Books Leia Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray

“May all those present bear witness!” Breha cried. “My daughter is hereby invested as crown princess, heir to the throne of Alderaan.”





http://annabcth.tumblr.com/

 

THAT IS RUDE

 

Having finished her latest fantastic entry into the Star Wars universe, I now present live footage of Claudia Gray and my emotions during the final chapters of Leia:

 

This thread is a nonstop emotional rollercoaster.

 

What sicko created this? I get the art, I get the design but come on, the line itself was a kick enough in the balls without anything more.

 

Kylo Ren during his Emo years.

 

Which he never grew out of.

 

I'm about halfway through it, and it is excellent as expected. Thoughts:

Spoiler

No elderly Wobani refugee, don't decide to stay on Alderaan, get out of there! And take that palace guard and his baby with you! Claudia Gray is great at causing tension by having the characters say seemingly innocuous things that we the readers know spell doom and gloom. Exhibit A: That chilling scene with Panaka. Also can I just say that I love how the New Canon has been using Saw Gerrara? Every time you need a rebel aligned character to do something shady, or a reminder that "he who fights monsters" should be careful not to become one, he's your man.

I noticed two parallels to Gray's other two Star Wars books. Just like in Lost Stars, that creep Tarkin is looking to mold some young minds. And if you thought those "Leia thinks her busy parents are ignoring her" scenes weren't heartbreaking enough, keep in mind in a few decades adult Leia will be so busy that she hardly ever gets to see Han or Ben.

Learning that Clone Wars reenactments exist (reenactments so elaborate they involve SCUBA gear no less) may be the greatest thing I've ever heard. And it raises so many questions! Kier mentions playing a clone. How does the side playing the droids dress for the part? He also mentions aquatic battles, would it be considered offensive for a human to play a Mon Calamari? Do they ever involve authentic vehicles that somehow "accidentally" wind up in the hands of the Rebellion? Do people cosplay as Jedi generals? If they do I bet the Empire disproves.

If I had any minor complaints (and rest assured, they're minor) it's these two things:
1) While mountain climbing the kids have devices that activate a shield in the event of a fall or a rock slide. In a franchise where so many people fall into bottomless pits, this seems like technology that could have come in handy a lot of times. Also realistically, the falling person should just smack into the shield like an unfortunate hamster in a hamster ball falling down the stairs.

2) Other than "the Empire is the bad guys", I'm not really sure what they're doing on Wobani or Naboo's moon. I understand the idea that they're using a legal loophole to seize control of the Wobani farmland, but why? Lothal has industry, Jedha has kyber crystals, and Jelucan has mineral wealth. So a stormtrooper presence to guard those assets while they ruin the planet makes sense. But they even say that soon Wobani will only be useful as a labor camp, so I'm not sure what the Empire actually gains from turning it into a wasteland and keeping everyone at gunpoint in a shanty town. Naboo's moon makes a bit more sense as there's a resource: the spice. I assume there are stormtroopers there because the Empire has nationalized the mining operation. But I don't see how the Major thinks the profit he can gain from selling the miners' safety equipment outweighs the benefit of having workers that are, you know, actually alive. I know, the Empire isn't very OSHA friendly, but usually that's when the workers are slaves or political prisoners, which doesn't seem to be the case here. (Otherwise he wouldn't let a Queen and a Princess anywhere near the place).

Fun Fact: I can see why people called Holdo Luna Lovegood, but no one's mentioned that the kid from Coruscant is basically a dark haired Draco Malfoy.

 

Oh Breha, if only you knew what was going to happen in a few years. It'd have probably made you smile.

 

Finished it! Loved it. Here are my long, rambling thoughts about it:

Spoiler

Like the Wobani and Onoam stuff I mentioned previously, some of the Empires actions against disident worlds seems a bit too cartoonish to me. But then again, this is the group that built the Death Star.

Holdo claims that teenagers fighting with their parents is an evolutionary response designed to get them to leave the house and reproduce. If she starts ranting about how dinosaurs died out because of their spines, I may have to conclude that Bill Jemas broke into Claudia Gray's house to make some edits.

When they're on Felucia, Leia describes a stripped fern as resembling a Togruta's horns. That's GOT to be a Shaak Ti reference.

Bail really needs to shore up his security, seeing as how he didn't know about Leia's first visit to their secret shipyard until she told him. Also, for some reason he decided to invite live musicians to his conspiracy banquet. They were Kitonaks, so I like to imagine one of them was Droopy McCool.

Never thought I'd see some dinner theater where Breha accuses Bail of having an affair with Mon Mothma. If that mental image wasn't freaky enough for you, shortly afterwards we witness two Quarren making out.

Love the Rebels having Clone Wars vessels. Speaking of which, I loved that brief section were we see a Clone Wars museum through the lens of Imperial propaganda. I'm currently catching up on the X-wing books I haven't read yet, and this part reminded me of the Endor museum exhibit in Wedge's Gamble.

Liked the line that the Rebellion has it's own challenges of Mind, Body, and Heart.

Nice use of the Chalhuddans, that was a Chekov's Gun I'd forgotten about.

The Imperial captain trying at the end trying to identify what system they'd been in based on ionization levels seemed weird. Since interstellar travel is so common, the only way that would make sense is if the star they picked for their rebel based had some special unique properties.

As a kid Leia watched a "scary holo about undead gundarks". Knowing how weird the Star Wars universe is, chances are that was based on a true story.

I love Bail's advice to Leia that sometimes you have to trick the Imperials watching you into thinking you're giving them good intel. If foreshadows how she'll lie about the location of the Rebel Base when Tarkin questions her.

