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Neil R. Coulter's Reviews > Resistance Reborn
Resistance Reborn (Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, #1)
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It's hard to root for the Resistance when they seem so consistently idiotic. And it's hard to root against the First Order when there is no logic to how politics and government work in the galaxy. How can the First Order rule the galaxy, but without an official government, and when it is staffed entirely by either hapless buffoons or mindlessly cruel officers? So little of the sequel-trilogy era makes sense.
The surprise of this book is that Rey is mostly silent and does nothing of importance. Resistance Reborn focuses instead on Poe, telling us every few pages that he is very handsome and has great hair. We also learn that Finn covers his heart with his hand a lot. Meanwhile, Leia dreams of eating sausages and "big fluffy biscuits" (76), and then says a lot of stuff about "hope," of course.
One could wish that Star Wars books were better.
The surprise of this book is that Rey is mostly silent and does nothing of importance. Resistance Reborn focuses instead on Poe, telling us every few pages that he is very handsome and has great hair. We also learn that Finn covers his heart with his hand a lot. Meanwhile, Leia dreams of eating sausages and "big fluffy biscuits" (76), and then says a lot of stuff about "hope," of course.
One could wish that Star Wars books were better.
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Silvana
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Nov 25, 2019 06:47AM
Ugh, this does not sound like a book I'd like to buy and read. Thanks for the review, Neil.
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No, definitely not worth buying. Best just to read a summary online, in case any of it makes any difference for Rise of Skywalker.
Wow! One day, perhaps I'll finish my tour through Legends and start on new Canon. But when I do, it's nice to know I'll have a few duds in the reading order so I can prepare myself to suffer through them.
So, not even the mention of sausages could save this installment then, Neil? :)
Oh my god. So aptly put. The problem with this new series is there is no stakes because there is no goal, just people fighting to fight.
Jojo wrote: "So, not even the mention of sausages could save this installment then, Neil? :)"Ah, but perhaps it's only the mention of a nice, hot breakfast that made this review two stars instead of one. ;)
Bernard wrote: "Wow! One day, perhaps I'll finish my tour through Legends and start on new Canon. But when I do, it's nice to know I'll have a few duds in the reading order so I can prepare myself to suffer throug..."
If you make it through the whole Legends, you owe it to yourself to read only the best of the new canon.
Andi wrote: "Oh my god. So aptly put. The problem with this new series is there is no stakes because there is no goal, just people fighting to fight."
After several years of new canon, it's worth asking why so many Star Wars books are so bad. I think the "everything's canon" restriction, at the same time as new movies and series are being made, has really hindered the writing potential. Authors aren't able to explore and be creative, because Lucasfilm has to steer them away from anything they might want to make movies about someday. Books can't overstep the bounds of upcoming movies that the authors haven't seen and don't know all the details about, so all they can do is try to safely connect dots from previous stories without moving forward at all. It's such a frustrating situation.
Hard to do when it's so poorly planned out in the movies! Makes one wish both the books and the movies were done better.
Sophie wrote: "Hard to do when it's so poorly planned out in the movies! Makes one wish both the books and the movies were done better."Yes, the make-it-up-as-we-go idea has turned out to be a really poor way to do storytelling and world-building. :(
"How can the First Order rule the galaxy, but without an official government, and when it is staffed entirely by either hapless buffoons or mindlessly cruel officers?"This is what I just cannot wrap my head around. I have a very low threshold when it comes to loving any form of Star Wars so it wouldn't take much to convince me that it works, I would have wholeheartedly believed an infiltration of the New Republic Senate, but they seem to just be a group that has offered itself up as an alternative form of government and started taking over planets. Also I cannot fathom where their monumental resources came from and it hurts this book when we are told to believe on several different worlds that the First Order is breathing down everyone's necks.
I wonder if the creators of the new movies (and related stories) were so keen to avoid another movie that's full of staid conversations about trade disputes that they deliberately avoided all political intrigue in favor of space battles. The problem with that approach is that the space battles are meaningless without at least some context. I find it hard to care about anything that happens in the sequel trilogy era, because the story seems to have no value as any kind of metaphor for the real world. That was part of the previous trilogies (even when sometimes handled in a ham-fisted way). What does the sequel trilogy say about us and our world?
The best times for the franchise were some 10-15 years ago, when DelRay worked with such talanted writers as Matthew Woodring Stover and James Luceno. And while Michael Reaves' novels gradually went from good to mediocre to bad, they still were worth reading. Nowadays it looks like we will never read another SW-story from people who know what they write about.
Sergey wrote: "The best times for the franchise were some 10-15 years ago, when DelRay worked with such talanted writers as Matthew Woodring Stover and James Luceno. And while Michael Reaves' novels gradually wen..."Luceno's two books in the new canon were quite good. And I really like Alexander Freed—he's the one current SW writer who seems to share my perspective on what SW should be.
Neil wrote: "Sergey wrote: "The best times for the franchise were some 10-15 years ago, when DelRay worked with such talanted writers as Matthew Woodring Stover and James Luceno. And while Michael Reaves' novel..."I've wondered if there were such restrictions since most of the new books are movie filler, or rarely explore new territory. Timothy Zahn did a nice job with Thrawn, and I liked the Aftermath series by Chuck Wendig. I really like Jame's Luceno's work, too. Too many of the current canon books either safely explore a familiar character's backstory (Solo, again) or fill in a time gap between movies with fluff. It's been pretty disappointing compared to twenty years ago, truly.
It's almost like real life, eh?
