaks. Aaron Allston still solidly belongs to the speechmaking camp of storytelling: "Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em; tell 'em; and then tell 'em what you told 'em." He's a bit better about showing rather than telling . . . now he tells me, sort of shows me, and then tells me twice, rather than just straight up telling me. Also, I've seen episodes of Say Yes to the Dress that obsess about clothes less than this book does.
Enough with style. On to the plot. It's 01151, or 13 ABY, and Allston starts with a break up scene. This scene was to prove nothing but hitting delete on one of my favorite characters whom Allston apparently can't abide. But once he was done trying to play Stackpole and got on his own feet, chapter 2, he did much better. So: Wedge wants to take a vacation, but instead ends up heading up a diplomatic task force to
At first I was cringing in anticipation of Tycho's portrayal by Allston, but fair is fair and he did a good job. In and among the incessant outfit-describing. Dear lord, man, they wear clothes; we know. Let's get to the point. Everybody on
Wedge ends up being in the thick of some geopolitical intrigue; not only does the Empire already have some agents courting the same planet for the same weapons technology -- technology that could still reasonably turn things around for the dying Empire -- but then Wedge inadvertently triggers a planetary coup. There's an assassination attempt, and a New Republic politician more annoying than Borsk Fey'lya, and some atmospheric dogfights that I've seen praised highly (though to me, all battle scenes are boring, and even more pointless in print than they are on screen. In the wise words of my mother, "Nothing ever happens in a car chase." Or any non-lightsaber-duel battle).
In all, Starfighters is a decent contribution to realcanon, if a tad on the repetitive side, and a little overwhelmingly preoccupied with telling me what everyone is wearing every time they walk in the door. In honor of this, allow me to close the review by saying I read this book while wearing blue jeans, super fuzzy polka dot socks, a gray long sleeved t-shirt, and a black Star Wars t-shirt with Boba Fett and the caption Poker Face on it. Now, wasn't that just thrilling and add so much to heighten the drama of the review?
This review via The RebeLibarian.
ehsjaysaunders's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Possibly now my favorite X-wing book, and firmly placing Allston as one of my all-time EU greats.
5/5 Yeah some minor nitpicks, but this one hit me just right.
5/5 Yeah some minor nitpicks, but this one hit me just right.
blancwene's review against another edition
4.0
For 2020, I decided to reread (in publication order) all the Bantam-era Star Wars books that were released between 1991 and 1999; that shakes out to 38 adult novels and 5 anthologies of short stories & novellas.
This week’s focus: the fourth of Aaron Allston’s X-Wing books, Starfighters of Adumar.
SOME HISTORY:
During a panel at Jedi-Con in 2004, Aaron Allston revealed that he derived the name of the planet Adumar from Alexandre Dumas, the author of [b:The Three Musketeers|7190|The Three Musketeers (The D'Artagnan Romances, #1)|Alexandre Dumas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320436982l/7190._SY75_.jpg|1263212]. He also alluded to similarities between the main characters of The Three Musketeers and the four X-wing pilots in Starfighters of Adumar; although there’s no direct correlations, I think that Wes Janson has some very Porthos-like qualities. (But while Wedge is the leader, he’s not a sad alcoholic with an evil ex like Athos.) Starfighters of Adumar made it to number seventeen on the New York Times paperback bestseller list for the week of August 29, 1999.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I loved this book. Allston’s humor skews more overtly silly in this one, but I thought it felt appropriate to the swashbuckling adventure that the Rogues were on.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Wedge Antilles and three of his fellow Rogues are sent to the neutral world of Adumar as diplomatic envoys. It appears the perfect assignment: the pilots are feted by a general populace that holds fighter pilots in high regard. But Wedge quickly realizes that things are not as they seem, and their exercise in diplomacy becomes filled with peril...
THE CHARACTERS:
If [b:I, Jedi|758654|I, Jedi (Star Wars)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327870262l/758654._SY75_.jpg|1134006] depicted Wedge Antilles in the midst of a quarter life crisis, by Starfighters of Adumar he's at a crossroads in both his personal and professional life. He's broken up with Qwi Xux, both of them realizing that they don't visualize a future with each other; he has no family left, and practically no friends outside of the Rogues. He's ready to leave for some needed time off when General Cracken manipulates him into becoming the diplomatic envoy to Adumar.
