Empire's End: Aftermath (Star Wars) (Star Wars: The Aftermath Trilogy) Hardcover – February 21, 2017

This should be entitled STAR WARS, Do Not Write This Way, An Introduction of Bad Writing Techniques for Inspiring Authors. As a PUBLISHED author of 35 years, I encourage you to spend money on ANYTHING else. This is the biggest steaming pile of run -on sentence structure and immature conceptualization that I have seen in years. Chuck is an infant in the writing arena. Please, I beg of you not to spend your hard-earned money on this rubbish. The characterization is minimalistic, the plot is shallow, the writing is infantile, and the overall concept is rushed. Kathy Kennedy and Ruin Johnson have yet another wannabe at the helm right here. Hahaha. If you buy this, you'll be missing your money by the third poorly constructed paragraph.

The series started off good with showing slices of every day life across the galaxy, solid set ups for the galaxy after Endor, and most of the characters were interesting except the main Wexley family, but their faults weren't too monumental till the book's ending that set up Norra's death only to immediately remove the stakes for the rest of the series by bringing her back only few pages later.The second book got much much worse by not only expanding on the least interesting characters(Wexleys), giving the more interesting characters drastic unsubtle character changes(it's not a character arc if it's jagged and comes from nowhere), and above all else failing to capture the voice of the Orige Trige characters that were forced into the story in an attempt to, as the intro said, make our "hearts go a-fluttery".This third one has all of these problems except that he did focus more an the best character in the story villain, turned disavowed, turned angle of vengeance(like I said drastic character changes) Grand Admiral Sloan. He even did an okay job of rapping up the story lines (no matter how small) across the galaxy, but none of this is forgivable when considering the writing of the this book and the series. It is very obvious that this series was rushed in order to fill the void of the collapse of the Old EU. As the books go on the writing gets worse and often having characters "thinking" description of the situation instead of describing what's happening. Setting a book in the most first-person-point-of-view writer can set a story in(the character's thoughts) is perfectly fine in any story that is of the mind, but this was an action affair concerning a galaxy at war. What's worse is that information in these thoughts often repeated what we already knew about the story and characters, and not in a way that even approached being helpful to understand the scene we were currently in.So in summation:Main characters were boring and pettyInteresting characters were malleable and inconsistentFailed to capture the feelings, actions, and voice of the Original CharactersWriting was repetitive and derivative(because of rushed books)And the stakes were terribly low because the characters got out of deadly situations on the regular without thought to being consistent with the universe written or the set up.If you want to read a good Star Wars "War" book, read Alexander Reed's Battle Front Twilight Company.

This is the final entry in the Aftermath series, which told the events of the fight against the Empire, with very little input from the main characters of the original trilogy. Norra and her crew along with Sloane continue to be the focus of the book, then he continues jumping to other characters in the interlude chapters.This book really tells the beginnings of the first order. Told within a contingency plan put in place by Palpatine years ago, involving the planet Jakuu (which of course is where Rey is found in The Force Awakens) to be implemented should the Empire fall. Most of the action, and what in my opinion is the best part of the book is in the last 1/3 or so of it. The main issue I have with the book is the same as I have had with the other two novels, the main characters (especially Luke) are mostly absent in this book. Han and Leia are really the only ones that appear, and while they have a larger role in this book than the others, they are really just mixed in. It just seems at the time when this story was set, all of them would be much more active in trying to defeat what remains of the Empire. The novels that are now relegated to the expanded universe which were set post Return of the Jedi did a much better job with the characters and showed you could bring other characters into the story without giving short shrift to Han, Luke, and Leia.The book is a fairly easy read, checking in at 430 pages. It certainly does provide clues, and even introduces characters who will be a large focus in the new trilogy, such as a young Hux, (a strongly hinted at appearance by a young Phasma), and hinting at Snoke's presence in the Unknown Region of the galaxy. There are still a lot of stories to be told in the intervening 30 years, specifically how Snoke ultimately comes to power and takes over The First Order. Stories about what exactly Luke ended up doing after the battle of Endor and his attempt to train a new generation of Jedi will also eventually need to be told. This book does wrap up the storylines for Norra, Sinjir, Snap, Sloane, and Jas, but certainly leaves open the possibility of future stories for some of them down the lineUltimately I think the book, and the Aftermath series overall, is okay, but not great. It is possible that the overall story and what characters could and could not be used may have been dictated to the author. Whoever made the choice not to include more of the main characters in the story made a bad decision. I do like that Lando got a chapter near the end of this book, and very much disliked that we needed an update on Jar Jar Binks early on in the book. Thankfully the latter did not last longer than it did.

