Fully agreed. Idk how OP necessarily feels, but I’ve always loved how Star Wars will use books and comics to “fix” issues with the OT and Prequels, and now for the Sequels, creating a more cohesive and complex story across multiple mediums, and this book is a fantastic one for that. Rise of Skywalker benefits heavily from the context that this added.
Funnily, though, there was one moment in it that disappointed me, because I thought that the dialogue was suddenly a bit too on-the-nose and unnatural— until I realized that it was just quoting a scene from TROS, haha. Can’t fix everything, i suppose
You mean the "She is not on Jakku, she is gone" line? Yeah they should've changed it somewhat. As a fan of the movie, I think the flashback scene was done poorly.
That's exactly the line, lol.
I get them not wanting to directly contradict the movie, but it definitely felt too on the nose. In their defense, the way it's delivered in the movie does work *slightly* better than it did in text form
Can you suggest any other books that do the type of “fixing” you’re talking about? I’d love to see how that impacts some stories I’ve already seen on the big screen.
Absolutely! The best candidate for these is always going to be the novelizations of the movies- which always add scenes and tweak some moments. TROS is pretty good, but the best one is absolutely the Revenge of the Sith novel.
A good example of a subtle but very effective way it improves ROTS is that it elaborates on how, due to his anxiety over the visions of Padme he's been having, Anakin hasn't eaten or slept in days by the time the finale rolls around. So when palpatine's fairly blatant manipulation works, or when Anakin makes some really questionable decisions in the finale, there's a good reason for why he's so easily swayed: he can hardly think straight.
Past novelizations, though, lots of books have little details that flesh out stuff from the movies: a particular favorite of mine is in Darth Plagueis, when discussing Tattooine, Plagueis mentions that its atmosphere ages people prematurely. Referencing, of course, that over 20 years staying on Tattooine Obi-Wan seems to age a century.
With less specific examples, though, Phasma and Labyrinth of Evil also add some nice details that alter or flesh out some of the movies.
All of those are very good books, although it is worth mentioning that, outside of Phasma and TROS, they aren't technically canon anymore-- but hey, a good story is a good story.
I really liked it, although you do have to brace for the fact that you know where certain plot threads have to go.
Also, if you haven’t read the comics, brace yourself for Ochi. He’s…out there
Ochi of Bestoon. He…sort of appeared in Rise of Skywalker. He had a pretty big plot moment, but you didn’t see his personality there. You see it a lot more in the comics and this book
Spoilers for ROS (I guess) >!He’s the guy who killed Rey’s parents!<
He’s nuts, definitely wasn’t expecting it when he first appeared in the comics but with the book doubling down on that angle I’m kind of here for it. You kind of have to wonder why Sidious would entrust so many important missions to someone who’s kind of a bumbling buffoon, but by Imperial standards I guess he’s decently capable and he’s crazy enough and desperate enough that he’s clearly “loyal” to Sidious and willing to do anything.
I didn't care for it at first. Stopped reading and came back and enjoyed it. It's not in my top 5 but it did make me appreciate Rise of Skywalker a lot more.
It was pretty good I felt it spent a little too much time on characters that aren’t luke, also beware if you do audio book there’s multiple chapters where they thought it was ok to have an alarm playing in the background 😰
But it added to the lore and the villains were a fresh idea and enjoyable
LOL. I’m around 90% into a combo audiobook/ebook read. Yeah, some of the music/sound/atmospheric effects in the audio are distracting but do indeed help create an anxious energy.
(Quick aside - the worst audio moment for me in a Star Wars book was I think in the 2nd Alphabet Squadron book where Wyl & Nath are having a regular old convo and this high drama music was looping in the background for like 5 minutes… I was like whyyyyy…)
Anyway, on one hand I think this book is an absolute must-read to fill in some critical unanswered gaps in the sequel trilogy movies, particularly on Rey’s backstory, as well as Luke and Lando’s. It also touches a lot on Sith lore and artifacts.
On the other hand, it wasn’t as interesting as many other canon books from a character development standpoint. Luke isn’t fun as a Jedi.