He quickly begins to question whether they would even want the Adumari in the New Republic. They're obsessed with honor, they have no regard for human life (their duels and feuds usually end with one or more party dead), and Wedge rightly worries that those two qualities wouldn't translate well into NR service. He tries to get the Adumari pilots to think about strategy and the effectiveness of simulations vs just outright killing your opponent, but he's fighting an uphill battle against entrenched beliefs. It doesn't help that their diplomatic liaison, Tomer Darpen, would prefer that they adopt the more bloodthirsty tactics of Turr Phennir and the other Imperials.
Wedge is also offered a chance to rekindle his relationship with Iella Wessiri--and indeed, that seems to be a key motivation behind this book. [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704] wrapped up the Wraiths' arc; [b:Isard's Revenge|422569|Isard's Revenge (Star Wars X-Wing, #8)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1424084400l/422569._SY75_.jpg|2696915] mostly concluded the Rogues'. But after the Thrawn campaign, it takes Wedge four long years and another relationship before things get sorted with Iella. I wouldn't say that romance is one of Allston's strengths, but I liked the understated, mature way that Wedge and Iella figured things out.
On Allston's now defunct FAQ page, he mentioned that people had questioned why Corran Horn wasn't a member of the diplomatic envoy. Fortunately there are multiple hypothetical answers to that! Corran probably was in command of Rogue Squadron during Tycho's absence; Corran might have been working on Jedi stuff; his son Valin Horn was born the same year as the mission to Adumar (13ABY). So take your pick.
But Wedge isn’t alone on this diplomatic mission: he brings Tycho Celchu, Wes Janson, and Derek “Hobbie” Klivian along with him. Tycho is the perfect second-hand man, steady and responsible. He’s gone through so much in his life--the destruction of Alderaan, his imprisonment on the Lusankya, the distrust he faced from the NR after his escape--yet as Janson so ably pointed out, he’s the only one in their quartet who has a happy, settled personal life.
Meanwhile, Wes and Hobbie are our main comic relief. You can tell that they are long-time friends, because they play off each other so well. The two of them toss zingers back and forth off each other for as long as Wedge will allow. Wes is the class clown, even when he’s challenging someone to a duel to protect Cheriss; Hobbie is more of a sad clown. Hobbie also gets some of my favorite scenes, in particular the bit during the gauntlet where they sneak onto the airbase.
The Cartann court gives them all nicknames, which Janson revels in. Janson is "the darling one," Tycho is "the doleful one," Hobbie is "the dour one," and Wedge is "the diligent one." (This all feels very à la Alexandre Dumas père to me.)
But their diplomatic mission would not be complete without support staff. Cheriss ke Hanadi is their local guide, the absolute best duelist in Cartann. She develops a crush on Wedge (understandable), tries to throw her life away for reasons of “honor,” and has her entire worldview upended when she learns that her fear of heights that held her back from becoming a pilot is just a chemical imbalance in her brain. She grows up a lot over the course of the book. We also meet Hallis Saper, the mission’s documentarian, who is imminently equipped for espionage and disinformation.
Our true villain in the book is actually not the Imperials, but their liaison/NR Intelligence boss, Tomer Darpen. Janson is familiar with him from his days with the Tierfon Yellow Aces, when he was super sleazy. He’s not gotten any better in the intervening years: he is completely opposed to Wedge questioning Adumari values, and repeatedly insists that the Rogues behave like their Imperial counterparts. After Wedge refuses to fly with Cartann’s forces against the other Adumari countries, Darpen essentially tries to have them assassinated.
On the Imperial side, Admiral Rogriss (previously seen in [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704]) is having his own personal crisis. He knows that despite giving their word, the Imperials plan to devastate the planet if they side with the New Republic. But instead of interrogating his feelings on the matter, Rogriss just gets drunk. It’s ultimately up to Wedge to sway him away from the Imperial side and help Adumar in some small way.
ISSUES:
Compared to the other X-Wing books, Starfighters of Adumar stands alone. While it helps to be familiar with Wedge, Tycho, and the rest, I don’t think you necessarily need to have read all the Rogue and Wraith books to appreciate this one. But as a consequence of its stand-alone nature, the scale of the story feels much lesser compared to previous X-Wing books. In [b:The Bacta War|513201|The Bacta War (Star Wars X-Wing, #4)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327941683l/513201._SY75_.jpg|501178], Isard has taken over Thyferra, which has a stranglehold on the entire galaxy’s supply of bacta; in [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704], both the NR and the Imperials team up to take out Warlord Zsinj. But in SoA, we just deal with one small world--sure, it has loads of factories that could produce loads of proton torpedoes for either side, but it’s still just one world.