I loved the Thrawn trilogy and could not stop thinking of it when comparing it to this utter nonsense. Leaving aside the fact that whoever wrote this has no idea how the star wars universe works (a super star destroyer being pulled into a planets gravity well by one small cruiser) just as novels these things just will not work. The main characters are boring, cookie cutter and uniformly dull. Nora Wexley lost my sympathy and interest after about two pages and oh boy after three books of her stoical "I have to save my son (who hates me for abandoning me and was doing fine without me)" you will fantasize about her y wing being taken out early in the battle of endor. Temmin is a typical Wesley Crusher character who gets no development, has no negative qualities and comes very close to Phantom Menace Anakin Skywalker levels of cute kid annoying. I'll assume having Jar Jar binks shoved in there is an in joke. All of the main characters e.g. Han, Mon, Leia have had personality transplants or personality removals and all of the new characters got so little development I honestly kept flicking forward as I just didn't care what happened to them. There's also no main antagonist or at least any that I could see. The main bad guy isn't that bad and by the end of the third book I still had no idea what the evil master plot has been about if anything at all. Plot lines are straight up just abandoned, characters change motivation and all of the major crises are about as suspense filled as misplacing your keys and then finding them five minutes later. No sooner have you met one group of about fifteen confusingly named generic characters but you are transported to another sub plot with another seven forgettable characters. It's just sub plot after sub plot chasing each other as you realise that whatever is unfolding in the star wars universe you are far far away from finding out what it actually is.

I have to say I was expecting a lot more from this book. For what it was it was ok. The book was very slow in places, infact I think I fell asleep reading it a couple of points. Then the last 130 pages (the book is divided into 5 parts, it really came alive from half way through part 4 for me) was all out action and I did not want to put the book down from then. However this was less then a third of the book, it was a little too late. Another thing that disappointed me was the lack of star power in this book. I can understand the choice (but I don't like it) about keeping Luke Skywalker quite till the Last Jedi comes out, but this is at least 30 years before The Force Awakens, and many years before he started his quest TFA said he started this quest after Ben's turn to Kylo Ren. Leia, Han and Wedge are made after thought, well we did our bits time to move on. Leia ok she is heavily pregnant, and Wedge is in the dog house for his actions of the last book, but Han and Luke missing the last battle with Empire? I do not think that is really going to happen. Having said that it did give other characters a chance to shine and there some huge heroic sacrifices in the final battle. Though these could have still been done with the Rebel heroes there. Like all ways not everyone gets out alive.The Rebel Alliance is not more it have become the New Republic government, and has inherited all the bureaucracy, and dirty political maneuvering that goes along with it. After the Order 66 style attack from the Empire, Mon Mothma's position has been weakened politically mean while she is recovering physically from the attack. Norra Wexley and her team are angry and intend to capture Grand Admiral Rae Sloane who they blame as the personification of the Empire and the architect of the diabolical attack. Careful what you wish for as chasing Sloane they find the real threat from the true leader of the Empire Gallius Rax. Now for me the Rax was the biggest letdown of the book. Through out the book we are told what a dangerous man he is, but to me he comes across as a pale immation of Admiral Thrawn, I do not see what the Emperor saw in him or how he usurped Sloane's authority. Even though they were many good points of this book and there were the seeds to what would become the First Order, the early pace of the book, and lack of new development in the Star Wars Universe I could not help but be a little disappointed in this book.

