Lit Books Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker novelization by Rae Carson

Agreed. And I'd even argue it about the ROTJ novelization too, as well-written as that was.

 

Yes! The RotJ novelisation is brilliant - it was the RotS novel before RotS. Doesn't get enough love.

 

What's the RoTJ novel like?

 

Beautiful prose.

For an example - the Vader unmask scene:

Spoiler

It was a face that had not seen itself in twenty years.
Vader saw his son crying, and knew it must have been at the horror of the face the boy beheld.
It intensified, momentarily, Vader's own sense of anguish—to his crimes, now, he added guilt at the imagined repugnance of his appearance. But then this brought him to mind of the way he used to look—striking, and grand, with a wry tilt to his brow that hinted of invincibility and took in all of life with a wink. Yes, that was how he'd looked once.
And this memory brought a wave of other memories with it. Memories of brotherhood, and home. His dear wife. The freedom of deep space. Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan, his friend ... and how that friendship had turned. Turned, he knew not how — but got injected, nonetheless, with some uncaring virulence that festered, until ... hold. These were memories he wanted none of, not now. Memories of molten lava, crawling up his back ... no.
This boy had pulled him from that pit—here, now, with this act. This boy was good.
The boy was good, and the boy had come from him - so there must have been good in him, too. He smiled up again at his son, and for the first time, loved him. And for the first time in many long years, loved himself again, as well.
Suddenly he smelled something — flared his nostrils, sniffed once more. Wildflowers, that was what it was. Just blooming; it must be spring.
And there was thunder — he cocked his head, strained his ears. Yes, spring thunder, for a spring rain. To make the flowers bloom.
Yes, there ... he felt a raindrop on his lips. He licked the delicate droplet… but wait, it wasn’t sweet water, it was salty, it was ... a teardrop.
He focused on Luke once again, and saw his son was crying. Yes, that was it, he was tasting his boy’s grief — because he looked so horrible; because he was so horrible.
But he wanted to make it all right for Luke, he wanted Luke to know he wasn’t really ugly like this, not deep inside, not all together. With a little self-deprecatory smile, he shook his head at Luke, explaining away the unsightly beast his son saw. “Luminous beings are we, Luke — not this crude matter.”
Luke shook his head, too — to tell his father it was all right, to dismiss the old man’s shame, to tell him nothing mattered now. And everything — but he couldn’t talk.
Vader spoke again, even weaker — almost inaudible. “Go, my son. Leave me.”

 

To quote myself from the General Questions thread:

The passage @Iron_lord shared is a perfect example of this kind of thing. As I say, in many ways it does what RotS did of really getting into the characters' heads years before Stover did it.

 

Reminds me of when someone said that the Prequels should have been Novels ;p

 

I think the radio plays are the better novelisations of the OT. If that makes sense.

 

That passage is incredible. Especially that description of Anakin... it fits. Particularly Anakin in TCW. And the wildflowers.... it makes you think of his picnic with Padme.

IG: @jedisufism

 

I really liked the TLJ one as well, it wasn't as good in retrospect in comparison but at the time I really enjoyed it.

 

So just to get some clarity because of theories going on in fandom

The Novel states that Palpatine already had a clone body ready to go by the time of Endor correct ?

 

Great!

That means that the creation of Snoke and Palp's Jr (Rey's Dad) is still in the nebulous timeline area.

Though I do wonder.

Could Palp's Jr come first and then theoretically Snoke come afterwards even further down the timeline. I mean Snoke only has to meet Ben Solo when he's Jedi Training and not necessarily when Ben is two years old.

 

I do have to wonder how long the Essence Transfer took. Was Palpatine waking up in a clone body while Luke was cremating Vader? Or did it take months or years for his spirit to arrive at Exegol. The novel isn’t completely specific, though the implication is that it’s instantaneous.

Certainly puts a different spin on things when you watch ROTJ. Knowing that Palpatine is actually alive, somewhere in the Unknown Regions.

 

I took it as he had bodies ready to go but they weren't perfected so as he's going down the shaft his mind goes instantaneously.

 

Has anyone listened to the audiobook?

Marc Thompson's voice for Kaz (and yes, I know it was only one line) has got to be the worst. I know Kaz is a goofy character with a high pitchy voice, but Thompson made him sound like the goofy janitors from Monster's Inc! It's insulting! Kaz does not sound like that at all, and even if he does, he still sounds serious and normal during serious or high-stress situations! And considering what happens right before Lando's fleet arrives and what happens after, it's really out of place!

And even goofy characters from the 90s to early 2000s sound serious/normal in serious or high stress situations!

Is that really how people see Kaz? I mean, I'll admit he's annoying, but...come on.

I just feel like it could turn people off even more from Star Wars Resistance and any comic or book related to the show (if there ever are any).

 

Kaz is human Jar Jar Binks

 

What a lovely passage. I was honestly moved by it... thanks for posting it!

 

it might have just been because he only has one line, so Marc just went with goofy voice, and they moved on.

 

I'm listening to the audio book of ROS now. I stopped reading Star Wars novels after the Disney re-set, and have only read a few in the new canon (TFA, TLJ, Ahsoka, 100 pages of the first High Republic novel.) I had a terrible experience reading TLJ - there were multiple typos and errors throughout - so I wasn't in a hurry to read the novelization of ROS, especially after the movie wasn't my favorite. I decided to give the audio book a try and I'm 26% into it now. The author transcribes the scenes from the movie exactly, with a few instances of getting inside the character's heads to give us a little more info. I applaud the author for attempting to explain some of the more ludicrous and nonsensical elements of the screenplay, but I'm not sure anything can be done about the plot. It is what it is.

I enjoy the sound effects and Marc Thompson does some decent impressions of the characters (Leia, Finn, Poe, Kylo.) His Rey isn't the best.

Lately, I've been warming to the idea of reading more of the new canon. I'm a fan of Thrawn, so if I do venture into the new canon more (most likely through audio books) I'll probably start with Zahn's Thrawn novels.

 

Yep. The new Zahn novels are great. IMO the weakest in canon is Thrawn Alliances. The thrawn ascendancy trilogy is IMO the best Star Wars trilogy period. (Although that might be biased it’s been over 6 years since I have read Bane and the original Thrawn trilogy.

 

Marc Thompson does a pretty great job with the Thrawn novels. I don’t particularly like the harsh German baroness voice he gives Ar’alani, but otherwise he manages to give another layer of personality to the characters in those books. The voice he gives Jixtus is ASMR worthy.

 

Oh that reminds me. There is an alien character I think in the second or third book that he gives the most grating voice ever. I think the characters name sounds like Nakarin

 

Nakirre, yeah.The cult-y secondary villain of the third book.

Thompson’s done a bit of work in anime, so he knows how to do some pretty wild voices. Though I’ve listened a couple of audiobooks that sort of do a compromise between a single narrator and a full cast, with a narrator doing the voice of the protagonist and the primary prose narration, another to do secondary characters and a third to do all the feminine voices. I’d love to see Star Wars adopt that approach, though I’m sure it’s probably cost-prohibitive.