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Lit Books Poe Dameron: Free Fall by Alex Segura

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Ancient Whills, Jan 29, 2020.

  1. sidv88

    sidv88 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 22, 2005
    Maybe this book can show all the gory details of spice with withdrawals, spice rage and addictions, etc. The cartels brutally torturing those in their way while Poe laughs about it with Zorii. Until Poe finds that the cartel's next victim for torture and forcible spice injection is his father, Kes Dameron. Whatever the details, just go for a full fledged dark drug story

    The Breaking Bad of Star Wars. Solo had a big opportunity to do this but failed.
     
  2. Triad Moons

    Triad Moons Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 14, 2020
    I'm really not a fan how the promo art has smoothed out the details of Oscar Isaac's nose.

    Isaac has said he only has but so much say in what he gets determine about his character and that he didn't know which direction his character would go Post-TFA ("he's a bit of a wild card" is how he described it). I'm going to assume that expanded beyond the subject of Poe's sexuality. Poe's background in TFA was unique because it was a collaboration between himself and the Story Group (I remember that being a big talking point in his interviews) after he asked if Poe could live. He spent the last couple years dying in movies before that.

    I'm not sure he was afforded the same luxury with TROS or TLJ, because none of the interviews I can remember about either film really mentions any kind of collaborative process about his character's trajectory. The fact that they're writing a whole book about "Hotheaded Spice Runner Poe" tells me this was probably a position the Story Group wasn't budging on even if he had the opportunity to argue against it.
     
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  3. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Nov 12, 2012
    yah considering they're making a whole book about it I don't think Poe's spice running background set off any particular red flags in LFL to the point where they wouldn't do it. Inside of the viewing audience for TROS, how many people outside of Star Wars nerds knows that running spice = drug running. Although it is coded as such, basically, in the scene.

    (What was that line that Kevin J Anderson had about when he established that spice was a drug in the Jedi Academy trilogy and got pushback from LFL so they had to kick it up to Lucas or something. "Han Solo isn't smuggling paprika!" And isn't there also a throwaway line where someone says Han wouldn't have run spice if he didn't know about it's medical healing abilities or something?)
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2020
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  4. FiveFireRings

    FiveFireRings Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 26, 2017
    The "spice" thing has always been iffy in SW, not helped by the fact that the spice itself was couple of different things in Legends, but we were kind of saddled with the ambivalence by Han being a known spice runner and also a Totally Nice Guy already, shooting first or not to the side. Like, if it were really like trafficking in heroin or something, there's not much chance of morally coming back from that so it de facto must not be "that bad", more like just moonshining during prohibition. But it's always been a little bit of a problem that since the grand scale good vs. evil thing is so stark, side issues like drug running, bounty hunting, lightly accepted societal bigotry and most puzzlingly slavery are all treated relatively lightly (although to TCW's credit it did good job of taking the slavery thing a little more seriously and making it a great and fairly sophisticated character point for Anakin).
     
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  5. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Yup - in Jedi Search


    Han clapped Lando on the shoulder. “What are you going to do with all that money? Still thinking of investing it in spice mining?”
    Lando came back to reality with a streak of defensiveness. “I hate to say this, but when Moruth Doole showed us around, I was rather impressed by the potential there. Spice has plenty of good uses, too - perfectly legitimate alternatives in psychological therapy, criminal investigation, communication with alien races, even artistic inspiration and entertainment. You knew that, Han, or you wouldn’t have run spice yourself in the old days.”
    “You’ve got a point, Lando.”
    But Lando’s imagination kept working on the problem. “I don’t see why the spice mines have to be run as some sort of slave-lord operation. A lot of that could be automated. Even if there are more of those energy spiders running around, we could just use super-cooled droids down in the deeper tunnels. No big investment. I don’t see what the problem is.”
     
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  6. Xander Vos

    Xander Vos Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 3, 2013
    I cringe seeing that timeline, it's such a concerted effort to bend over backwards to make everything fit in.

