Books Alphabet Squadron by Alexander Freed

Agree with all of this and glad I'm not alone.

What confuses me is that Freed's writing in R1 didn't cause me these issues so it's not his style, perhaps it's just his scultping of a story that I struggle with. I had a lot of the same issues with Twilight Company.

 

Was there any suggestion that IT-0 actually served as a therapist for anyone other than those Caern Adan was personally interested in? The book outright tells us that he serves Adan and that they have a history together, so I doubt it’s a greater New Republic thing and more of a manipulation tactic by one guy. I’d dare say it’ll be expanded upon in the sequel.

 

Mind you, I wasn't even aware they were intelligent until this point or could speak. I just assumed they supplied the chemicals and shock.

 

Well, as far as I know only other one was G0-T0 from Knights of the Old Republic 2, though that’s Legends and not exactly “Imperial”.

 

Spoiler

In regards to Shadow Wing being destroyed: I understood it as just being the squadron that killed Nath's squadron. Because he was only fighting one or two of Shadow Wing's squadrons and he had Colonel Nuress pull up data on the squadrons present at that battle. Also she spoke of squadron surviveability with him so it didn't seem like the entire wing was killed. I bring this up because this is the second time I've heard this and I'm wondering if I missread the scene.

 

Spoiler

My interpretation of the scene is that Grandmother says most TIE pilots only last a year so that everyone who was part of the original Squadron either left (Devon, Yrika) or they were killed in the resulting chaos of the Galactic Civil War. Yes, all the ones he was actually after are dead but a larger issue is that he was always chasing a phantom.

Obviously, Devon is going to be the link to the old elite squadron.

 

Spoiler

but the whole context of that was Nath's squadron. She follows that by mentioning how when one pilot dies, the surviveability of the rest decreases. She then mentions how one of the pilots Nath was after died soon after the battle. She then mentions the rest of those specific piolets were killed off soon after. The whole context was that squadron so it seemed more likely she was just referring to them.

 

Yes, I get that. However, there's only three squadrons in a wing so I'm not sure that really changes the assumption we should make about the whole.

 

I'm pretty sure Shadow Wing has six squadrons though which means Nuress was only talking about 1 sixth to a third of the wing

 

And you think...

Spoiler

They're all fine?

Just checking.

 

Spoiler

Not all fine, but I think all dead may be assuming too much given the information we have.

 

Actually, this ties into something that the book used as a theme.

The entire time that Yrika is a pilot for the New Republic, she struggles with the differences between Imperial vs. Rebel ways. The Empire values squadrons and the New Republic values pilots. She LIKES being a disposable part of a system that if you die then you can get slotted in with someone of identical skill and performance who will behave perfectly uniform. She can't really deal with the independence or quirks of the squadron she's been asked to lead.
For me, the discovery about Shadow Wing is:

Spoiler

Shadow Wing has suffered heavy losses and its members have not only been replaced but probably repeatedly replaced with Yrika probably not knowing any member of the current squadron. Because the Empire just slots in new people as the brutal conditions of the war go. It's not really an equivalent to Rogue Squadron or Inferno Squad, it's just a bunch of Elite Mooks that when they die will be forgotten and replaced by more.
So my view is that while Shadow Squadron is still active, it's not the same people and that discovery is meaningful because it highlights how a literal dead end service to the Empire is.

 

Stopping in to say that I've been trying to get through this book since July, and I've enjoyed it, I'm just too busy to make time to read it often. But I do think this is probably Freed's best work yet.

And I know that if I had read this when I was 16, I would've eaten it up in a week. It really feels just like a Rogue/Wraith Squadron book. I hope at some point in the future, I can go through it again from start to finish and really invest myself in it.

 

Does it? It feels incredibly different to those not just in style but in plot - it's a slow burn not pulp action.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

 

This has been a slowburn for me. Up to Chapter 7 now but its been a slog. Very similar to Freed's Twilight Company, man I struggled with that but when it got going, it got going. In this, the team are now together and the last chapter was really good, so I am really excited about pressing onwards.

 

I've not been great with my reading this year but went through this book in under two weeks, I thought it was a very solid start to a trilogy, and I really liked the moral questions it posed about both the Empire and the Rebellion/New Republic. It's not my favorite new canon book by any means but provides a great jumping off point for the next two books, I really like Yrica, must know more about Kairos and dislike Adan, and the reveal at the end around a storyline that seemed pointless promises more turmoil for Yrica.

 

Have decided to set this aside for a couple of years and read when I have the set.

 

I like Adan. He has every reason to act the way he does in novel. And his past implies he is a really stupendous person.

 

Spoiler

To quote the dodgy Dambusters mockbuster 633 Squadron - "You can't kill a squadron."

I can see Tensent reacting pretty badly to a new squadron with the old number.

Also, we know that at least two Shadow Wing pilots listed as vaped on the official records - Krize and Quell - are very much out there. While Krize was certainly not flying at Trenchenovu, he may have been running the show from the carrier, and Quell may easily have been there (the fact that she's leading her squadron as an ordinary lieutenant implies that the command echelon has been gutted in short order; and now I'm thinking there's a significance in the way that Nuress stops in her tracks when she hits the name of the fourth pilot in that squadron - that name is specifically what makes the colonel's voice catch, which means that name is one that means a whole lot more to her than any of the others - and I suspect we already know that name, which the colonel never says aloud, and which Tensent never reads down far enough to see. Because that name is Yrica Quell).

At first sight, Alphabet Squadron seems to be a take on STAR WARS where there are few, if any, patterns and meanings - but the truth is, pretty much everyone is just looking the wrong way, and simply fails to see them...

And there, there is the colonel's answer too. She's asking the question in the wrong direction. Wow. Just wow.

Also, something else that sneaked up on me after reading this book:

Spoiler

That "propaganda vid" that Chass comes across is Rogue One.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Yeah, I'm gonna have to read the first one again when the second one comes out.