On the humor scale, SoA is perhaps excessively silly. The Adumari culture is feudalism dialed up to eleven: they’re obsessed with HONOR, they constantly fight duels like it’s 17th century France or 18th century Britain, they have funny accents (“Rayd Flayt” instead of “Red Flight”), and they love capes. This is perhaps too much silliness for some people, but I enjoyed it.
Wedge has great concern over killing the Adumari in flight actions--but during the penultimate battle, he shoots down a lot of them. They were just trying to kill him, and Wedge is acting to remove an unjust ruler, but it did strike me as a little sad that he ended up killing so many of them. (The moral predicaments of war, I guess.)
IN CONCLUSION:
To me, Starfighters of Adumar is a high point of the Bantam era. We really get to dig into Wedge's character, we get some great humor, we get a bonkers new society, and we get resolution to Wedge and Iella's relationship. I also enjoyed Tycho, Janson, and Hobbie getting their moment in the spotlight. (It is also very silly.)
Next up: the fifth Tales collection, [b:Tales from the New Republic|368214|Tales from the New Republic (Star Wars)|Peter Schweighofer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403182226l/368214._SY75_.jpg|358201], edited by Peter Schweighofer and Craig Carey.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/RgnRu3JzFsQ
This week’s focus: the fourth of Aaron Allston’s X-Wing books, Starfighters of Adumar.
SOME HISTORY:
During a panel at Jedi-Con in 2004, Aaron Allston revealed that he derived the name of the planet Adumar from Alexandre Dumas, the author of [b:The Three Musketeers|7190|The Three Musketeers (The D'Artagnan Romances, #1)|Alexandre Dumas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320436982l/7190._SY75_.jpg|1263212]. He also alluded to similarities between the main characters of The Three Musketeers and the four X-wing pilots in Starfighters of Adumar; although there’s no direct correlations, I think that Wes Janson has some very Porthos-like qualities. (But while Wedge is the leader, he’s not a sad alcoholic with an evil ex like Athos.) Starfighters of Adumar made it to number seventeen on the New York Times paperback bestseller list for the week of August 29, 1999.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I loved this book. Allston’s humor skews more overtly silly in this one, but I thought it felt appropriate to the swashbuckling adventure that the Rogues were on.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Wedge Antilles and three of his fellow Rogues are sent to the neutral world of Adumar as diplomatic envoys. It appears the perfect assignment: the pilots are feted by a general populace that holds fighter pilots in high regard. But Wedge quickly realizes that things are not as they seem, and their exercise in diplomacy becomes filled with peril...
THE CHARACTERS:
If [b:I, Jedi|758654|I, Jedi (Star Wars)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327870262l/758654._SY75_.jpg|1134006] depicted Wedge Antilles in the midst of a quarter life crisis, by Starfighters of Adumar he's at a crossroads in both his personal and professional life. He's broken up with Qwi Xux, both of them realizing that they don't visualize a future with each other; he has no family left, and practically no friends outside of the Rogues. He's ready to leave for some needed time off when General Cracken manipulates him into becoming the diplomatic envoy to Adumar.
He quickly begins to question whether they would even want the Adumari in the New Republic. They're obsessed with honor, they have no regard for human life (their duels and feuds usually end with one or more party dead), and Wedge rightly worries that those two qualities wouldn't translate well into NR service. He tries to get the Adumari pilots to think about strategy and the effectiveness of simulations vs just outright killing your opponent, but he's fighting an uphill battle against entrenched beliefs. It doesn't help that their diplomatic liaison, Tomer Darpen, would prefer that they adopt the more bloodthirsty tactics of Turr Phennir and the other Imperials.
Wedge is also offered a chance to rekindle his relationship with Iella Wessiri--and indeed, that seems to be a key motivation behind this book. [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704] wrapped up the Wraiths' arc; [b:Isard's Revenge|422569|Isard's Revenge (Star Wars X-Wing, #8)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1424084400l/422569._SY75_.jpg|2696915] mostly concluded the Rogues'. But after the Thrawn campaign, it takes Wedge four long years and another relationship before things get sorted with Iella. I wouldn't say that romance is one of Allston's strengths, but I liked the understated, mature way that Wedge and Iella figured things out.
