Reviews Books The Fresh Mint-flavored JC Lit Reviews Special: A NEW DAWN (spoilers)

10 out of freaking 10.

We couldn't have had a better opening book for the new canon.

 

10/10
Great characters, great plot, kept me interested. Skelly was the best. Characters like Zaluna, Vidian, and Hera were amazing too. Kanan was a great protagonist and looking forward to seeing him again! Sloane was okay.

Spoiler

Do we need spoiler tags here? Also I am hoping we get more on Zaluna and her mystery planet... hoping it isn't Alderaan.

 

This is a terrific book. Just putting that out there in advance of any musings on the "new canon" discussion or lamenting the Legends decision or anything else. A New Dawn is a terrific, rollicking adventure in the classic Star Wars tradition, full of colorful characters, menacing villains, intrigue, romance, humor, the works. If anyone comes into this thread wondering if it's a worthwhile read since it's based on a "kid's show" and the inevitable drop-off point from the old novels to the new, here's your answer: Absolutely. Any feelings over the Schrodinger's Continuity state of the old EU material should not color or affect your decision to read this novel. It's not a masterpiece, not quite, but it's very, very close, a story worth your time regardless of how you ascribe to the novels old or new.

Down to the review.

John Jackson Miller's A New Dawn is a book based on an upcoming TV show, giving us a window into the past of two of the main character of Star Wars: Rebels: Hera Syndulla and Kanan Jarrus, material that (according to the show's writers) will not be covered in the show itself, only hinted at. JJM worked with the show's executive producers and with Lucasfilm's Story Group to craft a story that hit the beats outlined for the characters' pasts in the show's bible, while not laying out anything that would contradict future stories, and still be a complete, entertaining story all its own.

JJM handles these concerns with the deft hand of an experienced, thorough writer. His prose is simple, but crackles with wit and energy. His descriptors are easy to grasp and paint characters, settings and ambiance in broad, easy to imagine strokes. But the best work he does in this book is by far with the characters. Diving into the head of our heroes Hera or Kanan, of unbalanced explosive expert Skelly and Sullustian surveillance officer Zaluna, of the callous and efficient Count Vidian, and the professional Captain Sloane. This is a classic Star Wars cast, full of life and diverse as the GFFA allows, everyone with their own motivations, playing their own games for their own reasons until paths cross and worlds collide.

The plot is far from the galaxy-spanning conflicts one might expect for the first "fully canon" Star Wars novel. It's much more along the lines of Miller's Knight Errant or Kenobi novels, with a scope that can be measured in single systems or planets. Gorse, a remote mining world on the edge of Imperial Space, is tidal-locked and wrapped in a tumultuous orbital dance with its moon, Cynda. The Empire sends its foremost efficiency expert, the more-machine-than-man Count Vidian, who is modeled after Soviet Commissars and channels the worst of villains like General Grievous and Moff Trachta. An ambitious and cruel economist who specializes in promoting industry on the bodies of the workers given to run it, he is aided by Captain Rae Sloane, whose Star Destroyer Ultimatum is a prominent reminder throughout the story that, no matter what gains the rebels on Gorse make, the Empire still rules the planet, before, during and after the story is over.

The population of Gorse is made up of miners, living on the planet and commuting up to Cynda in shifts that rotate constantly. Kanan Jarrus is a careless, callous pilot who runs supplies of explosives from planetoid to planetoid in-between benders at the local pubs. He's also a former Jedi who's lived the last decade and some years drifting in and out of populated systems, forming no attachments and leaving no trace. Kanan has completely forgone all of the Jedi teachings he learned as a youngster in favor of living every day like it's his last.

Then he meets Hera.

Hera Syndulla is a stranger on Gorse, confident, capable, charismatic and compassionate. She is on Gorse to learn about Count Vidian, and sweeps across the planet, gathering a motley group in her wake to oppose Vidian's machinations. Conspiracy theorist Skelley, a veteran of the Clone Wars who lost his hand and much of his sanity, obsessed with the instability of Cynda and what the mining is doing to the moon's structure. Survelliance officer Zaluna Myder, who worked for the Republic and and Empire both and saw how her work was corrupted as one of her own workers was arrested and disappeared. And Kanan, who Hera knows is more than he appears.

