Reading Wrap-Up: March 2023 part I
Apr. 2nd, 2023 03:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
justanorthernlightStar Wars: The High Republic: The Rising Storm by Cavan Scott -
A year after the Great Hyperspace Disaster, the Republic prepares to put on a grand Fair to symbolize peace and unity, which Marchion Ro and the Nihil use as an opportunity to continue their plan to destroy the Jedi. Carnage (very predictably) ensues.
I was not really a fan of this one. Bell, one of the main Jedi characters from Light of the Jedi, was pushed way into the background (to the point where he spends a significant chunk of the story trying to cut himself off from the Force like Luke did in the sequels and it was mentioned approximately twice in 400 pages), and the Jedi who did get the spotlight (Stellan Gios and Elzar Mann) were an unfortunate combination of boring and annoying. I'm also just not a fan of Cavan Scott's writing style, which uses a lot of repetitive internal monologue wherein everyone is a "brute" or "villain" or "scum", etc, very short chapters (I did the math and the average was less than 5 pages per chapter), and characters who can't seem to have private conversations behind closed doors where their rivals can't overhear and interrupt them.
The book as a whole also felt like it did very little to push the overarching plot(s) forward very much. There were about 50 pages towards the end that circled things back around to the plot threads left hanging in Light of the Jedi, but the plot on Valo (the planet where the fair was being held) felt more like it was just an excuse for a 150 page action sequence (I want to call it almost like a Marvel movie end fight, lol). I'm hoping for a more interesting conclusion in The Fallen Star.
Star Wars: The High Republic: Race to Crashpoint Tower by Daniel José Older (middle grade) -
Set concurrently with The Rising Storm, Jedi padawan Ram Jomaram discovers the Nihil trying to sabotage a communications tower on Valo before the big attack. He gets a message offworld to Lula and Zeen from the Adventures comics, who are on a mission with Vernestra Rwoh to uncover what Marchion Ro wanted from Zeen's people at the start of that comic.
This book is mostly action, and the plot is a little bit more all over the place and less deep than A Test of Courage was, but it was decently entertaining. I'm very pleased to see a canonically nonbinary human character (Lula's master Kantam Sy) in a kids book, even if they didn't get a whole lot of page time. I have no idea where this fits in the timeline of the Adventures comic, though.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan (Nonfiction) -
Part history of science, part tour of the universe, 100% one of the most iconic & influential works of popular science ever written, I feel like there isn't much left to say about it. It's beautifully written and easy to follow.
There are a few points where science and society have (to an extent) marched on, such as the Dinosaur extinction being attributed to a suspected distant supernova instead of the asteroid collision. It's also very tangibly a product of the cold war, with a pressing fear of human extinction via nuclear war.
(This book has been on my TBR shelf since 2013, mostly because the copy I have is a very large size but floppy paperback that gets very awkward to hold for long periods of time.)
A year after the Great Hyperspace Disaster, the Republic prepares to put on a grand Fair to symbolize peace and unity, which Marchion Ro and the Nihil use as an opportunity to continue their plan to destroy the Jedi. Carnage (very predictably) ensues.
I was not really a fan of this one. Bell, one of the main Jedi characters from Light of the Jedi, was pushed way into the background (to the point where he spends a significant chunk of the story trying to cut himself off from the Force like Luke did in the sequels and it was mentioned approximately twice in 400 pages), and the Jedi who did get the spotlight (Stellan Gios and Elzar Mann) were an unfortunate combination of boring and annoying. I'm also just not a fan of Cavan Scott's writing style, which uses a lot of repetitive internal monologue wherein everyone is a "brute" or "villain" or "scum", etc, very short chapters (I did the math and the average was less than 5 pages per chapter), and characters who can't seem to have private conversations behind closed doors where their rivals can't overhear and interrupt them.
The book as a whole also felt like it did very little to push the overarching plot(s) forward very much. There were about 50 pages towards the end that circled things back around to the plot threads left hanging in Light of the Jedi, but the plot on Valo (the planet where the fair was being held) felt more like it was just an excuse for a 150 page action sequence (I want to call it almost like a Marvel movie end fight, lol). I'm hoping for a more interesting conclusion in The Fallen Star.
Star Wars: The High Republic: Race to Crashpoint Tower by Daniel José Older (middle grade) -
Set concurrently with The Rising Storm, Jedi padawan Ram Jomaram discovers the Nihil trying to sabotage a communications tower on Valo before the big attack. He gets a message offworld to Lula and Zeen from the Adventures comics, who are on a mission with Vernestra Rwoh to uncover what Marchion Ro wanted from Zeen's people at the start of that comic.
This book is mostly action, and the plot is a little bit more all over the place and less deep than A Test of Courage was, but it was decently entertaining. I'm very pleased to see a canonically nonbinary human character (Lula's master Kantam Sy) in a kids book, even if they didn't get a whole lot of page time. I have no idea where this fits in the timeline of the Adventures comic, though.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan (Nonfiction) -
Part history of science, part tour of the universe, 100% one of the most iconic & influential works of popular science ever written, I feel like there isn't much left to say about it. It's beautifully written and easy to follow.
There are a few points where science and society have (to an extent) marched on, such as the Dinosaur extinction being attributed to a suspected distant supernova instead of the asteroid collision. It's also very tangibly a product of the cold war, with a pressing fear of human extinction via nuclear war.
(This book has been on my TBR shelf since 2013, mostly because the copy I have is a very large size but floppy paperback that gets very awkward to hold for long periods of time.)