On Allston's now defunct FAQ page, he mentioned that people had questioned why Corran Horn wasn't a member of the diplomatic envoy. Fortunately there are multiple hypothetical answers to that! Corran probably was in command of Rogue Squadron during Tycho's absence; Corran might have been working on Jedi stuff; his son Valin Horn was born the same year as the mission to Adumar (13ABY). So take your pick.
But Wedge isn’t alone on this diplomatic mission: he brings Tycho Celchu, Wes Janson, and Derek “Hobbie” Klivian along with him. Tycho is the perfect second-hand man, steady and responsible. He’s gone through so much in his life--the destruction of Alderaan, his imprisonment on the Lusankya, the distrust he faced from the NR after his escape--yet as Janson so ably pointed out, he’s the only one in their quartet who has a happy, settled personal life.
Meanwhile, Wes and Hobbie are our main comic relief. You can tell that they are long-time friends, because they play off each other so well. The two of them toss zingers back and forth off each other for as long as Wedge will allow. Wes is the class clown, even when he’s challenging someone to a duel to protect Cheriss; Hobbie is more of a sad clown. Hobbie also gets some of my favorite scenes, in particular the bit during the gauntlet where they sneak onto the airbase.
The Cartann court gives them all nicknames, which Janson revels in. Janson is "the darling one," Tycho is "the doleful one," Hobbie is "the dour one," and Wedge is "the diligent one." (This all feels very à la Alexandre Dumas père to me.)
But their diplomatic mission would not be complete without support staff. Cheriss ke Hanadi is their local guide, the absolute best duelist in Cartann. She develops a crush on Wedge (understandable), tries to throw her life away for reasons of “honor,” and has her entire worldview upended when she learns that her fear of heights that held her back from becoming a pilot is just a chemical imbalance in her brain. She grows up a lot over the course of the book. We also meet Hallis Saper, the mission’s documentarian, who is imminently equipped for espionage and disinformation.
Our true villain in the book is actually not the Imperials, but their liaison/NR Intelligence boss, Tomer Darpen. Janson is familiar with him from his days with the Tierfon Yellow Aces, when he was super sleazy. He’s not gotten any better in the intervening years: he is completely opposed to Wedge questioning Adumari values, and repeatedly insists that the Rogues behave like their Imperial counterparts. After Wedge refuses to fly with Cartann’s forces against the other Adumari countries, Darpen essentially tries to have them assassinated.
On the Imperial side, Admiral Rogriss (previously seen in [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704]) is having his own personal crisis. He knows that despite giving their word, the Imperials plan to devastate the planet if they side with the New Republic. But instead of interrogating his feelings on the matter, Rogriss just gets drunk. It’s ultimately up to Wedge to sway him away from the Imperial side and help Adumar in some small way.
ISSUES:
Compared to the other X-Wing books, Starfighters of Adumar stands alone. While it helps to be familiar with Wedge, Tycho, and the rest, I don’t think you necessarily need to have read all the Rogue and Wraith books to appreciate this one. But as a consequence of its stand-alone nature, the scale of the story feels much lesser compared to previous X-Wing books. In [b:The Bacta War|513201|The Bacta War (Star Wars X-Wing, #4)|Michael A. Stackpole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327941683l/513201._SY75_.jpg|501178], Isard has taken over Thyferra, which has a stranglehold on the entire galaxy’s supply of bacta; in [b:Solo Command|773547|Solo Command (Star Wars X-Wing, #7)|Aaron Allston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327942075l/773547._SY75_.jpg|352704], both the NR and the Imperials team up to take out Warlord Zsinj. But in SoA, we just deal with one small world--sure, it has loads of factories that could produce loads of proton torpedoes for either side, but it’s still just one world.
On the humor scale, SoA is perhaps excessively silly. The Adumari culture is feudalism dialed up to eleven: they’re obsessed with HONOR, they constantly fight duels like it’s 17th century France or 18th century Britain, they have funny accents (“Rayd Flayt” instead of “Red Flight”), and they love capes. This is perhaps too much silliness for some people, but I enjoyed it.
Wedge has great concern over killing the Adumari in flight actions--but during the penultimate battle, he shoots down a lot of them. They were just trying to kill him, and Wedge is acting to remove an unjust ruler, but it did strike me as a little sad that he ended up killing so many of them. (The moral predicaments of war, I guess.)