The plot is too tangled to even sum up here. Suffice to say, as the characters all come together and interact, the stakes get higher and higher until the fate of the planet and everyone on it is in the hands of the rebels. It's far from a formal capital R Rebellion, their successes are limited and come at a terrific cost, and the planet remains in the hands of the Empire at the end of the story. But the ending is still a success both for the heroes and for John Jackson Miller, who crafts suspense and tension into something with relatively low stakes. Gorse is a small, dirty, insignificant mining planet whose one worthwhile export is a stability aid for Imperial-made turbolasers. But the reader becomes invested in this planet, in the beings living on it, in its fate and the fate of its moon. We want to see Vidian foiled, to see Kanan climb his way out of the pit he's thrown himself into, to see Hera rally support against the regime that callously crosses out lives if it means a mere percentile of efficiency increase.

This book delivers. A landmark well and truly established, and a worthy entry into the Star Wars canon. It's not a perfect novel, but it is fun and entertaining, smart and witty. A fast read even at over 300 pages, and easily slipping into both the old school and the new, it bridges the best of the Bantam-era feel of adventure with the character-based grit of the Del Ray books. It mixes political conspiracy twists and espionage with cowboy shootouts and brawling, speeder chases a la The French Connection dashed with Mission Impossible-style infiltration and bluffing. In other words, a mishmash of genres that spells out a story. A Star Wars story.

I'd give the book an 9/10, personally. It's not a perfect book, but it is one that I enjoyed. It isn't quite up to Kenobi's level for me, but it is very close. A very good read and very worthy first step into a larger world.

 

I'm going to give it a 9.5. I enjoyed the book a lot, but JJM has done better (not sure he will ever top Kenobi for me so he's really working against himself on these for my ratings). I think he gave us a really nice setup for the future of Star Wars and made me excited for Star Wars books again.

 

I've never reviewed a book here in the Lit forums, because others are always more capable of saying what I want to say with much more eloquence (I'm looking at you, Cynical_Ben ). But as A New Dawn is the first of the new, I've give it a shot.

As a consumer, I'm generally easy to please (or displease). I'll leave the nuts-and-bolts critiques to others, and use a few simple criteria.

1 - Did I enjoy the book? Aw hell ya! Very fun read, couldn't put it down, best SW book since...well, Kenobi JJM's cast of characters easily lived up to his own high standards, with not a weak link to be found. Gorse was a nothing planet, a bland place I'd never want to visit, let alone live. And yet, I cared. Cared about the people who were nothing more than numbers on some Imperial spreadsheet. Cared about the mining companies, big and small, that were treated like assets to be moved around willy-nilly. And the plot! It was the perfect mix of small scale and much larger implications. Even though the entire story centered around one planet and it's moon, you get a glimpse of what life is like in the Empire. What could have been, quite literally, the end of a world, was business as usual for the Empire. Which brings me to number two.

2 - Did the book do it's job? Absolutely. It did more than just give us the origin story of Rebels main protagonists, it set the stage for the show's setting. It showed us why Kanan, who just wanted to drift through life without bringing attention to himself, would get involved. We got to see Hera go from observer to participant, when she simply couldn't sit back and watch anymore. We see an Empire in absolute control, of everyone and everything, and isn't afraid to remind you of that fact. We're shown the cutthroat world of big business and political maneuvering, where people jockey for position in the Emperor's court. Star Destroyer captains whose loyalty is absolute, and for whom career advancement is the only thing that matters. We get a very clear picture of why people would do something as foolhardy as opposing the almighty Empire.

3 - Would I recommend it? Without a doubt, without hesitation. As a Star Wars fan, I loved every page. It didn't feel like NEU SW, it felt like SW. If there had been no reboot, this book would have fit right in with all the others on my shelf. As someone looking forward to watching Rebels, AND got the ball rolling and made two characters who were interesting in theory, interesting in reality. And if somebody new to SW asked me about it, I'd give them my copy. It sets up everything you need to know about the franchise (in this time period, anyway). If this book doesn't sell them on SW, I don't know what will.


Going with Jello's ratings criteria, I'll give it a 10/10 as well. This is what a Star Wars novel should be. Fun and well paced, serious without being dark, and tying into a kids show without feeling like it.


*The only book in recent memory I would rate better than this is Kenobi. But I give that an 11/10, so it's not really fair.*

 

Are there EU references in this? Is anything effectively recanonized?

More to the point, would it still fit with the Legends EU, or does it change anything rather explicitly?

I'd like to know how much of a brave new world we're truly looking at here.