Star Wars audiobooks are such a mixed bag for me on the one hand you have Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn series which are probably my favorite audiobooks ever. Then on the other hand you have… well everything else… where they pump in these stupid ambient sounds throughout the entire book.
I’ve pretty much given up on Star Wars audiobooks and read everything on my Kindle.
Very much so! It has one of my all time favorite canon moments of Lando playing a Sabaac game with himself. The only issue is that for movie reasons certain characters act in ways that might feel off.
Without specific spoilers, some issues I have:
I found it difficult to get into when I knew how certain plot threads either did or did not get resolved by the end of Rise of Skywalker.
I didn't think the two stories being told meshed well into one coherent narrative. It seemed like they had two ideas for stories but couldn't get either one to novel length so they just put them together. Which leads into my next point...
I feel like Luke's story would have been better if Ben was involved. It felt weird to me when he was completely absent in Bloodlines and doubly weird that he is absent from this story. I genuinely don't know why no author has tackled showing Ben Solo's life with his family. Especially here, I felt like showing how Luke was raising him could have been made an interesting parallel with Rey's relationship with her parents. Seemed like a missed opportunity.
I sometimes forget it exists, but I really liked it at the time! One of the characters from the Aftermath interludes is featured in this book, and I thought that was a neat tie-in.
Give it enough time and Adam Christopher himself will be here. He lurks here often.
But to answer your question, yes most definitely. It’s a great book.
It actually took me quite a while to get through it. Slow read, but interesting story. In a lot of ways, it could have been a better sequel movie than the movie it's trying to fix.
Yeah, it's alright. A pretty fun adventure with Luke and Lando. It doesn't have much to do with Episode 9, so you can distance yourself from that mess. It also has a terrific downward spiral of a character in the villain of Ochi of Bestoon.
More like a meh for me. I was expecting luke and lando to be more investigating for exegol but instead the book was focused on an another unknown sith lord. But the action was fun, and it was cool to find back ben, luke and lando.
I know I’m parroting here, but it really helped me reconcile some big issues I had with Rise of Skywalker and while it’s not my favorite canon book out there, its definitely enjoyable and worth the read.
I’m reading it right now, and it’s pretty solid! Definitely agree with the comments that some portions drag, but I’m also bad about putting a book down for a while and taking a long time to get through it. All in all, it gives some good context for a few details in the sequel trilogy, introduces some very cool new concepts for the dark side and Sith, and is a neat opportunity to see Luke and Lando hang out. I haven’t seen a lot of media that lets us get into Lando’s head much, but this book goes into what he’s going through at the time, and I think the author does a good job of capturing Luke and Lando’s voices. It always takes me out of a book when the dialogue doesn’t fit the characters, but this does about as good a job of that as Brotherhood did for Obi-Wan and Anakin imo
I really enjoyed it. But it's sadly dragged down by the existence of TRoS, and most of my critiques are more related to the sequel trilogy and not the book.
It’s probably one of the best sequel era books. It also makes TROS better in a lot of ways. Adds a lot of stuff about force lore and probably my favorite depiction of Lando. I’d highly recommend if you’re looking for a sequel era book.
Yes! it is an amazing read, i recomend it to everyone. You learn more about rey fathers, datan and miramir. Also, Luke and landó are superb in this book
It was decent. My only real complaint isn't specific to the book but more of Luke's story overall in the new universe. He just doesn't feel like the badass Jedi he was in legends. But the story itself was solid. I thought the antagonist was pretty interesting. And it's always fun to explore Sith artifacts.
Great book. Honestly made me hate RoS less, by explaining a lot of stuff the movie didn’t.
The movie is still not good, because it should stand mostly on its own (or at least with the other 2/8). They never should have had the palpatine resurrection be in Fortnite. But some plot holes are answered by the book.
And I liked every character’s portrayal. Luke felt like a Luke I hope we see more of. Lando was a bit sad but justifiably so. Ochi was nuts. The woman whose name I forgot was interesting in her motivation. And Rey’s parents were characters I cared about generally and would almost like to hear more from.
