Lit Books Rereading the Aftermath Trilogy

For some reason I’ve really been trying to sort out my feelings on the Aftermath trilogy lately. This could be a handy exercise.

 

The Contingency and Operation: Cinder specifically, makes even more sense knowing that Palpatine survived (albeit barely).

 

As one of the few fans who loved these books and had no issue with the Authors style, go for it!

 

I'm kind of impressed Sinny hasn't already done his reread.

 

I can’t follow you, Sinre, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on Mas Amedda and Rax, especially in light of TROS.

 

I hate Wendig's writing so refuse to reread book 1 but I have been hemming and hawing over listening to it (and relistening 2 and 3) for the past almost year. I just can't stand the writing. But I know it'll give me a more comprehensive understanding of the ST. So I may be on board

 

Didn't really like it. They basically took the OT heroes and made them barely a supporting cast. I have not problem with creating new characters but do not diminish the original heroes that way.

 

The Aftermath Trilogy or the Sequel Trilogy?

 

Both really.

The ST should have had better writing that handed off the story from the OT heroes to the new heroes as well.

 

I'd be game for this.

 

The Contingency overall is definitely helped, but I never had any issues with Operation: Cinder since it seemed like an “if I can’t have it no one can!” revenge move. Sheev is exactly the sort of spiteful gremlin who wanted the comfort of knowing that if he was killed, millions of people would pay for that insolence. It’s also kind of a cartoon version of Nazi end of war ideology, where there was a pretty prevalent strain of thought that if Germany couldn’t win it deserved to be wiped out, and that suicide was preferable to defeat (needless to say the linked Wiki article is a bit dark, so be forewarned).

 

I just love how people said that they KNOW that Palpatine is dead and how non one would form a cult for him.

 

I liked it and thought the side characters were interesting enough to see again like we did w/Cobb Vanth.

 

I'm reading this trilogy for the first time. Just started "Empire's End." The author's jarring first person narrative is really hard to slog through. I try turning it off by forcing my brain to read the pages in past tense instead. This is making it take a lot longer to read these books than it should take. That being said, I am enjoying the books. The characters are very solidly written. I enjoy Norra and Temmin. Mr. Bones is hilarious.

I was happy w/ "Life Debt" that Han and Leia showed up. With Leia firmly being preggers here, "The Princess and the Scoundrel" will fall before this trilogy.

You do get to see from the outset that Mon Mothma's view for the military was the key that allowed the First Order to become as strong as it did. I also like that from the beginning we see Leia butting heads with Mon over her idealistic views and Leia being willing to go around law to get things done. The former head of the Rebellion will always rebel. This also sets things up for the sequels.

I love, love, love Sinjir. The man is drunken, dashing, damaged, and dangerous.

Only a few chapters into "Empire's End" .... LUMPY! (Does this mean the "Star Wars Holiday Special" is now canon? )

Lol thank you, now that will forever be how I will view Palpatine

 

Yea, reading it w/all we know now it gives more context to all of it since it first came out as a "Journey to TFA" novel. It's a bit bittersweet as well. I do think those Interludes offer a lot of options. I mean look we got Cobb Vanth in both The Mandalorian and TBOBF. I forget all of them but some I do remember as being full of opportunity.

 

Although I like Olyphant's performance, IMO, Vanth is a more interesting character in the book trilogy than in The Mandalorian, being more anti-heroic and with more strategic thinking.

On the other hand, rip-off of the storyline from X-Wing series with Wedge, his love interest and her husband-Manchurian Agent ,IMO, is one of the strangest and weakest moments in the trilogy. But Rax by himself is a pretty good gender-bender version of Isard, masquerading as Thrawn-like figure.

 

With how murch important this book has been to the overall canon, cant wait to see what else they plug from this book and its indercludes. I read this trilogy many times since it first came out. I wonder if se could see the new version of CIS, and new Alderaan space station.

 

Btw, afaik Cinder is not even mentioned in this book (which seems jarring).

When I reread them in 2018, I found those books interesting, a sort of Dark Empire without Palpatine reborn (haha in retrospect). Curious how Palpatine's plans evolved in 2015-2019 from "let's destroy the whole Empire out of spite but some hardliners would manage to survive" (i.e. Shattered Empire's take, which seemed to me an interesting option and I thought at that time Snoke was some unrelated wise dark sider who profited from Palpatine's downfall) to "let's destroy everything and plan to rebuild the hardline Empire with the Eclipse" (the third Aftermath book and also somewhat the TLJ novelization) to fully blown Dark Empire.

 

Once I'm done with my current audiobook (who knows when that'll be; I travel less in the summer since I don't have to commute anywhere) I can listen to the audiobook of Aftermath.

 

You know, coming back to this thread just now, it's funny you bring this up because I thought this was one notable case of secondary/EU material distinctly undermining a film. For most viewers who cared either way, Wedge showing up at Exegol was a fun fanservice moment, particularly if they'd been aware of Denis Lawson's previous negative attitude towards making any sort of cameo in the ST. (I still think it's kind of funny that he didn't want to "show up just to deliver a few lines" or something like that, only to ultimately deliver one line, but OTOH I can see the difference between blasting TIEs and being one of a bunch of interchangeable Resistance exposition guys.) But my reaction seeing TROS for the first time was "wait, didn't your son-in-law just get vaped?"

Though on another level, I do think it was cool back in 2015 seeing the generally "god, this kid is annoying and full of himself" reaction towards Temmin on here turn around upon learning that he grew up to be an X-Wing ace himself.