    Learning to fly his mum's ship at 6 lol.
     
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  7. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    That was said very early on - TFA tie-in material.
     
  8. Darth Corydon

    Darth Corydon Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2018
    that was established way before TROS ..... so no its not .
     
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  9. Xander Vos

    Xander Vos Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 3, 2013
    Did I say that the bending over backwards to make everything fit in was a new phenomenon?

    I'm merely suggesting that seeing it spelled out on paper makes it look all the more humorous.
     
  10. Darth Corydon

    Darth Corydon Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2018
    but it really doesn't
     
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  11. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Nov 12, 2012
    Hahaha that's quite the ... variable list of side effects. Criminal investigation and entertainment! Whatever it does I want it now. I Need a fix!!

    Communication with alien species, everyone just gets hopped up on spice and like, understand each other, man.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2020
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  12. Xander Vos

    Xander Vos Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 3, 2013
    Having someone learning to fly as a 6 year old in order to fit everything into his timeline? How about only serving in the NR military for a year before leaving for the Resistance? It's just.. eh. The ST era is preposterous because they had some fascination with squeezing everything into a tight timeline despite having no restrictions on said timeline.
     
  13. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Learning to fly as a six year old had nothing to do with "fitting everything into his timeline" - it had to do with the notion that, in Star Wars, kids can learn things early. Anakin learned to podrace even younger. Cassian learned insurrection - "I've been in this fight since I was six years old".



     
  14. Xander Vos

    Xander Vos Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 3, 2013
    Anakin was the Chosen One, and being involved in fighting since Cassian was a kid is very different to flying a highly complex ship. I'm not sure pro racers in the real world would be driving cars or even go-karts at that age (happy to stand corrected on that one).

    It seems to me that Poe has a lot of boxes to tick in his life and JJ has now thrown in another with this spice smuggler back story so everything is getting rather compressed.

    Anyway, don't want to derail more than we have, but it's all a bit silly to me, that's all.
     
  15. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    On the bright side, Poe's quite old when he begins at the Academy. It's common in Legends for Academy trainees to be in their late teens - yet Poe is 25 when he starts.
     
  16. Xander Vos

    Xander Vos Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 3, 2013
    Was the original idea that he was similarly young but it's been adjusted post-TROS? I was always under the impression he was basically in the NR navy since he was a teenager. Sort of like Gavin Darklighter et al.
     
  17. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Before The Awakening was the only NR Poe story, and it doesn't say much.

    His early learning to fly is portrayed as "being taken up on his mother's lap, with her giving him control of the stick for short periods".
     
  18. Noir Deux

    Noir Deux Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Oh, ok, wasn’t needed and there’s any burning questions about his vanilla past, but go off I guess, I mean what else could have been done from the ST characters if Rey and Finn were kids by then, and Kylo is having a small comic run.
     
  19. Chrissonofpear2

    Chrissonofpear2 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 25, 2020
    Yes, in essence, it does violate the intent of the Story Group, and the backstory established by Rucka and the comics. That said, people do often misspeak, and Zorii may never have thought much of the New Republic, or seen it as that different from the Alliance. Still, sort of Terrio's and Abram's own conceit, that.
    For all that, I am not against the idea of the story, and I do want to see Kijimi expanded, plus the Underworld situation expanded on post Endor (new Black Sun splinter? Red Key syndicate? Berserker Fleet in Hutt space, maybe?)
     
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  20. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    Final cover.
    [​IMG]
    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/h...-novel-pulls-back-curtain-poe-dameron-1293260
    Writer Alex Segura teases the backstory of the fan-favorite character played onscreen by Oscar Isaac.


    Poe Dameron fans are about to learn more about the hotshot pilot, including questions raised about his past in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The upcoming novel Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, will reveal more of the backstory of the fan-favorite character played onscreen by Oscar Isaac, and how he’s connected to Zorii Bliss, Keri Russell's Skywalker character.

