Category: US - Alyce Caswell - Author

Alyce Caswell - Author

Stars but No Wars (Mostly)

11/11/2023

Implacable (The Lost Fleet: Outlander)
by Jack Campbell

John “Black Jack” Geary and his fleet are still in alien space and far from home. Theirs is an important mission, but not all non-human species wish them well - others seek to sabotage them by releasing new technology that will endanger the entire future of humanity. Geary doesn't want to disobey his orders or fire upon other Alliance ships, but now he might have to do just that.

A marked improvement over the previous book, though that was obviously suffering from its position as a bridge between two better parts of the series. Implacable delivers exactly what you want from a Geary book and fans will find nothing new or inventive here. And yet Campbell somehow manages to keep it all interesting. I've no idea how he does that. I'm sure I'd find Geary's adventures dull in the hands of another author.

No, Not THAT Last Jedi

8/11/2023

The Last Jedi (Star Wars Legends)
by Michael Reaves & Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

Jax Pavan's latest mission for Whiplash involves shuttling its leader from Coruscant to Dantooine. The Imperials are closing in on all rebellious activity and that's not the only problem Jax has: Darth Vader still wants the powerful item that Anakin gave to Jax for safe keeping, the pull of the Sith holocron is growing daily, and an ill-advised assassination plot is afoot. Will the last Jedi finally perish?

This is the conclusion I was looking for. Thank goodness. I am honestly in awe of Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. Her co-writer, Micheal Reaves - who originally started Jax's journey - did not give her an easy task. The Coruscant Nights books had an interesting concept (Coruscant done noir style), but the execution was horrendous and amateurish. Somehow Bohnhoff took a turd and polished it into a diamond.

Okay, sure, there are plot threads that might have continued had Disney not swooped in. But I doubt that we were ever going to get a better end to Jax's arc than this. The more generous length allowed for a more generous story - and the action finally left Coruscant which, in hindsight, seemed to have been the issue that was holding the preceding trilogy back.

Heck, I still enjoyed the Coruscant stuff because I like Pol Haus. And the Dathomir section was particularly good. In fact, it's awesome. The Courtship of Princess Leia is fun but always felt like a clumsy fit in the Legends canon after the prequel movies arrived. This book fixes that... sort of.

I'll be honest. The Last Jedi has some issues (what Star Wars story with this title doesn't? HahaHAHha ahem). But I don't care. I loved it.

And apparently I'm shallow, because I appreciate the fact that Jax looks hot on this cover (as opposed to ordinary and constipated as he is on his previous covers lol).

Expanded Universe Round-Up #24

4/11/2023

Last of the Jedi by Jude Watson

#1 - The Desperate Mission

I remember thinking, when I first read this book many years ago, that it must be some kind of sacrilege to have Obi-Wan leave his exile on Tatooine for any reason. Hah. And just this year I watched - and enjoyed - a TV show in which that very thing happened.

The setup for this series is a bit odd. Ferus will be the main character, but that's not evident here. It reads more like a vehicle for Obi-Wan. That weirdness aside, I like the darker edge that Jude Watson wields here - and the pacing is astonishingly good for a book aimed at younger readers. The cliffhanger ending has me reaching for the next instalment already.

#2 - Dark Warning

Watson is continuing a good storyline here, but the book itself suffers from being an obvious part two. It doesn't feel complete on its own and I recall other instalments in the series managing this just fine. I'll also miss Obi-Wan going forward.

#3 - Underworld

An exciting instalment that sees Ferus exploring the Jedi Temple post-Order 66. That was very interesting, but not as interesting as Ferus and co's journey through Coruscant's underworld. I'm not sure if what was described even fits the Legends canon, frankly. I just know that when I was younger, I loved stories that dealt with the planet's lower levels. I still enjoy them.

#4 - Death on Naboo

I'm frankly amazed at how much Watson managed to cram into this book and how much impact it had on me as an adult reader, given that it's intended for much younger eyes. There's some really good stuff here. A prison where people are forced to work in factory, for some mysterious project... well, it's such a great concept that it's also shown up in one of my favourite Disney canon shows. Ha! The chapters set on Naboo are the strongest and most intriguing.

