X-Wing: The Krytos Trap by Michael A. Stackpole

Just a hair over two weeks this time! Maybe I’ll shoot for one week for the next one…

cover art by Paul Youll

While The Krytos Trap is mostly more of the same, Stackpole has upped his game from the first two entries in the series. As with my review of Wedge’s Gamble, this review will contain major spoilers for the first two books in this series. Read on at your own risk.

As The Krytos Trap begins, the Alliance has taken Coruscant – or, to be more precise, Ysanne Isard has given Coruscant to the Alliance. Before relinquishing control of the world, however, Isard commissioned the creation of the titular Krytos virus, a horrifying, highly contagious disease that only affects certain species, humans being one of the groups spared. This virus, while curable, has the potential to simultaneously bankrupt the Alliance while severely limiting the supply of life-saving bacta, and destroy confidence in the Alliance’s ability to keep its new citizens safe.

Meanwhile, Wedge, Mirax, and the rest of Rogue Squadron mourns the death of Corran Horn, while the Provisional Council brings murder and treason charges against Tycho Celchu for Horn’s murder and for supplying Isard with classified intelligence from within the squadron. Wedge, convinced of Tycho’s innocence in the matter, searches tirelessly for Corran’s murderer and the traitor he knows remains hidden within the Rogues’ ranks.

But unbeknownst to the Alliance, Corran did not die during the liberation of Coruscant. Rather, he was taken captive by Ysanne Isard and brought to her feared Lusankya prison facility to be converted into a weapon against the Rebellion. Corran resists his torture as best he can while planning his escape from a prison no one has ever escaped from – and of which no one, Corran included, knows the location.

This book could have easily gone by one of two different titles – Escape from Lusankya or The Trial of Tycho Celchu. The majority of the book, in fact, focuses on Tycho’s trial and the investigations to prove either Tycho’s guilt or innocence. A smaller portion focuses on Corran’s torture and attempts at escape in Lusankya, while a yet smaller portion focuses on the politics between the new Republic’s Provisional Council, the bacta cartels on Thyferra, and a small, almost-insignificant detour to Ryloth. In fact, there may be even less X-Wing action in this book than there was in Wedge’s Gamble.

Yet, somehow, all of this is more compelling than most of the first two books in the series. In fact, the entire second half of The Krytos Trap – which comprises the final stages of Tycho’s trial, Corran’s escape attempts, and Kirtan Loor (remember him?) desperately trying to get out from under the various thumbs that rule him – is the most engaging, exciting part of the series thus far. It seems Stackpole is at his best when he’s not stuck using the overly-technical descriptions of X-Wing and TIE fighter flight that dominate the space and air battles of the series.

That’s not to say The Krytos Trap is free of the flaws I’ve noticed in Stackpole’s previous entries. He still has the very frustrating tendency to skip over scenes I want to read about – a certain rather major reunion in the latter half of the book is almost entirely skipped over, with the next chapter taking place over a week after said reunion, leaving the reader in the awkward position of being told what happened after the fact rather than reading how it happened in the moment. This has been an issue with Stackpole throughout the series, but it seems pretty glaring in this one once things really start rolling later in the book.

Thankfully, some characters are fleshed out more than they have been in the past. Iella Wessiri in particular (Corran’s former Corellian Security partner) has more to do this time, leading the investigation into Corran’s apparent death. We learn that she has a husband who has just been recovered from Imperial custody – a revelation that could have felt forced, but instead allowed the reader a bit more of an insight into Iella’s state of mind. I anticipate further development of her character throughout the rest of the series if the ending of The Krytos Trap is any indication.

Nawarra Ven, the Twi’lek attorney-turned-fighter-pilot, also gets to shine in this book as Tycho’s defense attorney. While the courtroom scenes that dominate the book could have been insufferably boring quite easily, it’s largely due to Nawarra’s spirited defense and steadfast faith in his client that these scenes are actually a highlight of the novel. Seeing Nawarra in his element for the first time (and getting a few chapters told from his point of view) brings him up from a less-than-interesting background character to an important part of the squadron’s story. While the short detour to his home planet of Ryloth was largely unnecessary to the plot of this book (though I admit it may have consequences for future entries in the series), the journey did allow for even more development for his character.

Gavin Darklighter and newcomer Asyr Sei’lar (introduced in the previous book trying to kill Gavin), now a couple, get some more development as well. Asyr’s allegiances, as a Bothan, are torn between her people (personified in the power-hungry Councilor Borsk Fey’lya) and Rogue Squadron. While this subplot could have felt forced, having Gavin – who she obviously has true feelings for – as a window into her world helps to ground her story in something familiar. There’s a great scene where Gavin and Asyr attend a Bothan party together, and Gavin stands his ground against another Bothan without fighting back that speaks to how much Gavin has evolved as a character from his Biggs-surrogate origins (though, as Stackpole tends to do, this point is hammered home a little to unambiguously for my taste).