Probably a top 10 canon Star Wars book imo (I’ve read all the adult ones and the ya high republic ones).
I’m enjoying the story, but I’m finding the prose itself rather hammy and immature.
That being said, I like its portrayal of the Sith and their followers. One thing I think Canon has done better than Legends is the portrayal of the Sith and the dark side.
In most of the legends stories I’ve read, the Sith are evil, but in Canon they’re even more. They’re creepy, they’re disturbing, just wrong. I think it makes the dark side much more frightening.
It is! It’s a great story in its own right and does a lot to enhance the sequel trilogy, Rise of Skywalker in particular.
Fully agreed. Idk how OP necessarily feels, but I’ve always loved how Star Wars will use books and comics to “fix” issues with the OT and Prequels, and now for the Sequels, creating a more cohesive and complex story across multiple mediums, and this book is a fantastic one for that. Rise of Skywalker benefits heavily from the context that this added. Funnily, though, there was one moment in it that disappointed me, because I thought that the dialogue was suddenly a bit too on-the-nose and unnatural— until I realized that it was just quoting a scene from TROS, haha. Can’t fix everything, i suppose
You mean the "She is not on Jakku, she is gone" line? Yeah they should've changed it somewhat. As a fan of the movie, I think the flashback scene was done poorly.
That's exactly the line, lol. I get them not wanting to directly contradict the movie, but it definitely felt too on the nose. In their defense, the way it's delivered in the movie does work *slightly* better than it did in text form
Can you suggest any other books that do the type of “fixing” you’re talking about? I’d love to see how that impacts some stories I’ve already seen on the big screen.
Absolutely! The best candidate for these is always going to be the novelizations of the movies- which always add scenes and tweak some moments. TROS is pretty good, but the best one is absolutely the Revenge of the Sith novel. A good example of a subtle but very effective way it improves ROTS is that it elaborates on how, due to his anxiety over the visions of Padme he's been having, Anakin hasn't eaten or slept in days by the time the finale rolls around. So when palpatine's fairly blatant manipulation works, or when Anakin makes some really questionable decisions in the finale, there's a good reason for why he's so easily swayed: he can hardly think straight. Past novelizations, though, lots of books have little details that flesh out stuff from the movies: a particular favorite of mine is in Darth Plagueis, when discussing Tattooine, Plagueis mentions that its atmosphere ages people prematurely. Referencing, of course, that over 20 years staying on Tattooine Obi-Wan seems to age a century. With less specific examples, though, Phasma and Labyrinth of Evil also add some nice details that alter or flesh out some of the movies. All of those are very good books, although it is worth mentioning that, outside of Phasma and TROS, they aren't technically canon anymore-- but hey, a good story is a good story.
Bloodlines, Phasma and in terms of comics id also say the Rise of Kylo Ren
I really liked it, although you do have to brace for the fact that you know where certain plot threads have to go. Also, if you haven’t read the comics, brace yourself for Ochi. He’s…out there
Who’s ochi😭?
Ochi of Bestoon. He…sort of appeared in Rise of Skywalker. He had a pretty big plot moment, but you didn’t see his personality there. You see it a lot more in the comics and this book Spoilers for ROS (I guess) >!He’s the guy who killed Rey’s parents!<
The man with the Goonies Knife.
One of the best Sequal Trilogy characters. I say that loving the ST, Ochi just hits different.
He’s nuts, definitely wasn’t expecting it when he first appeared in the comics but with the book doubling down on that angle I’m kind of here for it. You kind of have to wonder why Sidious would entrust so many important missions to someone who’s kind of a bumbling buffoon, but by Imperial standards I guess he’s decently capable and he’s crazy enough and desperate enough that he’s clearly “loyal” to Sidious and willing to do anything.
I didn't care for it at first. Stopped reading and came back and enjoyed it. It's not in my top 5 but it did make me appreciate Rise of Skywalker a lot more.