#5 - A Tangled Web

A fun read that tended to stretched credulity at times. I was really pleased to see Astri again. Watson is a master at utilising fan favourites from her previous series. And apparently she's a master at creating characters I just love to hate (i.e. Bog and Sauro).

#6 - Return of the Dark Side

Witnessing Ferus' slide further along the dark path is oddly entertaining. I'm not usually a fan of endings where not everything is tied up, but Watson has done it so expertly so many times already that I found I couldn't be mad about this one. I am also appreciative that Vader sounds like Vader. Not all authors in the EU/Legends canon have managed this.

#7 - Secret Weapon

At the start of this book, I was SO prepared to write a review in which I complained about all the pages that were dedicated to characters who aren't Ferus. But Watson made it work. Brilliantly. The ending was all kinds of amazing, too. I'm now trying to decide between getting some sleep and finishing the series tonight lol

#8 - Against the Empire

Whoa. I loved these books when I was younger, but I'm still finding myself heavily invested in them. More than I used to be, if I'm honest - and you can find more details about that at the bottom of this review in a rambling draft that I wrote on 4 hours of sleep lol

Watson is juggling a lot of characters and plotlines here - and in such a short run of pages. She makes it look effortless. As for Ferus, damn. He is hurting so much and the fact that I can feel his pain in a kids' book, populated by writing that is deliberately less mature, indicates an incredible amount of skill on Watson's part.

Written approximately 15 minutes before I passed out in bed last night -

Not finished yet but I'm on page 30 and I'm like "Ferus is reacting like he lost a partner-partner, not a business partner - actually the word 'partner' is being emphasised a lot???". So I checked. Author confirmed. FERUS IS QUEER. FERUSSSSSS ISSSSS QUEEEEEER. I'm so excited. Watson just became even more awesome imo for stealthily writing a queer character into the EU canon, which was famously heteronormative. I mean, I don't like everything Disney has done post-acquisition, but damn at least we get openly queer characters in the books now.

I am crying rainbows rn. And also actual crying, because Ferus lost his HUSBAND. I'm seeing the whole series in an entirely new light.

#9 - Master of Deception

Watson is still delivering the goods in book 9, which is impressive. This time it's a trip to Alderaan and that means an appearance by Bail, a character I have always been fond of. Placing Leia in jeopardy in this time period is a great idea (narratively speaking!). Hmm. Interesting that some of the best bits of this series are also the best bits of certain recent TV shows...

#10 - Reckoning

Gosh. That was devastating. For me, it has always been the most inevitable and most logical way for Ferus' story to reach its conclusion (I'll choose to ignore his future appearances for the moment). But I have an utter disdain for memory wipes, since they're a lazy plot device that shouldn't be needed in the first place (i.e. you shouldn't write yourself into that particular corner). That character's fate aside, it's a solid ending to the series.

Third Time Unlucky

4/11/2023

Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force (Star Wars Legends)
by Michael Reaves

Jax Pavan and his - friends? helpers? investigators? - group of beings are dealing with guests, both invited and otherwise. One such guest brings a mission that might get them all killed: assassinate Emperor Palpatine. But it's hard to make a decision about this when a dangerously powerful Force-sensitive being appears on the streets. Jax Pavan is about to get up close and person with a Sith.

Reaves once again delivers the expected noir vibes and cliches, just as he did in second book, which makes me wonder what the heck happened with the first instalment. But I digress. Jax Pavan has been blandly two dimensional thus far, though he managed to seem semi-competent at times...alas, in Patterns of Force he becomes so frustratingly dense that I wanted to cut him in half and hurl both pieces down a reactor shaft.

The story itself... as the conclusion to a trilogy, it is woefully inadequate. I'm just as disgruntled today as I was when I first read this book. Frankly, I'm amazed that a 4th novel was ever greenlit - I can't actually remember much about it, so I'm hoping it provides some kind of closure. I'm not holding my breath.