    "

It’s an epic, action-packed crime novel in space. At least that’s what I was thinking about as I wrote it. Heists, double-crosses, space battles, surprises, and deadly odds," writer Alex Segura tells The Hollywood Reporter. "Just what you’d want to see in a Poe Dameron adventure… and if you left the theater after seeing The Rise of Skywalker with questions about Zorii Bliss, the Spice Runners of Kijimi, and many of the teases you saw on film, you can look forward to them being answered in the pages of the novel."

    THR can exclusively reveal artist Phil Noto’s cover artwork for the title, as well as pull back the curtain further in a conversation with Segura.

    How did you get involved with writing Star Wars? I know you're a fan, and you're also the man behind the Pete Fernandez novels and a lot of Archie Comics, but how did you end up crossing the streams on this project?

    It came together quickly, but the roots of the project have been around for a while, if that makes sense. I’ve known and been friends with [Lucasfilm Publishing creative director] Mike Siglain at Lucasfilm for a long time, dating back to our years at DC Comics — and we’d kept in touch. The news of my Pete series ending seemed to dovetail with us chatting again, and he asked if I’d ever consider doing some Star Wars, to which I immediately said yes! Because…of course.

    I was in the early moments of figuring out my next novel, and this came at the perfect time — it felt like a really natural next step. I've always loved sci-fi and Star Wars, and having the opportunity to not only play in that universe but bring the skills I honed in the mystery genre to a wider audience, well, that was impossible to pass up.

    To me, Poe feels like the ideal Star Wars character for you to handle, as he's the closest to one of your own characters, if that makes sense -- but what is he like to write? And what's it like being the writer who gets to fill in the blanks on one of the major characters of the new trilogy, especially coming on the heels of revelations from The Rise of Skywalker?



    Of the characters introduced in the new trilogy, I definitely felt the most drawn to Poe, especially with the details you learn in the comics by Charles Soule and in the prose novels by so many great authors like Greg Rucka. He's a hero, but he has a scoundrel side to him — a glint in his eye that tells you he's not afraid to cut corners or bend the rules to get what he needs. But he also has a heart, and he's loyal and driven. That's a lot!

    I always wondered what his story was — what made him this way. There’s just a lot of fertile ground to cover. Poe is a complicated person — and when we meet him in The Force Awakens, he’s such a defined, charismatic, and powerful presence — to have the chance to go back and fill the blanks and show how Poe came to be the man we meet on the big screen, well, that’s a huge honor and responsibility. It’s certainly not something I took lightly, and I did my best to immerse myself and revisit a lot of the source material. And, of course, I walked hand in hand with the great team at Lucasfilm and Disney Books, who were invaluable in terms of being a sounding board and making sure I had everything I needed.

    But to go back to your original question… Yes, Poe does feel like the kind of character who wouldn’t seem out of place in one of my crime novels. If there's a theme to my novels — even comics, like The Archies and The Black Ghost, and Lethal Lit, the podcast — it's the process of becoming something else, of achieving your destiny. The journey to establishing yourself. That made a task like this, where I’m basically revealing Poe Dameron’s origin story, feel very normal and while, yes, daunting, not completely alien.

    I just wanted to do justice by him and give readers a chance to meet an earlier, less defined version of Poe — but one that still retains all the things they’d easily recognize and root for. It’s clear from page one of the book that this is a Poe Dameron adventure, and a very important one that reveals not only details about him, but key characters in his life.

    

You're standing on the shoulders of giants when it comes to Poe; beyond JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson, his backstory to date includes contributions from Greg Rucka and Charles Soule, amongst others, as you pointed out. What kind of research did you do ahead of the project — and how much knowledge of that material do readers need before picking the book up?

