SPOILER "Aftermath: Empire's End" By Chuck Wendig (Discussion)

Have you just assumed his gender?!

 

Whoops. That's what I get for writing that response in two minutes. Obviously I meant offspring.

 

I thought this entire 3 book series was great!
Bones was the best. I wish he would have survived.
Sinjir's an interesting character.
Norra and Sloane are just a couple of bad-asses.
I really want to know where they are going with Cobb Vanth. Good guy, bad guy, just a normal dude?

After reading the excerpt from Thrawn, I'm sure we will get more info about the Unknown Regions. Can't wait.

 

Same here, looking forward to finding out more regarding Palpatine's plan and what drew him to the Unknown Regions in the first place.

 

Overall, my thoughts on Empire's End are that it's a bit of a mixed bag. After the adrenaline rush ending of Life Debt, featuring the showdown between Norra vs. Sloane, I expected this book to pick up the thread of that plot and carry it forward to its conclusion. Which it did. Eventually.

My biggest nitpick about this book would be having the crew of the Moth discovering the Imperial fleet at Jakku right away. It set up approximately 200 pages of pretty well wasted "filler" story. That Sloane, Brextin, Jas and Norra all had clashes with this on particular Hutt gangster smacked too much of convenience, to say nothing of the fact that that section of the story really accomplished nothing other than to fill pages. I don't think there was anything particularly earth shattering revealed about any of the four protagonists that were stranded on Jakku. Sloane and Norra were both on mirroring questions for vengeance, Brentin on one for redemption, and Jas was there out of loyalty to a friend. That sums up that whole arc in a nutshell. That it was dragged out for so long was really quite infuriating.

That was my biggest gripe with Empire's End, and it's a similar gripe I've had with Star Wars: Rebels - when that show feels like buckling down and telling a story related to its arc and the overall path the characters are taking, it makes excellent TV. When it gets bogged down with the pointless one-off "filler" episodes, it's boring at best and poorly written at the worst. That was how I felt about the majority of the excursion to Jakku.

My other gripe, which I will get out of the way before getting to what I liked, was that Chuck Wendig's breadcrumb trails with respect to certain larger reveals yielded very disappointing results. First and foremost, the purpose of Jakku to the Emperor's scheming. What once seemed like a crucial, perhaps mystical role of great import that the planet had to play gave way to an all too familiar plot, where the planet was just a trap set to blow everybody to pieces so the Emperor could give the Republic one last big middle finger. All of the mystique of why the Emperor was digging deep into a backwater planet like Jakku was eradicated with that reveal. "Oh jeez, there goes Palpatine again making more planet explodey things. How original". Similarly, the reveal that it was the crime syndicates manipulating the Senate votes was a bit of a let down. I was reminded of Scream 2, of all things, where the killer ended up being a character who had had precisely 4 minutes of screen time. Sure, it was unexpected, but the big reveal felt subsequently un-earned - "well who the heck WOULD have thought that, movie?". That was the case in Empire's End - the crime syndicates were mentioned off-handedly in the story - not even referenced by a character, that I can recall - and suddenly they were front and center in a plot to manipulate the Galactic Senate. Wendig, it seems, has some trouble building towards big reveals and having them pay off in satisfying fashion.

Now, to what I liked - as with the previous two novels, the characters became quite near and dear to me. While I did feel that Wendig could well have trimmed out some of the more familiar heroes (I didn't find Leia and Han to be particularly important to the story at all), most everyone had a chance to shine here. Sinjir Rath Velus was the shining MVP of Empire's End, from where I sat, as the chapters he was in were the easy high points of the book. His dialogue was peppered with cutting wit, and I've long felt he has had the most well developed character arc of any of the group. I admit I thought he was going to die heading into this book, given his realization that he had a talent for doing bad things to get good results at the end of Life Debt, but rather than re-treading old ground we saw him develop further once more, and land himself a substantial role in the fledgling New Republic, no less.

The second best character in this whole trilogy to me was Rae Sloane. Stripped down to nothing but her Imperial sense of honor, it was immensely satisfying to see her get to Gallius Rax in the manner that she did. Her story ended up mirroring Norra's in that they were both on a quest for bloody vengeance, and they didn't realize until quite late in the game that their target really ought to be the same person. I'll admit again that Rax's grand plan (let's kill everyone and start over) was a bit of a letdown, but the backstory that was fleshed out for the character at least made this revelation feel earned, and it made Sloane's decision at the end to venture off into the Unknown, to try to reclaim and rebuild her Empire, make narrative sense given everything we have come to know about her. Any thing other than selfless sacrifice in the name of the Empire would have felt completely out of character for Sloane, the spouse-less, child-less, family-less Imperial lifer.