I must say I have struggled to get on with the writing style of the Aftermath Trilogy, but that aside this third instalment is such a let down.For such a pivotal moment in the Star Wars canon, I would have hoped for a much more dramatic setup to the Battle of Jakku. Instead it's a rather uninteresting 'we're here, come and get us' prelude to what looked like one of the coolest battles in Star Wars.The worst part are the characters are so one dimensional, boring, and their sense of humour just isn't funny. They just don't feel Star Wars and when they interact with the legacy characters, I just want them to get off the page.Terribly disappointing. This is my least favourite book in the new era canon.

I personally love the aftermath trilogy and feel this was a fitting conclusion. After first seeing the starship graveyard in the force awakens i needed to know the story behind it. This fleshes out that part of star wars history. The two main imperial characters of Rax and Sloane are given new dimensions and the thoughts and motives that guide them. I do wish the imperials had been given more chapter's as the empire was shown to have almost devolved into something bestial and brutal and it would have been great to read the thoughts and feelings of those imperial officers on what there empire had become. I couldnt put this down and feel it has left the possibility of future books. The empire as we knew it died at Jakku. A new leaner purer one was birthed from its death.

As someone who read quite a few of the old Expanded Universe novels from the Legends series this trilogy of books is one of the least readable I've encountered. It's difficult to escape the impression that Wendig was given an instruction by Disney/publishers to really shoot for the young adult/teens market and this comes across as some absolutely atrocious writing and condescending vocabulary - using question intonation where it isn't needed, using the lexicon of young adults in ways which are completely unnatural etc. Add to this some potentially interesting plots/story lines which end up being very poor, in no small part because of the poor storytelling. I genuinely had to force myself to trudge on through large parts of each of these books because a) large parts of them are tedious b) the pacing of the story is terrible c) the characters are not in any way relateable/engaging d) large parts of them are just plain dumb both from outside the SW 'universe' and from an 'in universe' perspective. For example,*spoilers* at least twice, perhaps three or four times Wendig puts Norra Wexley in a position of piloting a vehicle which is about to crash/be destroyed - cutting away on a cliffhanger - only for her to survive in some way or another. The first time (Aftermath) she was piloting a Tie fighter and the lack of an ejector seat is mentioned as part of an internal monologue, only for her to survive in the next chapter because the Tie in fact had an ejector seat. Add to this the idea of pirates stealing a Super Star Destroyer. From an 'in universe' perspective this is absolute f***ing trash. Even if the ship were abandoned, no crew, no soldiers aboard, an SSD is a vessel requiring *at minimum* tens of thousands of *trained crew members from the Imperial Academies* to fight and navigate the ship. Add to this the requirements for logistical support and maintenance for both the ship itself and the crew. Don't get me started on the 'anklebiters brigade'. There are some minor positives, though they don't in any way make up for how bad the rest of the trilogy is. Gallius Rax is a compelling character and his background with Palpatine is an interesting one - if anything it was introduced too late in the trilogy and not enough of it was included. Yupe Tashu's character is certainly more believable than many of the others, and more interesting, as he strikes as precisely the type to be drawn into the centre of Palpatine's cabal. Rae Sloane, the drunk guy who likes to be drunk and a few others are largely forgettable, Mr Bones being a deus ex machina a couple of dozen times is just an annoyance heading in the direction of another Jar Jar Binks and the middle book ending pretty much with a terrorist attack by sleeper agents is a huge anti-climax for the 2nd book. Overall, as a story direction for the franchise, it is a very distant second to that established in the Expanded Universe re what happened to the Empire after the Battle of Endor - it would, in my opinion, have been far better to stick to a version of that with multiple warlords emerging with control of different factions of the Empire, but with a powerful core manipulated by Rax becoming the 'extreme' version which leaves Jakku for the unknown regions.tl;dr - Anyone looking to read a Star Wars book should stick to a plot summary of this trilogy and skip directly to the excellent Claudia Gray book 'Bloodline' which is brilliantly paced and balanced, extremely well written, and has believable and engaging characters who have emotional depth and gravitas and are psychologically realistic - completely unlike Wendig's in other words.