![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Reading Wrap-Up: February 2020
Mar. 1st, 2020 02:05 amThis is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone - Two enemy time traveling, dimension-hopping secret agents start an epistolary romance as they sabotage one another's campaigns. This book is definitely very beautiful and lyrical, but I also found it pretty predictable. The lyricism also felt like it got in its own way at times.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman - Another book about parallel-dimension-hopping secret agents, this one happens to be a librarian who steals books from other dimensions and hoards them in a library outside of space and time that is connected to all libraries in all dimensions, like Discworld's L-Space with an agenda. The main character, Irene, is sent to a magical steampunk London to retrieve a book of fairy tales. She teams up with an apprentice librarian with a secret and a Sherlock Holmes-esque Great Detective, and they have to outwit both a scheming fae and an evil rogue librarian who both want the book.
This book was fun. It's very trope-y, but self-aware. A lot of books about the magic of books (and stories about the magic of their storytelling medium in general) and get a little bit too far up their own ass, but this one struck a nice balance. It was kind of like The Parasol Protectorate series meets Doctor Who or Legends of Tomorrow. Also, I unironically love everything with dragons in it.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (reread) - I didn't really mean to reread this one, I just picked it up off the shelf intending to flip through a couple of scenes and then before I knew it I was 200 pages deep and felt I might as well finish it.
Star Wars: Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse - This book picks up shortly after the end of The Last Jedi (and after the end of the Poe comic series, as Black Squadron is still on the planet Ikkrukk where they saved the day in the final comic arc), and was part of the Journey to The Rise of Skywalker media campaign. The Resistance has been reduced to the handful of people evacuated on the Millennium Falcon and the five pilots of Black Squadron. They sent out a call for help to their allies, but none of them are responding. Leia gets word from a contact that this is because the First Order has been disappearing people with former Rebellion ties along with anyone who dares speak out against the First Order.
I really enjoyed this book, and it's been a long time since I could say that about one of the new Star Wars novels. (It feels like since they threw out the old EU the venn diagram of books I've enjoyed and books about characters I care about have barely touched). It's nice that they bothered to incorporate characters and plot threads from the other novels (Yendor & [spoiler character] from Bloodline, Norra Wexley from the Aftermath trilogy, and a couple of characters from the Battlefront II video game (which I haven't played, yet)). It's very Poe-centric, and Poe, Leia, and Wedge are the primary POV characters (along with a minor First Order villain).
I would have liked more Finn and Rey, they didn't get any POV sections at all and were barely present until the last third of the novel. Poe has gotten an entire comic run, this novel, and a third of Before The Awakening focused on him (and another YA novel coming out later this year), while they've only gotten a third of Before The Awakening each. There were also a couple of weird plot threads introduced early that went nowhere (the renegade TIE pilot from the prologue, whatever the situation was with Winshur's mother, unless the TIE pilot was supposed to be Winshur's mother?), as well as a couple of spots were the prose was kind of weak, but overall I still dug it.
Star Wars: Allegiance - written by Ethan Sacks, art by Luke Ross & Lee Loughridge. Another part of the Journey to The Rise of Skywalker, this comic's exact place in the timeline is ambiguous, at some point after Resistance Reborn but before The Rise of Skywalker. The Resistance is taking shelter on the garbage planet Anoat. Finn and Poe team up to find some weapons while Leia takes Rey and Rose to visit Mon Cala to ask for assistance and resources.
The Finn & Poe subplot is much better executed than the Rey, Rose, and Leia one. Rey's dialogue sounds nothing like her. Also, there is a lot of characters narrating their actions in a very weird way, and the art not quite matching up right or failing to show the full scene. It just felt kind of rushed and sloppy.
Star Wars: Han Solo (reread) - written by Marjorie Liu, art by Mark Brooks, Dexter Vines, Sonia Oback, & Matt Milla. Shortly after ANH Han goes undercover for the Rebellion in a prestigious interstellar race to retrieve a group of rebel spies, one of whom is probably a traitor. This is one of my favorite Star Wars comics of all time. The two plots (the race and the spies) are interesting and well paced, the characterization is on point, and the art is gorgeous.