The two characters I felt unfortunately spun their wheels were Jas and Temmin. Jas was a character with enormous potential at the outset, but she remained largely unchanged throughout the series - which I suppose you need to have given the radical changes that occurred within characters like Norra and Sinjir. Jas also suffered from being stuck in the "excitement black hole" that was the Jakku storyline for the first two thirds of the book. As for Temmin...I still struggle greatly to see much trace of the character of Snap Wexley we came to see in The Force Awakens. While I found Temmin to be the most lamentable character ever put to SW Canon page in the first Aftermath novel, he's downgraded himself to more teeth-grating than actively infuriating. While his despair was understandable, his petulant tantrums at any and all figures of authority were covering old ground once more. And the less said about Mr. Deus-Ex-Machina, the better - other than that he died. May he rest in pieces.

The one area Wendig shines greatly as an author is when he is writing action - so when the book finally got off its duff and commenced well and truly to the battle of Jakku, it took off once more. The final conflicts were spell-binding, I knew a true moment of sadness for Agate, Brentin and Jom, and the battle was convincingly played out...if a little rushed. The book made a point of noting the battle raged for months after, yet I think the true and proper battle lasted less than 100 pages? Maybe even less than that. But that's a minor gripe, as the bits of the battle we did see were excellent.

The "B" story, the Galactic interludes, also served to be quite interesting once more, even if I am left wondering exactly how many of them will end up being important in the overall new-canon. In the first Aftermath, I found the Interludes served a true narrative purpose - showing the state of the galaxy after the Battle of Endor, and the upheaval that followed. In both Life Debt and Empire's End, some of the interludes seem to be serving as important story points and allusions of things to come going forward, whereas some seem not to. Overall - it's a bit of a curiosity to see which of the characters mentioned in these stories (apart from obvious ones like Lando and Chewie) will show up again.

To summarize...Empire's End was not without its terrific moments, and the trilogy on the whole managed to serve up some thrilling new characters (Sinjir) while carrying on the stories of other compelling characters (Sloane). But this book specifically suffered in that some of the payoffs to well built questions were not as satisfying as one would have hoped, and it spent a bit too much time spinning its wheels in the first and even the second act. The Battle of Jakku was and is a massive event in Star Wars canon - the whole 400 pages of this book could have been devoted to this battle and I would have been extremely satisfied! That it took so long to unfold was a bit disappointing.

My Rating: 5.5/10

 

It felt particularly odd that C3PO wasn't featured in the scene with Leia and her protocol droid. Especially since 3PO was with her throughout Bloodlines. I've just been lulled into this expectation that C3PO is always with Leia and R2 is always with Luke. I'm glad they mixed it up.

 

perhaps Han couldn't stand goldenrod hovering over Leia in her condition.
though the med droid seemed hardly an improvement ~ hahaha

 

Only just managed to finish reading the book (due to illness, gosh darn it!), but a few things I thought were interesting/thought about:

• the pirates could come to the aid of the NR/Resistance in VIII (they're out in Wild Space, and better equipped and positioned than anyone else - seemingly - to assist them)
• the BLATANT HK-47 reference. Urgh. THE WANT TO HAVE SOME OLD REPUBLIC STUFF MADE CANON!
• Ben Solo was born on the day of the signing of the Galactic Concordance (the end of the Empire, officially) which seems to be a parallel to Ezra being born on Empire Day (start of the Empire)

 

In the Aftermath Trilogy I remember reading about a woman she loved, maybe on Coruscant, but I could not find the reference. I might have gotten that wrong.

 

Refresh my memory, what was the HK-47 reference?

 

Page 291, about two thirds of the page down:

"PREPARE TO FIRE ALL CANNONS," Bones says - his voice warping so that it has a strange, hard-angle accent to it. "COMMENTARY: I SAY WE BLAST THE MEATBAG AND SAVE YOU THE TROUBLE, MASTER."

A line or two later he informs Norra that it was a glitch, so it could be an off-hand nod or he might in fact have some of HK's programming (somehow).

 

I'm a bit confused. Some of you mentioned Phasma's origin in this book. I finished it, but I still don't know who you mean she is in this book:

Is it one of Brendol's trained children? Or the enraged girl from the Acolytes?

WHAT AM I MISSING?

 

we're assuming she's the older girl who is described as very tall in the scene where the children are told to kill the troopers.
it's a leap, but the implication is there.

 

You're right! It makes sense.

Thanks @FN-3263827!

 

I used to buy books until I realised you can read the last page for free in the book shop.

 

I hadn't even thought about that. That would make for some interesting reading. I'd love a comic series about Luke Skywalker confronting The Acolytes.

 

How much Wendig would a Wendig Chuck Chuck, if a Wendig Chuck could Chuck Wendig?