Kirtan Loor, on the other hand, suffers in this book. While his stature improved in Wedge’s Gamble, in this entry he manages to have freedom to act on his own authority without Isard’s direct instructions, only to find himself under the control of Colonel Fliry Vorru, former Imperial agent turned crime lord turned Alliance agent who clearly wants nothing more than as much power as he can get. Having Loor broken down the way he is in this book does his character’s potential a disservice – where once there was a legitimate Vader/Tarkin surrogate hunting the Rogues, Loor is now little more than a Piett or Jerjerrod surrogate. Of course, I’d prefer Loor to be his own character to either of those things, but a Vader/Tarkin figure is better than a Piett/Jerjerrod figure.

Honestly, I don’t have much more to say about this one. It suffers from many of the same flaws as the first two books in the series, but improves enough to be much more engaging than either of the first two. There are also many more hints of things to come, and while the story has more of a final ending than the second entry in the series did, it also does a lot to set up what comes next. There’s a surprise cameo toward the end that I won’t spoil, and more hints (some more direct than others) toward Corran’s possible future in the books to come.

While this series hasn’t been perfect, or quite as good as Shadows of Mindor, it’s still some fantastic Star Wars that expands the universe beyond the Jedi-Sith conflict while still feeling like the same story, and with The Krytos Trap, it has elevated itself beyond “Pretty good” to “Pretty much essential.”

I’m definitely looking forward to jumping into The Bacta War.

X-Wing: The Krytos Trap: EXCELLENT

X-Wing: Wedge’s Gamble by Michael A. Stackpole

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

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole

This one took me a little longer than it probably should have. Sorry about that. I’ll try to get these finished a little quicker from here on out.

cover art by Paul Youll

So, here we have the first novel on the list that doesn’t feature the main cast of Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, Artoo, and Threepio. In fact, the majority of the characters in Michael A. Stackpole’s first entry in the X-Wing series are entirely new. The only returning characters to my memory are Wedge Antilles, who featured in all three original films, and Admiral Ackbar, who only featured in Return of the Jedi. There may be others (one character, Tycho, is mentioned as having been a part of the attack on the second Death Star at Endor), but that brings me to my point – most of the characters in X-Wing: Rogue Squadron are, frankly, forgettable.

The exception is, thankfully, the main character of the book (and, I presume, the series) – Corran Horn. A former Corellian Security officer turned Imperial turned Rebel, Corran has spent much of the time prior to this book on the run from a man he used to work with, Imperial Security officer Kirtan Loor. Eventually, Corran finds himself flying an X-Wing for the Rebellion and, proving to be an exceptional pilot, is assigned to Rogue Squadron.

The Squadron itself has become something of a symbol for the Rebellion (or the New Republic, depending on who you ask). Eager to win worlds away from the Empire, the leadership of the Rebellion sent Rogue Squadron on several missions after Endor, sacrificing many rookie pilots in the process. Sick of seeing so many friends die, the leader of Rogue Squadron, veteran pilot Wedge Antilles, is focused on training his new batch of recruits to be the very best they can possibly be before they embark on more dangerous missions for the Alliance.

Interestingly, this idea of so many green Rogues dying in combat because they weren’t ready gels quite well with the depictions of the Squadron in battle during Matthew Stover’s Shadows of Mindor, despite the fact that Mindor was written and released long after Stackpole’s novel. I’m sure this was at least partly intentional on Stover’s part, but it’s still nice to see things flow so well from one book to the next even when one was written more than a decade apart. But I digress.

Stackpole’s novel is well plotted and paced – in fact, the second half of the book feels like a movie, jumping from scene to scene without falling into the pitfall of describing exactly how the characters got from one scene to the next. That might sound like a bad thing, but it’s not – such transitional scenes are usually unnecessary, and in this case they would likely have bogged the story down unnecessarily, killing the pacing. I do, however, have some issues with other aspects of Stackpole’s style.

The biggest problem is Stackpole’s tendency to use a lot of technical jargon when describing the way the fighters move in space. I can’t tell you how many times I read “Corran stood the fighter up on its left S-foil and snap-rolled while inverting” or something similar. I’m sure it’s all accurate, but not being a pilot, these types of descriptions went over my head to the point where it became difficult to follow many of the battle scenes.

Stackpole also has a similar issue with dialogue. I may have been spoiled by the fact that the last two Star Wars books I’ve read involved established characters who had a voice and personality the authors tried to stick to, while Rogue Squadron establishes many entirely new characters that have no such voice established. Even so, Stackpole’s dialogue doesn’t feel much different from his narration. Characters wax philosophical and think out loud in long, awkward paragraphs that feel rather dry at times. Even Wedge, an established character, suffers from this – though I will admit that Wedge’s role in the films doesn’t offer us much in the way of his personality.