EDIT: There's one Doctor Who reference that I'm aware of and at least one emordnilap (Mas Sarrih is clearly a nod to "Sam Harris" - whoever that is). I'm always reading character names backwards now. Emordnilaps are exhaustingly prevalent in the Legends books.

Marked Man

3/11/2023

Coruscant Nights II: Street of Shadows (Star Wars Legends)
by Michael Reaves

When a femme fatale comes to former Jedi Jax Pavan for help in getting her boss off Coruscant, he agrees - and then said boss ends up dead. The police would rather Jax stay out of it, but he's a got a job to do (and his time he's getting paid!). Now he has to figure out who would want to kill a beloved artist - and somehow do this while avoiding the assassin Darth Vader has sent after him.

The series has now flicked the noir switch - a whole book late. The first instalment delivered none of those promised vibes and that felt like false advertising to me (especially given how crappy it was). But now, finally, Jax gets to be a PI. And Reaves finally gives us a proper plot! I'm not impressed, just surprised. This was a successful attempt at replicating a pretty standard noir storyline. Another pleasant surprise? The usual references to other sci-fi franchises were more subtle this time, which made me appreciate them instead of being jerked out of the story (Doctor Who and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - such references have also been seen in previous Star Wars novels written/co-written by Reaves).

So that's the good. There's... still a lot of the bad. I'm not really sure if this story needed to be told - or, frankly, if Jax Pavan needed to have any books about him at all. Aurra Sing was underutilised. Typho felt superfluous. Darth Vader was annoyingly OOC (except for his reactions when he met Typho, so there's that at least). Female characters were so poorly written. I honestly wanted to scream.

Street of Shadows in a nutshell: a blatant self-insertion fantasy that features an average noir storyline.

Copy-Paste Knight

29/10/2023

Coruscant Nights I: Jedi Twilight (Star Wars Legends)
by Michael Reaves

The hunt is on. A droid containing vital information in its CPU is floating around in Coruscant's lower levels and everyone seems to want a piece of that action, including Black Sun and Darth Vader himself. Enter Jedi Knight Jax Pavan, who escaped Order 66 and has been working as a PI under his own name. He's also after the droid. But there's also a bunch of people after him.

I'm beginning to suspect that Michael Reaves wouldn't have known what a proper plot was had it bitten him on the butt. Perhaps the "characters lurching around in an aimless D&D campaign" schtick might've been acceptable once (narrator: it wasn't)...but to keep on repeating it over multiple books? Ugh. No, thanks. Oh and Jax Pavan is yet another Jedi who escaped Order 66? And he was ALSO a buddy of Anakin Skywalker's? Give me Ferus instead. At least Ferus feels like a real character - somehow Jax, in an adult novel compared to Ferus' MG/YA instalments, feels like a cluster of repetitive thoughts.

The comparison between Jax and Ferus is inevitable. Heck, the 4th book to feature Jax practically nicked the title of Ferus' series (before it in turn became the title of a Disney sequel movie lol). But I digress.

Jedi Twilight is not a good book. Actually, since my patience with Reaves has run out, I'm going to say that it is awful.

That's No Sequel, That's a Gap Filler

22/10/2023

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader (Star Wars Legends)
by James Luceno

Roan Shryne is like many other Jedi in the galaxy post-Order 66 - on the run and now pursued by something much more malevolent than the clone troopers that were loyal to Palpatine above the Order. Roan wants to hide and put it all in the past. His fellow Jedi want to find others who are in need of rescuing. But is there any point in being a Jedi when the Republic has fallen?

Uhh. For a book with Darth Vader's name in the title, it sure spends a lot of time focused on other characters. It's also more of a gap filler than a purported sequel. The comics that came out later did a much better job of covering this time period - and they made Darth Vader's transition into feared enforcer much more believable. To say I am disappointed is an understatement, especially since I know what Luceno is capable of writing.