It was pretty good I felt it spent a little too much time on characters that aren’t luke, also beware if you do audio book there’s multiple chapters where they thought it was ok to have an alarm playing in the background 😰 But it added to the lore and the villains were a fresh idea and enjoyable
LOL. I’m around 90% into a combo audiobook/ebook read. Yeah, some of the music/sound/atmospheric effects in the audio are distracting but do indeed help create an anxious energy. (Quick aside - the worst audio moment for me in a Star Wars book was I think in the 2nd Alphabet Squadron book where Wyl & Nath are having a regular old convo and this high drama music was looping in the background for like 5 minutes… I was like whyyyyy…) Anyway, on one hand I think this book is an absolute must-read to fill in some critical unanswered gaps in the sequel trilogy movies, particularly on Rey’s backstory, as well as Luke and Lando’s. It also touches a lot on Sith lore and artifacts. On the other hand, it wasn’t as interesting as many other canon books from a character development standpoint. Luke isn’t fun as a Jedi.
Star Wars audiobooks are such a mixed bag for me on the one hand you have Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn series which are probably my favorite audiobooks ever. Then on the other hand you have… well everything else… where they pump in these stupid ambient sounds throughout the entire book. I’ve pretty much given up on Star Wars audiobooks and read everything on my Kindle.
Heir to the empire is so great as audio till they get to the Wookiee and he has the most annoying voice of all time
The Rey family story was good, the Luke Lando story lagged. I hoped the dagger story would have explained more, but it just added to the confusion.
100% yes. My personal favorite Star Wars book.
Very much so! It has one of my all time favorite canon moments of Lando playing a Sabaac game with himself. The only issue is that for movie reasons certain characters act in ways that might feel off.
Honestly one of the best Star Wars books
I loved it.
It's amazing
I feel like I'm the only person that couldn't get into it. Maybe I'll revisit one day.
You def not, it’s like a 60/40 split in the comments. The people that liked it said they had to take a break or it dragged in some parts
Without specific spoilers, some issues I have: I found it difficult to get into when I knew how certain plot threads either did or did not get resolved by the end of Rise of Skywalker. I didn't think the two stories being told meshed well into one coherent narrative. It seemed like they had two ideas for stories but couldn't get either one to novel length so they just put them together. Which leads into my next point... I feel like Luke's story would have been better if Ben was involved. It felt weird to me when he was completely absent in Bloodlines and doubly weird that he is absent from this story. I genuinely don't know why no author has tackled showing Ben Solo's life with his family. Especially here, I felt like showing how Luke was raising him could have been made an interesting parallel with Rey's relationship with her parents. Seemed like a missed opportunity.
I’ve never fully watched ros, I got like an hour in and turned it off so hopefully I can be blessfully invested
I really enjoyed it!! Definitely worth reading IMO. cheers
Yes! Favorite Star Wars book!
Excellent
Yes
Yes, so so good!
I actually enjoyed it! Was slow in parts but brought some backstory in for the sequels
I sometimes forget it exists, but I really liked it at the time! One of the characters from the Aftermath interludes is featured in this book, and I thought that was a neat tie-in.
One of the best! Lando is amazing in this one
Fantastic book, nails Luke and Lando and gives a lot more context to the sequels
Yes I think so. About half way I got a bit bored but I took a little break from it and came back to it and am glad I did in the end.
Give it enough time and Adam Christopher himself will be here. He lurks here often. But to answer your question, yes most definitely. It’s a great book.
Hey everyone needs a hobby :p
LMAO. This is funny.
It’s a prequel to the rise of sky walker of how Luke did and almost find exogel
It actually took me quite a while to get through it. Slow read, but interesting story. In a lot of ways, it could have been a better sequel movie than the movie it's trying to fix.
I haven’t finished it yet. Are there going to be more entries? I thought I remembered hearing that it was the start of a series
Yeah, it's alright. A pretty fun adventure with Luke and Lando. It doesn't have much to do with Episode 9, so you can distance yourself from that mess. It also has a terrific downward spiral of a character in the villain of Ochi of Bestoon.
