Once again, this took much longer than I wanted it to. I promise I’ll get reviews up more often than once a month from now on – I’m shooting for one to two weeks for the next book, which I’ve already started on.
cover art by Paul Youll
So, more Rogue Squadron, more Stackpole, and more Corran Horn. The question here is, of course – is Wedge’s Gamble an improvement on Rogue Squadron? The answer turns out to be: mostly yes.
I should note that from here on out, there will be spoilers for the first book in the series (Rogue Squadron) that I didn’t include in my review for that book. This is a somewhat unavoidable consequence of reviewing multiple books in a series, and I’m sure it will become more of an issue the deeper I get into the post-Jedi Legends.
Spoiler warning out of the way, Wedge’s Gamble picks up shortly after the end of Rogue Squadron. The Rebellion has taken Borleias from the Empire and set up shop. The Rogues’ wounded have healed and their dead have been mourned. The Rebellion/New Republic leadership is preparing to advance on Coruscant while keeping under the Warlord Zsinj’s radar. Meanwhile, Ysanne Isard and Kirtan Loor prepare for the Rebels’ imminent attack on Coruscant, with the aid of an unknown spy within the squadron’s ranks.
And right away, Stackpole does away with one of my problems with the first entry in the series: Bror Jace.
Corran’s chief rival from the first book in the series, Jace received a message at the end of Rogue Squadron claiming that a member of his family was dying. In the gap between Rogue Squadron and Wedge’s Gamble, Jace’s X-Wing is said to have been intercepted by the Empire and destroyed. Jace never had much going for him as a character, and Corran’s character arc in the first book that was driven by his rivalry with Jace had run its course, so with no more need for the character, Stackpole wisely got rid of him. Thankfully, there is no equivalent character introduced to fill Jace’s void. In fact, Wedge’s Gamble as a whole is refreshingly different from Rogue Squadron.
First and foremost, Wedge’s Gamble (which, by the way, is not a great title; I still don’t know what Wedge’s “gamble” is supposed to be exactly) is a spy thriller wrapped in a Star Wars package. There’s not much time spent in space with the squadron – the book opens with a small battle above Borleias that the Rogues’ X-Wings take part in, but after that, Stackpole spends some time setting up the plan to take Coruscant before sending the Rogues undercover on the world itself for the bulk of the novel.
Surprisingly, the planning stages with the New Republic’s Provisional Council feature the return of a major character from the core group of the original trilogy: Princess Leia. She has a relatively small role, only appearing within the first third or so of the novel, but Stackpole manages to capture her character quite well. Most of her scenes are with the Provisional Council, mediating between Bothan Borsk Fey’lya and Admiral Ackbar’s differing views on how the Alliance should move forward, but there’s one very nice scene between Leia and Wedge that showcases a closer bond between the two characters than the original trilogy, Bakura or Mindor ever implied.
The rest of Rogue Squadron is handled well by Stackpole, too, perhaps more so than in the series’ first entry. Corran is still the focus, and he gets a bit more character development, but Gavin Darklighter – a character I initially dismissed as a stand-in for Biggs and a way to give a series with so few returning characters from the films a bit more legitimacy – is a standout as far as the development of existing squadron members goes. He doesn’t get a whole lot of “screen time,” but I found myself wanting to get back to his part of the mission more often than I’d anticipated.
Erisi fares a bit better this time around as well. We learn a bit more about Thyferran culture from her, and while her role still seems to primarily amount to “Corran’s backup love interest,” it feels much less forced this time around. Unfortunately, after a particularly intimate scene with Corran, she seems to vanish from the narrative altogether.
Mirax, otherwise known as “Corran’s main love interest,” unfortunately doesn’t fare as well. Her and Corran’s mutual attraction is developed a bit more, and as with Erisi it feels more natural this time around, but we learn precious little more about her in Wedge’s Gamble. Her role has been reduced to chauffeur for part of the squadron’s mission on Coruscant, and occasional backup in the many firefights throughout the novel.