 

The only thing it directly contradicts is Shatterpoint. Depa Billaba was Kanan's master, and she died in Order 66. Bending-over-backwards explanations aside, there's no way that they would trust crazy Depa Billaba with a Padawan even if she woke up from her coma. Hence: In the new canon, Depa and Barriss switched.

Oh, there's little references to things, too. Cortosis is mentioned, for one.

 

I knew about Depa. It's more the little things that interest me.

Whatever does survive will be nice to see still intact.

 

10/10

This book was basically everything I love about Star Wars and was a perfect way to start off the new canon. It felt like classic Star Wars, which is not an easy thing to pull off, yet JJM does it constantly. Rarely does a SW book just flow along so perfectly.

The heroes were awesome/interesting yet flawed, the villains were fascinating, there were a bunch of Besalisks, and the plot felt very localized but with very real galactic consequences. JJM got me to care about characters that I was very wary of, and made me excited about Rebels. I want to see more of Kanan and Hera now, and feel an interest and connection to them I didn't before. I hope that other characters from the book make eventual appearances on the show, because that would be amazing.

 

8.5

 

For the simple reason I never, at any point, lost interest in it:

10

For further comments, see the discussion thread, it's all there, well, for now.

 

I actually found this book rather dull. I didn't really care about any of the characters or the setting. I'll give it a 5/10.

 

Hmm… hmm…. I love the characters, witty dialog, great scene description and all as can be expected from any JJM story, but somehow this lacks the certain “je ne se qua” that gave the live to his other stories. It is still great by any means but sadly somehow the weakest JJM Star Wars written story.

Though by that it still gets a 9 from 10 from me

 

10 / 10

A New Dawn continues John Jackson Miller's run as an, if not the, MVP of the Star Wars line, and his strengths are in no way diminished--if anything, they're enhanced--by the novel's place at the beginning of the new canon. The original characters are interesting and three-dimensional in a way that's exceedingly rare in Star Wars publishing, and readers will be more excited than ever to follow main duo Kanan and Hera into their star turn on TV this fall. In this reviewer's opinion Miller is perhaps the most well-rounded novelist the Star Wars lineup has ever had--his humor, plotting, characterization, and pathos are on par with several of the franchise's best, and they ensure that his books will always have something for everyone.

 

Can I give it a 100/10? No?

Well, then 10/10 will have to suffice. Seriously, this book is just the best.

 

I give it 8/10. The story was good, but took a little too long to get going. We also could've been introduced to Hera sooner. That being said, I liked the characters. I'm excited to see where Rebels goes with Kanan and Hera and their crew, and I believe AND did a good job of introducing them to us. I hated Vidian (a good thing in this context) and liked the supporting characters of Zaluna and Skelly. I hope we see Zaluna at some point in the show and thought Vidian and Skelly's appropriate considering how Vidian had so damaged him. I think for what it was supposed to be and intended for, the book did a good job.

 

Um, Hera was introduced in the first chapter.

 

Hm, I'd say 9/10. I still don't care about the upcoming Rebels stuff that much, but its a John Jackson Miller book so that pretty much guarantees it'll be at least decent, and of course it turned out to be quite a good story.

Kanan is not bad as a protagonist, we've seen Jedi in hiding before but he wasn't quite far enough along to be a Jedi yet so he's adapted to wanderer life a bit better than usual. Hera is potentially interesting, though the book didn't cover her as much as it could have, but I understand that that's probably because the book is still only a prequel to the TV series. She was perhaps a bit too smart for her age (such as how she evaluated potential recruits, focusing on someone with the resolve and brains who could last the upcoming war), but its hard to tell for sure until we know more about her background

Skelly was crazy and earnest right up to the very end, and the Sullastan was one of those ordinary characters with a conscience swept up in the Empire. Sloane was ok as the mostly standard ambitious Imp officer, but Vidian was really good, and seems the most like one of JJM's original characters. Efficiency expert doesn't sound like much at first... until you remember the Empire's idea of efficiency is executing a few workers to motivate the rest to work faster, and Vidian runs with that idea. Brutal, blunt, cruel with efficiency as a convenient excuse. As well as a minor mystery with enough clues to lead to a proper reveal.

I don't love the book, and compared to Kenobi or the huge amount of world-building in Knight Errant it falls short, but its a very good start to the new EU. While I still miss the old, if JJM gets to write more books, the new can't be all that bad.