Which brings me, again, to the characters. Any character outside of Corran Horn, Wedge Antilles, and Tycho Celchu is woefully underdeveloped. For instance, Corran’s chief rival within the Squadron, Bror Jace, can be summed up as, “That egotistical guy whose family owns a large chunk of the bacta market.” Beyond that, we know little about him, and he appears so sparingly that it’s easy to forget he’s there at all. As such, I don’t particularly care when he and Corran argue about who had more kills.

Then there’s Gavin Darklighter, the cousin of Luke’s friend Biggs from the original Star Wars. His character seems to exist to lend more legitimacy to the book by including more “established” characters – even though Gavin isn’t established, and Biggs, having had most of his scenes cut from Star Wars, is barely established as is. Corran’s wingman and bunkmate, the Gand pilot Ooryl, is probably the next-most-interesting character behind Corran, but even he doesn’t do much besides be an alien. The rest of the Squadron? Well, I had to look up their names, and even then I didn’t remember who was who.

Finally, there’s the awkward “love triangle” between Corran, his squadmate Rhysati Ynr, and the smuggler Mirax Terrik. Luckily, Mirax gets much more characterization than any of the other Rogues. There’s a history between her family and Corran’s, and a personal history between her and Wedge. She even has some effect on the outcome of the final mission – but her character still boils down to “Corran’s main love interest,” while Rhysati is “Corran’s backup love interest.”

At this point, it really sounds like I’m trashing this book. I don’t mean to give that impression because, despite all the flaws I’ve highlighted, I actually enjoyed it for the most part.

One of the few characters that holds some promise is Tycho Celchu. We know little about him so far – all we know is that, while he’s a member of the Rebel Alliance, he’s considered enough of a possible security risk that he can’t fly a ship with weapons, and spends his free time in his quarters under guard. While we learn little about him during Rogue Squadron, there’s a lot that can be done with the character, and the gaps in his backstory intrigue me. I hope Stackpole (and later, Aaron Allston) expand on this in future entries.

Then there’s the villains.

While Kirtan Loor isn’t a particularly interesting or effective nemesis for the Rogues or Corran, his superior, Ysanne Isard, is. She has little “screen time,” but her presence is felt throughout the story. Based on Coruscant, Isard has filled the power vacuum left by the Emperor’s death, and is out to destroy the Rebellion out of vengeance. It’s implied that she may have had some sort of relationship with the Emperor, but that’s kind of gross so we’ll just move along from that.

I suspect that part of what makes Isard effective creates the problem with Agent Loor – he’s terrified of her. Sure, most of the Imperials we see in the films are terrified of Vader, but none of them feel like a real threat – not Piett, not Jerjerrod, nobody. The only one that does feel like a threat outside of Vader and the Emperor is Grand Moff Tarkin, and did he ever seem to fear Vader or the Emperor? No. I think making Agent Loor so fearful of his superior diminishes his effectiveness as a villain. We’ll see how his arc plays out throughout the X-Wing series.

Rogue Squadron obviously places heavy focus on Empire vs. Rebellion. While I always like to see Star Wars EU material do new things (the introductio of the Ssi-ruuk in Bakura being a big part of the reason I enjoyed it so much), I didn’t expect anything but the Rebellion fighting the Empire in this book. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see that no Jedi or lightsabers made an appearance, something that much Star Wars media seems to be stuck on.

Having said that, there seem to be subtle hints that Corran may be Force-sensitive. It’s never said outright, but he has enough moments of “intuition” to convince me of this. If this ends up being the case, I suppose I have no issue with that, but I am glad they left the “big reveal” out of his introductory novel. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few books.

In fact, I’d say that sums up X-Wing: Rogue Squadron fairly well. It does a very good job of setting the stage for future books, and I don’t just mean X-Wing books – there are several references to the Katana Fleet of the Thrawn Trilogy, for instance. Usually such references in “prequels” bother me (like the ending of Brett Ratner’s Red Dragon…) but in this case it serves to ground Rogue Squadron in relation to the books that surround it. A book like this could have easily felt disconnected from the rest of the Star Wars universe, as that universe tends to revolve around the Skywalker family. Stackpole has done a fairly good job of making sure those connections are felt. Occasionally he goes a little far (as evidenced by Gavin Darklighter, or Stackpole’s stubborn insistence that no Corellian ever wants to hear “the odds”), but for the most part, these connections help the book feel like it belongs.

In short, this book is an entertaining, if flawed, novel that has me looking forward to the squadron’s next mission.

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron: GOOD