On to the story. As I said before, Wedge’s Gamble feels more like a spy novel than anything else. The plan to take Coruscant starts with the Rebels freeing hardened criminals from the Kessel penal colony and inserting them into the Coruscant underworld to do as much damage as they can before the Rebel attack. This presents a moral dilemma for former space cop Corran (okay, fine – Corellian Security Officer), one which I frankly wish had been delved into a bit more deeply. There’s some interesting stuff there, but there’s also room for more musings on the ethics of the plan.
The next stage of the plan involves splitting up the squadron into small groups and inserting them into Coruscant under assumed identities, where they will assess the situation on the planet and eventually bring down the world’s defense shields before the Alliance arrives to take it. As such, the bulk of the novel is spent on the streets of Coruscant, with the Rogues assessing security, possible targets, and the general mood of the civilian population.
As it turns out, the Emperor wasn’t exactly one for telling people the truth about much of anything. Most of the citizens of Coruscant believe the Rebels will subjugate them at every opportunity if they ever manage to defeat the Empire. In one particularly interesting scene, Wedge visits the Imperial Museum, where they are exposed to many of the Empire’s lies about the history of the Rebellion.
This scene provides for interesting reading in the post-prequel era. Of course, it’s not hard to reconcile the contradictions with the Clone Wars and rise of the Empire as we saw in 2002 and 2005 – it’s made abundantly clear that this is the Empire’s version of events and very little, if any, of it is true – but it’s still interesting to see another author’s interpretation of what may have happened before the original Star Wars before Lucas’ prequels set those events in stone.
For example, it’s implied in this scene that the Jedi didn’t fall until after the end of the Clone Wars and the establishment of the Empire, and that they only fell due to extreme Imperial propaganda turning public opinion against the Jedi. The museum display claims that the Jedi plotted to overthrow the Empire and take control for themselves until the always-right-and-just Emperor Palpatine brought order back to the galaxy by getting rid of them. The idea of the Empire forming, the Jedi purge, and the Clone Wars ending all simultaneously as they do in Revenge of the Sith was clearly not set yet in 1996. It’ll be interesting to see further examples of alternate pre-Star Wars history throughout the novels written before the prequels’ release. Anyway, back to the book at hand.
Ysanne Isard and Kirtan Loor still function as an Emperor and a Vader proxy, respectively. Isard does little but be menacing and generally disagreeable, but she’s still an effective, intense presence. Thankfully, Loor has improved as well – he even muses near the end of the novel on how he’s changed since Isard began to take a more direct interest in his work. This time around, General Derricote fills a bit of a mad scientist role under Loor and Isard. Their plan to defend Coruscant offers even more opportunity for ethical dilemmas, and while these dilemmas aren’t delved into terribly much in this book, I think they will be quite central to the third entry in the series.
While Wedge’s Gamble doesn’t offer what one would expect in an X-Wing book, what it does offer is rather good. It doesn’t feel like a rehash of any Star Wars to come before it, and the frequent trips into the seedy underbelly of Coruscant are very interesting. While you won’t find many space battles in this one, there’s plenty of action on the ground – and on speeder bikes whipping through buildings throughout the planet-sized city. This happens to help with Stackpole’s tendency to describe action in overly technical ways (he still does this in the little X-Wing action the book provides us with, and to a lesser extent in the speeder bike chases), making Wedge’s Gamble a bit of an easier read than Rogue Squadron was.
Overall, I’d say this novel is an excellent evolution of what made Stackpole’s first entry in the series good, and while it’s not as much of an improvement over its flaws as I’d hoped for (most of the secondary characters still feel like little more than pawns for the author to move around on a chessboard), it is still an improvement. Much like The Empire Strikes Back felt like a natural progression of story from Star Wars rather than a simple rehash of the first, Wedge’s Gamble advances the story of Rogue Squadron’s role in establishing the New Republic without feeling like it’s covering the same ground as Rogue Squadron.
Basically, if you enjoyed Rogue Squadron, you’ll enjoy Wedge’s Gamble. Even if you didn’t, you still might want to give it a shot, as it’s not just more of the same. And, of course, it dramatizes a pivotal moment in the history of the Legends EU – the battle for Coruscant, the seat of government in the galaxy itself.
X-Wing: Wedge’s Gamble: VERY GOOD
Legends of Star Wars 