IN CONCLUSION:
To me, Starfighters of Adumar is a high point of the Bantam era. We really get to dig into Wedge's character, we get some great humor, we get a bonkers new society, and we get resolution to Wedge and Iella's relationship. I also enjoyed Tycho, Janson, and Hobbie getting their moment in the spotlight. (It is also very silly.)
Next up: the fifth Tales collection, [b:Tales from the New Republic|368214|Tales from the New Republic (Star Wars)|Peter Schweighofer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403182226l/368214._SY75_.jpg|358201], edited by Peter Schweighofer and Craig Carey.
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/RgnRu3JzFsQ
delliomellidom's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.0
madetofly's review against another edition
3.0
I'm going to try to keep this review brief as this is the ninth book in a series, and I typically don't like spoiling previous books in a series in my reviews. This series does feel different in that there's not a larger, overarching plot that links the story in this ninth book with the others in the series. But still, this is the ninth one, so I feel like anyone who has gotten to this point is invested in the series and knows whether they want to read this one or not. That makes going into a lot of detail feel pointless.
For me, I read this book three years after reading all eight of the other books, since those were the ones I had at the time, so I was worried that I'd be confused going into this one, having forgotten the events of the last eight books. That wasn't a problem though. Any information that I needed to know came back to me quickly. It was almost shocking how much I remembered once I was back in the series again. The familiarity was nice.
That being said, I think this was my least favorite of the series, and I don't think I'm saying that because it's been three years since I read the others (although maybe that is why). It was only a minimal drop in enjoyment. I still want to read the tenth book. I'm even more curious about it because it was published so many years after the ninth.
The ninth book was enjoyable and fun. I really did like it, and I think anyone who read and liked the first eight would get enjoyment out of this one too. I did. It's just that, if I were to rank the series, I'm not sure what order they would be in, but this one would likely come last for reasons that I can't quite place my finger on.
http://hmweasley-blog.blogspot.com/2016/05/book-review-starfighters-of-adumar-star.html
For me, I read this book three years after reading all eight of the other books, since those were the ones I had at the time, so I was worried that I'd be confused going into this one, having forgotten the events of the last eight books. That wasn't a problem though. Any information that I needed to know came back to me quickly. It was almost shocking how much I remembered once I was back in the series again. The familiarity was nice.
That being said, I think this was my least favorite of the series, and I don't think I'm saying that because it's been three years since I read the others (although maybe that is why). It was only a minimal drop in enjoyment. I still want to read the tenth book. I'm even more curious about it because it was published so many years after the ninth.
The ninth book was enjoyable and fun. I really did like it, and I think anyone who read and liked the first eight would get enjoyment out of this one too. I did. It's just that, if I were to rank the series, I'm not sure what order they would be in, but this one would likely come last for reasons that I can't quite place my finger on.
http://hmweasley-blog.blogspot.com/2016/05/book-review-starfighters-of-adumar-star.html
verkisto's review against another edition
3.0
The authors of this series are still prone to speechifying when writing dialogue, which makes it sounds more like a Heinlein novel than they probably want (for me, at least, that's a Bad Thing™), but I actually liked the premise of this novel. It veers away from the bigger issues, and focuses in on one planet and its people trying to decide whether to join with the New Republic or the remnants of the Empire. Allston creates an interesting honor system for the planet, and there are some intriguing things there to consider.
Most interesting to me was the first chapter, when Wedge and Qui break up. It happens so suddenly, without buildup, that it makes me wonder if Allston had different plans for Wedge when he was writing his books in the X-Wing series, and had to write a quick re-con to fix the changes Kevin J. Anderson brought to the character. I'd love to know if I'm right or wrong on that point.
Most interesting to me was the first chapter, when Wedge and Qui break up. It happens so suddenly, without buildup, that it makes me wonder if Allston had different plans for Wedge when he was writing his books in the X-Wing series, and had to write a quick re-con to fix the changes Kevin J. Anderson brought to the character. I'd love to know if I'm right or wrong on that point.
ferretbreeder's review against another edition
5.0
With all the plot escalation present in the books leading up to this one (which is fine!), it was nice to go back to Wedge, Tycho, Hobbie, and Janson and just a rip-roaring romping good time. This book was one of my favorites in the series and I'm very sad that it's over. But I can always just read it again!