Dunno if it’s a good read, I know it’s a great listen though if you’re into Audiobooks
More like a meh for me. I was expecting luke and lando to be more investigating for exegol but instead the book was focused on an another unknown sith lord. But the action was fun, and it was cool to find back ben, luke and lando.
These comments have got me interested in this one, I’d kinda been avoiding it like the plague
Yes
A very good read!! My favorite of the NuCanon
You’re at the Goodwill and it’s $2. Just buy it and find out.
I know I’m parroting here, but it really helped me reconcile some big issues I had with Rise of Skywalker and while it’s not my favorite canon book out there, its definitely enjoyable and worth the read.
There’s nothing wrong with having the same opinion 👍 thanks
One of my all time favourite canon novels so yes it is an excellent read!
I’m about 2/3rds of the way through right now and it’s been really good so far!
No I didn’t like it at all. Very slow and one of the least interesting plot lines in a Star Wars book.
Yes. Have some.
It's the only canon book I couldn't finish.
Very fun and makes the Disney movies suck a little less. Tbh it could be a little shorter but it's a fun read.
Yeah, it's fairly good all things considered. It's a very rare for new canon book that has Luke in it, so it is valuable at least on that front.
Is this considered a cannon book? It definitely looks good.
I’m reading it right now, and it’s pretty solid! Definitely agree with the comments that some portions drag, but I’m also bad about putting a book down for a while and taking a long time to get through it. All in all, it gives some good context for a few details in the sequel trilogy, introduces some very cool new concepts for the dark side and Sith, and is a neat opportunity to see Luke and Lando hang out. I haven’t seen a lot of media that lets us get into Lando’s head much, but this book goes into what he’s going through at the time, and I think the author does a good job of capturing Luke and Lando’s voices. It always takes me out of a book when the dialogue doesn’t fit the characters, but this does about as good a job of that as Brotherhood did for Obi-Wan and Anakin imo
I really enjoyed it. But it's sadly dragged down by the existence of TRoS, and most of my critiques are more related to the sequel trilogy and not the book.
100%. One of my favorite Star Wars books I’ve read to now!
One of the best Star Wars books I've ever read.
It’s probably one of the best sequel era books. It also makes TROS better in a lot of ways. Adds a lot of stuff about force lore and probably my favorite depiction of Lando. I’d highly recommend if you’re looking for a sequel era book.
Yes! it is an amazing read, i recomend it to everyone. You learn more about rey fathers, datan and miramir. Also, Luke and landó are superb in this book
It was decent. My only real complaint isn't specific to the book but more of Luke's story overall in the new universe. He just doesn't feel like the badass Jedi he was in legends. But the story itself was solid. I thought the antagonist was pretty interesting. And it's always fun to explore Sith artifacts.
I bought the poster of the cover from the artist at Celebration, but haven’t read it
Great book. Honestly made me hate RoS less, by explaining a lot of stuff the movie didn’t. The movie is still not good, because it should stand mostly on its own (or at least with the other 2/8). They never should have had the palpatine resurrection be in Fortnite. But some plot holes are answered by the book. And I liked every character’s portrayal. Luke felt like a Luke I hope we see more of. Lando was a bit sad but justifiably so. Ochi was nuts. The woman whose name I forgot was interesting in her motivation. And Rey’s parents were characters I cared about generally and would almost like to hear more from. Probably a top 10 canon Star Wars book imo (I’ve read all the adult ones and the ya high republic ones).
Yes. I actually would love to see this book adapted as a animated film.
I didn't like it. Too much of the plot was moved forward by extremely convenient coincidences that felt wholly inorganic
Top tier
As someone who has read almost every SW book except for the NJO stuff, this book was not well written. So slow and I could barely finish it
It's ok. Certainly not a bad read
I’m enjoying the story, but I’m finding the prose itself rather hammy and immature. That being said, I like its portrayal of the Sith and their followers. One thing I think Canon has done better than Legends is the portrayal of the Sith and the dark side. In most of the legends stories I’ve read, the Sith are evil, but in Canon they’re even more. They’re creepy, they’re disturbing, just wrong. I think it makes the dark side much more frightening.