False advertising aside, it's actually not a terrible story. Roan was an interesting character with a satisfying arc. And I'm always happy to "see" Bail Organa.

Attack of the Classic

21/10/2023

Kenobi (Star Wars Legends)
by John Jackson Miller

Obi-Wan Kenobi has arrived on Tatooine with the intent of watching over the infant Luke Skywalker. His other task is to remain hidden from the growing shadow of the Empire. But he is still a Jedi. So when he stumbles across a town and its people and its problems, he is drawn into a conflict that has been brewing for years. Can he get out of this mess and still keep his identity a secret?

John Jackson Miller is one of my favourite EU/Legends writers and for good reason. He understands the lore and he understands the fans. So I'm not surprised that Kenobi is a classic. It even surpasses the work he released earlier.

This is the kind of story that you can spend a long, luxurious afternoon inside. How can such a slow-paced book draw me in so fast and so deep? No idea. But somehow I reached the end caring very much about randoms I'll never read about in any other piece of media ever again. The best part? Obi-Wan sounds like Obi-Wan - not just that, he also sounds like Ben. Miller expertly handles the transition, or rather the start of it. I also appreciated the little references to Zayne Carrick and Kerra Holt.

I think it's obvious that this book is a favourite of mine.

Included in my paperback edition was the short story "Incognito". I actually read this recently in a Star Wars Insider anthology, but I was quite happy to read it again. It shows the sacrifices that two different beings must make for the safety of others under the New Order.

The Missing Developmental Edit

19/10/2023

The Last Love Song by Katie Holford

I received this ARC from Blackstone Publishing (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Mia Peters grew up in the same town that her famous mother, the singer Tori Rose, was always trying to leave - in fact, Tori never returned from her final tour. Mia doesn't really know what her mother was like, but she's about to. Tori Rose has gifted her a scavenger hunt for graduation and Mia only has one week to solve it before her best friend and crush, Britt, also leaves her behind to chase the music.

If you can manage to suspend your disbelief enough - and it is very hard at times - this is a cute, if unremarkable, YA read. I really liked the premise and some of the characters were interesting, if underdeveloped. The major issue is that we're supposed to believe that in a small town certain characters never crossed paths with Mia. Or that she wasn't able to find out her mother's cause of death from anyone in town or online (trust me, you could find this stuff on the Internet in 2006 and many articles from that period are still searchable now). Had these issues been smoothed out, I might have really enjoyed The Last Love Song.

Darth Shatterpoint

8/10/2023

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (novelisation)
by Matthew Stover

In a move that has shocked and demoralised the Republic, General Grievous has kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine - which is, of course, part of Darth Sidious' plot to reign supreme over the regime that will replace the Republic. Another vital piece in his game is Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi Knight with a secret: he is married to Senator Padmé Amidala. And his fear of losing her will change the galaxy forever.

I hated Stover's Clone Wars novel Shatterpoint, so it was with a grimace that I picked up this book. The fact that I found a birthday party invitation from June 2005 inside its pages was also not a good sign.

Turns out Stover does a better job when someone else is in charge of the story. His prose is decent, if a little weird at times. But there's waaaay too much introspection and random rambling. If it's an action scene, show me. Don't give me a character study. Unexpectedly, I must also add this criticism - don't use a transcript for a Big Showdown; write the damn scene, because this is a novel, not a published screenplay. What even was that?

Now, I don't mind references to the Clone Wars novels and other assorted media, though Stover seemed keen on constantly reminding me of Shatterpoint's existence. Ack. That said, I do think that his insights into Mace Windu did help explain more about how his actions represented the decline of the Jedi Order.

Since this was based off the screenplay, we get to experience scenes that were eventually cut. They made the timeline feel less compressed and as a result Anakin's conversion is more believable. And yeah, it would have been strange if Obi-Wan hadn't figured things out.

Hmm. I think I'll settle for saying that this is a good adaptation, but not a great one. Most of its strengths cannot be credited to the author.