Life Debt

Executive Summary: Now that's more like it. This book is so much better than the first one, that I almost want to drop my rating of that book further. If like me you were pretty underwhelmed by [b:Aftermath 25131600 Aftermath (Star Wars Aftermath, #1) Chuck Wendig https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1426620007s/25131600.jpg 44828548], you might want to consider giving this one a shot anyways.Audiobook: Marc Thompson is phenomenal. I likely wouldn't have read this book if I didn't get a free review copy of the audio book. All the Star Wars books are high production value with sound effects and music (stuff that normally annoys me in other books incidentally). Marc Thompson is so good though that nothing else really compares. I don't know how many voices the guy can do, but he's a one man radio play. Do this book in audio, you won't regret it.Full ReviewSo I'm still pretty new to the Star Wars EU. This is only the seventh Star Wars book I've read, and four of them are no longer cannon. I found [b:Aftermath 25131600 Aftermath (Star Wars Aftermath, #1) Chuck Wendig https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1426620007s/25131600.jpg 44828548] to be the most underwhelming of those I've read. I'm not sure if it's that so few of the characters I knew/loved were largely absent, or if Mr. Wendig was handcuffed by his book coming out before the Force Awakens rather than after. Either way, this book was a vast improvement to me over the first.The story still largely focuses on the characters introduced in the last book. I originally found them mostly uninteresting, but that seemed to change with this book. I'm not sure if it's because their story no longer felt small/unimportant in the grand scheme of the larger Star Wars universe, or because I liked them more than I realized. Jas continues to be my favorite of the bunch, but I found myself happier to Nora, Sinjir, Temmin and Mr. Bones than I expected to be.Finally though, we see some of the big players in the Star Wars universe. There are no longer on the periphery, but important to the story of Mr. Wendig's original characters. The first book did a lot to set things up I guess, but I found myself largely uninterested. Initially I was thinking this book was going to be more of the same, but somewhere around the 25-30% mark this book really ramped things up. Now I couldn't wait to listen, and really wanted to know what came next.In this world of media overload, it's a lot to ask someone to “get through 1.25 books for the story to be worth it”, however for anyone whose already read the first book, I think it's more than worth it to give the series another shot with this book.We finally get to see some of the ties this book has to not only the original series, but to the Force Awakens. It's possible (likely?) there were some things in the first book I just overlooked because I had yet to see the movie, but even in this book I found them just the smallest connections so far. Like what's so great about Jakku?I suspect in the third book we may get more clarification on things that have been set up so far. At least I hope so. I probably hate spoilers more than most people, but I hope Mr. Wendig's third book won't feel like it's been handcuffed by episode 8, much like the first one did by The Force Awakens.I wasn't planning to pick this one up until a review copy fell in my lap, but now I can't wait to see what happens next. This one is definitely up there as a possibility of my favorite Star Wars book (as short of a list as that may be). I don't really expect to dive deep into the vast chasm of the Star Wars books, but I'm glad I gave this series a second try. I'll definitely be picking up the third one when it comes out.

There are some books that transcend the trappings of franchise fiction to provide a novel that is both profound and moving.

This is not it.

It was marginally better than the first book, but I still felt a bit disconnected from the original main characters (except for Sinjir, that lovable fellow). The Norra/Temmin drama feels played out, Jas is kind of stereotypical and Jom is just kind of there. But I absolutely loved the interludes and I loved Sloane and her chapters and I liked the extra information we got concerning Jakku and the state of the galaxy.