Empire's End

Executive Summary: A decent conclusion, but not as good as [b:Life Debt 26895161 Life Debt (Star Wars Aftermath, #2) Chuck Wendig https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1449268300s/26895161.jpg 47250982].Audiobook: I love the Star Wars audiobooks. At least when Marc Thompson is narrating. He does so many voices and really adds that extra something that makes this a mandatory audio selection for me. Ordinarily I'd be opposed to the sound effects and music, as in most audiobooks they seem distracting or make it hard to hear the narration, but once again the people who do the Star Wars books did a fantastic job.Full ReviewThis series was a bit of up and down for me. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I first picked it up. I've never read anything by Chuck Wendig outside of this series. I found [b:Aftermath 25131600 Aftermath (Star Wars Aftermath, #1) Chuck Wendig https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1426620007s/25131600.jpg 44828548] a little underwhelming, although not for the reasons most people did. I thought [b:Life Debt 26895161 Life Debt (Star Wars Aftermath, #2) Chuck Wendig https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1449268300s/26895161.jpg 47250982] was the best of the trilogy, but that this book was better than the first one.This was pitched to bridge the gap between episodes 6 and 7, and I thought by the end it did a so-so job of that. Often times it felt like the main plot was too far removed from the bigger events. Likely this is due to Disney saving it for one of the 500 movies they have in the works. There are some good ties to some of the movies, but not enough for my liking. I think it would have been better pitched as simply a story that takes place in-between the two movies rather than a bridge.I will say Mr. Wendig's original characters really grew on me. It's always tough to come into a series with such well known/loved characters and then proceed to create your own to tell a story. It definitely took awhile for me to warm up to them, but I liked them all by the end of this trilogy. I wouldn't mind seeing them show up again somewhere else.Overall this was a decent series, but easily skippable. If you're looking for some extra Star Wars stories, there are probably some better options out there. If you're a fanatic and just have to read it all, this series was certainly enjoyable enough for me anyways.