CĪ New Dawn serves as a prequel to the excellent animated TV series Star Wars Rebels, and shows us the first meeting between former Jedi Kanan Jarrus and the upstart Rebel Hera Syndulla. It’s just wasn’t an enjoyable read to spend so much time with Tarkin. Portions of the book follow the Separatists (early Rebels) as they try to evade Tarkin’s relentless pursuit, and I think I’d have preferred the bulk of the book to have been written from that perspective. Somewhat more interesting is seeing his earlier interactions with Vader, and the workings of the Empire generally as they consolidate power over the galaxy but allow corruption and criminals to flourish. Tarkin’s backstory doesn’t enhance Star Wars for me in any meaningful way, and his cold, calculating brutality was obvious the moment he destroyed Alderaan. The book is well-written, but the story just wasn’t very compelling for me. As they do, we learn about Tarkin’s brutal childhood and his rise to power as he gained Palpatine’s attention by making a name for himself thanks to his ruthless tactics putting an end to piracy. But a mysterious attack by former Separatists leads to Tarkin and Vader being sent by the Emperor to track down and uncover a plot against the Empire. Tarkin is overseeing that secret operation in the Outer Rim, under the cover of having been given an unfavorable post but secretly reporting to the top leaders of the Empire. The bulk of the action is set during a specific period between Revenge of the Sith and Attack of the Clones, when construction has just begun on the first Death Star.
That can be excused if there’s an interesting story to tell, but I just didn’t feel like this book had one. Tarkin, to me, was just not a character whose background I needed to see. I’ve never been a big fan of villain-focused stories, though I’m not outright opposed to them. Tarkin was actually the second novel released in the new canon, but I bought it a bound-together pairing with the next book on this list, A New Dawn. Starting my journey into the new Star Wars canon with Tarkin might not have been the best idea, but my original goal was to read everything in roughly the order it was released. Once you’ve checked out my reviews, drop me a comment to let me know what you’ve thought of the new Star Wars canon books, which are your favorites, and any that I haven’t read yet that you’d recommend! These are listed in the order I read them, so certain books that go together, like the Aftermath series, are not listed together. Hopefully this can provide a little guidance to those who might want to jump into the new Star Wars books, or to those who have read some and are considering others. Some of them I absolutely loved, while others were more disappointing or simply not my type of book. There’s a lot of variety here in terms of writing style, tone, and time periods in which these stories are set. I’m now working on my 15th Star Wars book over the last 18 months (I have read other things too), so I thought I’d take some time and review what I’ve written.
#Star wars aftermath book series free#
I originally wanted to read them all in release order, but after a few books I decided to balance things out a little better to give myself some variety, and also to free myself up to jump ahead for tie-in books for new movies. But Disney placed all of the old books under the “Legends” label, and started from scratch with a new canon and a Lucasfilm Story Team to oversee continuity, and I realized the time was ripe for me to jump back in. But I eventually ran out of steam as I got older, and couldn’t keep up with the multitude of books in many different time periods that expanded more quickly than I could read them. I read dozens and dozens and dozens of EU books when I was a kid, and I loved how they either continued the story of the original trilogy, expanded on aspects of the universe we’d only glimpsed before, or introduced entirely new characters and locations to follow along their own path. When Disney bought Lucasfilm, they wisely decided to abandoned the Expanded Universe of books and stories in order to give themselves a clean slate for their new films.
A year and a half ago, I decided that I was going to attempt to read all of the Star Wars books that fall under the newly defined canon.
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