    

I owe Greg and Charles a ton — I felt like I spent a lot of time in their heads, rereading their Poe-centric comics and prose work, not only to get the details right — but to get Poe’s voice, and the voices of so many of his key supporting cast, like his parents and L’ulo. I want someone to read this book and feel like it connects to everything else seamlessly, but also adds something new and unexpected.

    

In terms of research, I not only wanted to get the facts right, as it pertained to Poe, but I also wanted to make sure what I wrote felt like it belonged on the same shelf as books by people like Zoraida Cordova, Delilah Dawson, Greg Rucka, Rebecca Roanhorse, Alexander Freed, and Daniel Jose Older — books that take elements from the film canon and add and build on it to create a much larger, canonical tapestry.

    As someone who has a comics background, I'm blown away by Star Wars as a piece of pop culture — it’s a really impressive feat to create this expanded and layered universe through so many different mediums. Getting the chance to add a bit of my voice to it was a thrill. In short, I read/re-read a lot of Star Wars comics and books, and it was the best kind of research gig I could hope for, because it was truly a pleasure.

    

That said, I don’t think you need to do a lot of your own homework before you pick up this book. There are plenty of Easter Eggs and nods to the past, but they don’t slow down the narrative — if you only know Poe from the films and are curious about his beginnings, then you’ll be fine. It’s really meant to tell that tale of where Poe started and what defined him, what led him to become the Poe we’re more familiar with.

    

That’s a pretty good lead in to this, then: What can you tease about what happens in the book for fans, without giving the game away?

    

It’s an epic, action-packed crime novel in space. At least that’s what I was thinking about as I wrote it. Heists, double-crosses, space battles, surprises, and deadly odds. Just what you’d want to see in a Poe Dameron adventure… and if you left the theater after seeing The Rise of Skywalker with questions about Zorii Bliss, the Spice Runners of Kijimi, and many of the teases you saw on film, you can look forward to them being answered in the pages of the novel. Though I can’t promise new questions won’t be raised!

    ***

    Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall will be released Aug. 4.
     
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  21. sidv88

    sidv88 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 22, 2005
    Is a young adult novel really equipped to deal with this time in Poe's life? It's basically Poe involved in an underworld of drugs and uh, reproduction. Steamy bedroom scenes with Zorii enough to make Poe throw his entire old life away, spice junkies going into intense highs and life-threatening withdrawals, and beating up and killing "snitches" who inform the New Republic of the spice operations. Also brutally punishing anyone who comes in short or late on their spice shipments.

    And killing them would be if they're feeling merciful, they'll probably either forcefully inject them with spice to turn their enemies into junkies themselves, or otherwise leave them in a state that makes Rise of Skywalker's Palpatine look spry and healthy in comparison.

    If anything, this sounds like a novel that should be rated "For mature audiences only". It's like Breaking Bad in space.
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2020
  22. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    Young adult SW novels are no less "adult" than the "adult" novels so if the story is fit to be told anywhere there's no reason it can't be here. As far as sex scenes go I feel like there've actually been more of those in the YA thus far. Though come to think of it Poe is 16 at the start of the story so I wouldn't necessarily assume we're going there.
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2020
  23. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    Lost Stars has a sex scene or two, and half the book is Thane and Ciena realizing how hot each other is.

    Really, sid, it should be clear after 5 years of YA Star Wars books that this isn't a concern.
     
  24. sidv88

    sidv88 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 22, 2005
    Fair enough, I haven't really been keeping up on the New Canon YA novels.
     
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  25. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    Synopsis.
    https://books.disney.com/book/poe-dameron-free-fall/
    Learn more about the dashing hero from the new Star Wars films! Telling a story hinted at in The Rise of Skywalker….

    It’s been a few years since Poe’s mother passed away, and Poe and his father, who was a pilot for the Rebellion, have had more and more trouble connecting. Not sure what he wants to do with his life, teenage Poe runs away from home to find adventure, and to figure out what kind of man he is meant to be.
     
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