Huh, Brunete Draco Malfoy turned out to not be so bad after all.

Ok, even if you're someone like me who reads spoiler tags, don't read this bit unless you want the ending spoiled for you.

Spoiler

Oh man, what a gut punch. I was expecting something to happen to Kier, but not like that. We've got a 3 course meal of tragedy here. First, that a naive young boy went off to rescue a Princess, only it didn't work out as well as it usually does in Star Wars. And to something so preventable no less! Second, that even after all they'd been through together, Kier was willing to sell out the Rebels to protect Alderaan. Third, the repeated theme throughout the book about how the Rebellion requires you to lie is paid off when Leia's last words to him are a lie. Damn that's good writing!. And of course, the final line of the book. *sniff*

 

Finished the audiobook in 2 days. Not bad at all.

Spoiler

Lots and Lots of references to the Prequels (Panaka being the biggest one and conveniently killed right after his conversation with the queen and Leia, Leia's costume looked the same as Padme's final costume in TPM, was it the same dress? and the Apprentice Legislature. The Clone Wars (Cad Bane taking senators hostage) Kier is basically a Clone Wars fan the museum, R1 (Krennic, Saw's Partisans) and Bloodline. loved Leia's relationship to her parents, her obvious sadness at thinking they're ignoring her and her memories of her childhood with them, I also liked her droid. Kier wasn't Han 2.0, he was just a nice guy who wanted to become a Historian, I knew something was going to happen to him in this book since we know who Leia is going to end up with but his death in literally the last 2 chapters of the book was just so rushed. He wanted to collect information on the rebel to sell them to the empire and save Alderaan, bomb explodes, he dies. The end. I can definitively see why everybody compare Holdo to Luna, they speak the same monotone and they keep making not-so-irrelevant comments and she loves astronomy, I wonder how different her portrayal in TLJ will be. Leia covered in mud during her pathfinding class on Chandrila was hilarious and she definitively (unconsciously) used the Force to save Kier on Felucia.

 

@AncientWhills

Spoiler

Kier's death was definitely sudden, but I don't know if I would say it was rushed. I think that just enough time was spent on it.

Yeah, I'm also curious as to how they'll handle Holdo in TLJ. Without the context from reading this book, if the general audience sees an important admiral in the Resistance speaking in non sequiturs and talking about astrology, there's a risk they might dismiss her as either crazy or a joke character.

 

One thing I really don't like about the new canon, and this book really highlights it, is how quick and easy travelling between planets is. Like if you feel like going to Alderaan for the night instead of Coruscant it's no problem you just go there, and you can fly back the next morning. It's really bugging me.

TFA did it as well, makes it seem like every trip through hyperspace takes like half an hour at most.

 

Well Alderaan and Coruscant are pretty close to each other. And other times Leia's trips take several hours.

I don't think this is strictly a New Canon thing either. Hyperspace travel times have always been inconsistent. One of the Jedi Apprentice books said it took 3 days to travel from Coruscant to Melida/Daan. I checked the Essential Atlas map: it's only one square away from Naboo. And in TPM after they solved the whole hyperdrive issue, it seems like they got to Coruscant fairly quickly.

Ships in Star Wars have always traveled at the Speed of Plot.

 

In this book it was more the quantity of back of forth that became grating. Coruscant, Alderaan, Coruscant, Somewhere else, Alderaan, over and again. Kind of ruined the whole point of having a whole galaxy as the setting. It made travel an irrelevant detail which I find one of the more interesting parts of these sorts of stories.

Granted it's hardly something new with SW, but the constant scene to scene planet-hopping really made the universe seem small.

 

The Core should remind us of Europe, many important and powerful countries in a small area of space. Given enough technology, you can be in another country in a matter of hours and be back home by the end of the day.

 

Yeah, pretty much. Travel times were a huge mess in the EU -- when we worked on the Atlas we tried to make them work for distances but discovered it was hopeless. It's not really a hill worth dying on at this point, IMHO.

 

I'm not asking for some magical, consistent measurement of travel times that matches an official atlas or anything. My complaint was really just regarding the constant back and forth in this particular novel. Just didn't sit right with me, personally.

Some of the older books EU were really cool where it could take weeks make a trip. TFA, and R1 to a lesser extent, make some trips through hyperspace look almost instantaneous, though I realise this could largely be a result of the specific cinematography.

But that's a different issue altogether

 

The Rogue One novelization extended a lot of the scenes. I think Jyn takes a nap on the ship at some point. (and the arguing Rebel leaders scene apparently lasted hours)



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

It's a non-issue. It would be a problem if they were making constant non-stop trips from Tatooine to Coruscant, but they're doing the equivalent of going between two states on the weekly, which is something a lot of businessmen and politicians do. I get what you're going for, but it's just a really poor example of it.

 

Note that even in Legends, the trip from Alderaan to Coruscant took 16 hours (per the WEG sourcebooks and the Behind the Magic CD).

 

Obviously anytime a character's hyperspace journey is faster than usual, it's just because they used a secret route that's quicker than the main one. Or because the shifting of objects in realspace is causing a bunch of anomalies in hyperspace. Or because a wizard Jedi did it.

 

Speed of Plight...

 

Wasn't there a war over hyperspace routes?
All it takes is mentioning using some wormhole to drastically reduce the time needed to go between systems in hyperspace and there you go!
Oh the Empire would clearly have those known routes under heavy guard as it allows them to react to any event even in the Outer Rim with frightening speed and of course Han knows some secret routes which is how the Falcon reached Cloud City with a backup hyperdrive?