I've been waiting for this book since I read my first Star Wars book. If you're into SW and want to know what happens in the gap between ROTJ and TFA, you should read the book. ( )

All decent sci-fi book, but it's primary selling point is its part in the new Star Wars canon.

Rather annoying how someone seems to have gone crazy with the thesaurus to the point where sentences stop making sense. Using “exoplanet” instead of just planet seems weird and pretentious in a fictional universe, where our solar system isn't featured. And colourful words like viridian and coiffed just serves to annoy the reader with having to look them up or try to guess their meaning.

Other than the thesaurus abuse, the author has an annoying tendency to go above and beyond when it comes to plot development. It's not enough to have a close escape, no, it must be so laden with obstacles, that are then removed through seemingly impossible luck.

And then there's the endless interludes and the dizzying amount of inconsequential characters, locations and races that are introduced in them. Why write internal monologues for characters, only to discard and forget them two pages later? Even George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series with its huge number of actors limits itself to a comparatively reasonable amount of people we learn any details about. They serve mainly as an annoying distraction from the main plot, and to the end you hope that there'll be a point to these many side tracks, but none such appears.

These flaws aside, it is a decent read, although probably not one I'll ever want to read again. ( )

Aftermath is the first of the post-Return of the Jedi Disney canon novels. It serves as an entry point for understanding what happens between the OT and Sequels. What we get in this first novel of the Aftermath trilogy are hints at what's to come. The Empire is holding on for control, there are still True Believers in the Galaxy of the Emperor's rule and the Rebels are fighting to take back the galaxy from them. It turns out, Endor wasn't exactly a happy ending. And this makes sense. Control isn't given up so easily.

Aftermath mainly focuses on lesser figures of the Rebellion. The story focuses on former Rebel fighter pilot Nora Wexley as she returns to her home world of Akiva, only to find that important members of the remnant of the Empire have gathered there. Just when she was hoping to reunite with her estranged son Temmin (“Snap” Wexley from TFA), Nora is caught up in a search for lost rebel pilot Wedge Antilles and an attempt to find out what the remnant of the Empire is planning. Intrigue, espionage, shoot-outs, and space battles surrounding a secret imperial summit on the backwater world of Akiva ensue. The book also introduces an Imperial defector named Sinjir Rath Valus, who is trying to reconcile what had previously been his whole purpose in life (the Empire) and the guilt he now feels over the crimes he committed as an Imperial officer. There’s also Admiral Rae Sloane, the leader of the fallen Empire, and a woman committed to seeing the Empire reborn as something more pure than Palpatine ever intended.

Aftermath feels like a Star Wars novel and is fun. The frequent digressions outside of the main narrative add little of any real interest in terms of the plot. Aftermath is interspersed with frequent cut-away interludes, flashes to events in other corners of the galaxy. And while they hint at other things to come - the sith worshiping acolytes in TRS for instance or Cobb Vanth, the Tatooine gunslinger who shows up in The Mandalorian - they really don't add much to the narrative of Aftermath. There is a great set up for what's going on with Han Solo during this time, however.

Frequent digressions aside, this book is much better and more entertaining than a lot of reviews give it credit for. I get the sense Wendig had his hands tied telling this tale, which limited him in his storytelling choices. Still, the main plot is well worth your time if you can get pass the frequent digressions. ( )

My first foray into the new canon and I have to say I am not at all impressed. The novel progressed ok, and by the end of it I had come to like the characters so it gets 2 stars instead of 1. However, as other reviewers have noticed the authors writing style is abysmal. You do not write novels in presence tense, any novice writer knows that - unless you're writing a funky off the wall abstract sci fi novel. In other words; you're using that tense for a reason. There is no reason here, it just reads like an amateur wrote it. It isn't helped by the short snappy sentences that happen way too often.

Story and character wise.. the characters were lacking. I love Wedge Antilles and he was terribly underused here. The new characters took me forever to actually like and realise, oh wait, these aren't random people they're the main characters. The interludes were interesting but most of the time felt like random drabbles thrown into the middle of a novel.

Then there is the overuse of terrorism. I knew before looking the author up that he was American. While I won't argue that the Alliance were terrorists in the eyes of the Empire, it was an overused concept that the EU authors never needed to use. The problem is therefore an author of a different era pulling from his own social/political world - that would be fine if we were talking about a novel based in a contemporary universe. We're not. The beauty of Star Wars has always, at least for me, been it's alien qualities. The alliance vs the empire is NOT a parallel for the war on terror. It is a story of good vs. evil and always has been. ( )

Shockingly good. Wendig does such a good job of establishing the first post-Endor moments of the Galaxy that you're glad the old Expanded Universe is toast.

Oh, and huge spoiler: LOBOT LIVES!!!!! ( )