Books STAR WARS: A NEW DAWN (September 2014)

Possible, but in that episode, a special focus seemed to be given to that girl at least three times: Once when she ran to Cham and he picked her up, once just before Cham started the teleconf call with Senator Taa, and once at the end.

It's as if the makers want us to pay particular attention to this child.

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I finished the novel this weekend, I'll have to be completely honest. I didn't think it was as good as many in here have suggested. It was very slow to begin with; though it did pick up towards the middle chapters. The only reason I wanted read it in the first place was to learn more about Hera's background; and it was very brief on the subject. Kanon's background was discussed on frequent occasion, and he's already got a full comic series.

 

The comic series was announced after the book was released, for what it's worth. I wouldn't hold that against the novel.

 

I think LF are saving Hera's backstory for rebels

 

Hera was too busy being bad-ass in AND to bother telling you her backstory.

Instead it was: I'm here, I'm cool, deal with it.

 

Unfortunately, that was the initial premise but it never occurred. I hope to actually see it!

 

You are talking like the show is already dead we are getting season 2 soon and I am pretty sure we will get touches of Heras background there.

 

Yeah, the coolest characters don't need a backstory. Like the Joker from Dark Knight...wait, bad example.

 

To be honest PCCV, I've never seen the need for an immediate backstory if the character is good enough to be able to convey what they're about to the audience without it. I'd say Hera qualifies in this respect.

 

I hope you're right. I like Hera.

If nothing else, they could at least give a little more to her upbringing; being Cham Syndulla's daughter is an interesting story in it of itself.

 

It is, but is it a story A New Dawn should have had to tell given everything else it had to do?

One of the great things about a franchise, when it's well-run, is what one story can't do another gets to and it all links up neatly. Which is why I like what Lords of the Sith does, it lets the reader who has read AND notice the little connections.

 

Well that's like saying I didn't like Jurassic World because the only reason I watched it in the first place was to learn more about Alan Grant's background. That was never promised or implied. I've always summarized it as the story of how Kanan and Hera first meet. That's it and AND delivers on that.

 

We were lucky we got Kanan's origin, they weren't going to spoil us with hera's too

 

I'll take it for what it's worth then. I didn't buy the book (only borrowed it from my local library). So I'm not in the authority to complain about it. I'm hoping to do the same with "Dark Disciple"; yet my library has been giving me issues trying to get the book back on the shelves as some moron has it overdue.

 

Looks like the new stories coming out in the Rise of the Empire paperback next month are going to be interesting, and all three look to be closely tied to AND. A Hera story, Admiral Rae Sloane commanding at the Battle of Endor, and...Vidian vs. Tarkin. Very cool

EDIT: Next month is not October. Yes, I have a calendar, I just don't use it...

 

More Hera, more JJM, more Sloane, more Jason Fry! This is win on so many fronts!

 

I'm still on the fence on checking this out..

 

Why?

 

I'll definitely read them somehow but I'm also not buying a bind-up of two books I already own just for 3 short stories, even if they are longer than Insider stories. Hopefully they have an anthology of short stories one day.

 

Personal reasons about not liking any of the characters. Other than seeing how Hera's/Kanan's relationship started off before Rebes, I don't see much of a reason to check the book out for me at least.

 

Ah, missed that you were referring to the 3 short stories.

 

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2015/12/star-wars-new-dawn-review.html

I’m a big fan of Star Wars: Rebels despite it being aimed at an age range younger than the original Star Wars. It’s a happy, peppy, and fun series which I find immensely entertaining. I’m also a fan of John Jackson Miller’s work on Knights of the Old Republic. I wasn’t quite as much of a fan of his work with Knight Errant but I still enjoyed all the world-building he did and I’m sorry we never got to follow that up to its conclusion. So, I was very excited about the possibility of a novel following the adventures of the two adult main characters of the Rebels series in a more serious novel.

So, what did I think?

Eh, it’s okay.

The premise of the book is Kanan, surviving padawan of the Jedi Order, has become nothing more than a lonesome drifter who currently hauls ore in the butt end of the galaxy. When the Emperor’s efficiency expert, Count Vividan, comes to his world of Gorse and starts upending things—he decides it’s probably a good idea to get out of town. This plan is derailed by Twilek resistance fighter Hera Syndulla, who has come to Gorse in order to see if there’s some mischief to be made for the Empire. With a half-mad Clone Wars veteran predicting the planet is going to explode, the pair have to figure out how to stop Count Vidian and his plan to make trillions out of millions through human suffering.

The book occupies a weird place for me because it goes to elaborate lengths to make Gorse feel like a “real” place. People are primarily concerned with their jobs, their position, and ambivalent to politics. They all fit into comfortable real-life archetypes of “conspiracy theorist veteran”, “security guard”, and “blue collar worker” without much difficulty.Then you introduce Count Vidian who is a cyborg with a pasted-on human face who wears nothing but black and cackles as he pushes a woman into an acid bath in front of her husband for questioning his orders. There’s some serious dissonance between the realism and comic book melodrama here.

I tend to think of Star Wars existing in a kind of hyper-stylized reality where everything is bigger, more grandiose, and more operatic. Count Vidian’s plan to blow up the planet in order to harvest all of its ore at once, which only happens because of Skelly making it possible, is suitably crazy and over-the-top but clashes with the realism which exists everywhere else. It’s like if the Death Star was hovering right outside Tatooine and instead of the Rebel Alliance it’s Biggs, Tank, and Luke out to blow it up.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this book. I think it’s far better than the majority of the Legends universe and we get a bunch of insight into both Rebels protagonists. They’re recognizably the same ones from the show but they are allowed to be far more “adult” in both action as well as deed. I also appreciate the increased diversity in the book as we see a lot more female Imperials and a sense of a wider, more interesting universe than the somewhat 70s-esque one of previous stories.

I give credit to the book for the handling of Kanan who is a character at a transitional portion of his life. He's trying to settle into something resembling a normal life but can't quite make the jump from Jedi to "ordinary Muggle in the galaxy." He's still too much of a rogue and do-gooder to do so and it always leaves him on the run. We get to find him make the start of his change to the heroic rebel in the television series here even as we understand why it'll be a bitter pill for him to swallow when he finally joins the Alliance. Hera doesn't get the same level of development but I still got the impression of a strong and intelligent character out to make things better for the people of the galaxy but cynical enough to know that's not going to be easy.

I give credit to the book for managing to maintain a witty and well-paced storyline throughout. The world-building for the star system is well-done and you really get to know the planet Gorse well before everything goes to hell. It reminds me of the planet Goroth from Goroth: Slave of the Empire, a West End Games Star Wars the RPG supplement about an Imperial mining world which your heroes have to liberate.

In conclusion, this isn’t my favorite Star Wars novel but it’s a good one. If you like the Rebels cartoon then you’re probably going to like this despite their differences.

7.5/10