-
Up next: I'm about half way through The Masked City (the next in the Invisible Library series), but I can feel myself heading back into my all Star Wars all the time mood, so I might give some of the novels I've bounced off of over the past two-ish years another go, namely Master & Apprentice and Thrawn: Alliances. I also picked up Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron by Alexander Freed. I really liked the Rogue One novelization by him, and Battlefront: Twilight Company is among my favorites of the new Expanded Universe (but sadly it's among the books that are not centered on any of the movie characters), so I'm optimistic about its quality.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman - Another book about parallel-dimension-hopping secret agents, this one happens to be a librarian who steals books from other dimensions and hoards them in a library outside of space and time that is connected to all libraries in all dimensions, like Discworld's L-Space with an agenda. The main character, Irene, is sent to a magical steampunk London to retrieve a book of fairy tales. She teams up with an apprentice librarian with a secret and a Sherlock Holmes-esque Great Detective, and they have to outwit both a scheming fae and an evil rogue librarian who both want the book.
This book was fun. It's very trope-y, but self-aware. A lot of books about the magic of books (and stories about the magic of their storytelling medium in general) and get a little bit too far up their own ass, but this one struck a nice balance. It was kind of like The Parasol Protectorate series meets Doctor Who or Legends of Tomorrow. Also, I unironically love everything with dragons in it.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (reread) - I didn't really mean to reread this one, I just picked it up off the shelf intending to flip through a couple of scenes and then before I knew it I was 200 pages deep and felt I might as well finish it.
Star Wars: Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse - This book picks up shortly after the end of The Last Jedi (and after the end of the Poe comic series, as Black Squadron is still on the planet Ikkrukk where they saved the day in the final comic arc), and was part of the Journey to The Rise of Skywalker media campaign. The Resistance has been reduced to the handful of people evacuated on the Millennium Falcon and the five pilots of Black Squadron. They sent out a call for help to their allies, but none of them are responding. Leia gets word from a contact that this is because the First Order has been disappearing people with former Rebellion ties along with anyone who dares speak out against the First Order.
I really enjoyed this book, and it's been a long time since I could say that about one of the new Star Wars novels. (It feels like since they threw out the old EU the venn diagram of books I've enjoyed and books about characters I care about have barely touched). It's nice that they bothered to incorporate characters and plot threads from the other novels (Yendor & [spoiler character] from Bloodline, Norra Wexley from the Aftermath trilogy, and a couple of characters from the Battlefront II video game (which I haven't played, yet)). It's very Poe-centric, and Poe, Leia, and Wedge are the primary POV characters (along with a minor First Order villain).
I would have liked more Finn and Rey, they didn't get any POV sections at all and were barely present until the last third of the novel. Poe has gotten an entire comic run, this novel, and a third of Before The Awakening focused on him (and another YA novel coming out later this year), while they've only gotten a third of Before The Awakening each. There were also a couple of weird plot threads introduced early that went nowhere (the renegade TIE pilot from the prologue, whatever the situation was with Winshur's mother, unless the TIE pilot was supposed to be Winshur's mother?), as well as a couple of spots were the prose was kind of weak, but overall I still dug it.
Star Wars: Allegiance - written by Ethan Sacks, art by Luke Ross & Lee Loughridge. Another part of the Journey to The Rise of Skywalker, this comic's exact place in the timeline is ambiguous, at some point after Resistance Reborn but before The Rise of Skywalker. The Resistance is taking shelter on the garbage planet Anoat. Finn and Poe team up to find some weapons while Leia takes Rey and Rose to visit Mon Cala to ask for assistance and resources.
The Finn & Poe subplot is much better executed than the Rey, Rose, and Leia one. Rey's dialogue sounds nothing like her. Also, there is a lot of characters narrating their actions in a very weird way, and the art not quite matching up right or failing to show the full scene. It just felt kind of rushed and sloppy.
Star Wars: Han Solo (reread) - written by Marjorie Liu, art by Mark Brooks, Dexter Vines, Sonia Oback, & Matt Milla. Shortly after ANH Han goes undercover for the Rebellion in a prestigious interstellar race to retrieve a group of rebel spies, one of whom is probably a traitor. This is one of my favorite Star Wars comics of all time. The two plots (the race and the spies) are interesting and well paced, the characterization is on point, and the art is gorgeous.
-
Up next: I'm about half way through The Masked City (the next in the Invisible Library series), but I can feel myself heading back into my all Star Wars all the time mood, so I might give some of the novels I've bounced off of over the past two-ish years another go, namely Master & Apprentice and Thrawn: Alliances. I also picked up Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron by Alexander Freed. I really liked the Rogue One novelization by him, and Battlefront: Twilight Company is among my favorites of the new Expanded Universe (but sadly it's among the books that are not centered on any of the movie characters), so I'm optimistic about its quality.
